Britain Continues Brisk March to Drug Reform

By Phillip Smith, DRCNet. Posted March 21, 2002.

Britain's move away from US-style drug policies took on added momentum this week, with three developments heralding change for the better. First, cannabis decriminalization is now only a signature away from becoming reality, as Home Secretary David Blunkett's drug policy advisers have officially recommended that he downgrade the weed from a Class B to a Class C drug, the least serious drug classification.

Second, the Labour government Home Office has released a new strategy for club drugs, particularly ecstasy (MDMA), that recognizes that ecstasy use is pandemic and calls for a harm reduction -- not a law enforcement -- response to ecstasy users.

And the Liberal Democratic Party, Britain's third political force behind Labour and the Tories, meeting over the weekend in Manchester for its annual convention, endorsed the most radical drug reforms ever embraced by a mainstream political party.

While it has been six months since Home Secretary Blunkett first announced he was prepared to downgrade cannabis, effectively decriminalizing the drug, it appears that D-Day is now only a matter of weeks away. Blunkett's Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) recommended this week that Blunkett take his own advice and reschedule cannabis.

According to an unnamed Blunkett spokesman, he will do just that. "He [the Home Secretary] has a mind to do it [reclassify cannabis]," the anonymous informant told the Independent (London) on Sunday. "He will make a final decision when all the information is in front of him," he added.

But while the ACMD recommended the downgrading and, as the Independent noted, "it would be unusual" for Blunkett to ignore the recommendation, chances are that he will not act until next month at the earliest, when four more studies on cannabis enforcement will be completed. All are expected to bolster the case for decrim. One, by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, will reveal that British police spend about $75 million per year enforcing cannabis prohibition, the Independent reported. And both the Metropolitan Police and the Police Foundation are working on reports on the success or failure of the Lambeth experiment, where police quit arresting cannabis users beginning last July. Originally set for six months, the experiment was extended after senior officers declared it successful. The two reports are expected to follow the conclusions of senior police officials. Finally, the Home Affairs Select Committee in Parliament, which is studying a broad range of drug policy issues, will present its report to the government next month.

If that weren't enough pressure on Blunkett, the Liberal Democrats have provided more. Britain's third political force, the Liberals control 52 seats in the 659-member House of Commons. In a dramatic series of votes that went beyond the moderate reforms hoped for by the party leadership, the Lib Dems called for an end to arrests of cannabis users. Not stopping there, the party also voted for an amendment to the leadership proposal. The amendment calls for an effort to amend the UN Conventions on drugs so that cannabis may be completely legalized in Britain.

Party members also voted to end imprisonment for the possession of any illicit drug, called for ecstasy to be downgraded from Class A to Class B, and endorsed the expansion of existing heroin maintenance programs. "We are not naïve about the dangers of drugs in our society," said party shadow Home Secretary Simon Hughes as he presented the party's position paper in Manchester. "Our liberal philosophical tradition does mean that we believe that government should only seek use coercion against the individual to prevent harm to others or society as a whole. This paper is consistent with that philosophy," he told gathered party members. "But this is not a paper which is philosophically motivated. This is not a debate motivated by some simplistic libertarian notion that anything goes. It is motivated by the real and pressing need for a more effective policy to reduce the widespread harm and destruction caused by drugs."

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