01.11.2001

Free the weed?

Things can sometimes get a little hazy ? especially when you try to reconcile news reports of a turnaround in government drugs policy with what last week?s announcement of the change in the legal status of cannabis really means.

In fact, the change is small. Cannabis is merely to be downgraded from class B to class C, a relaxation under existing regulations by which possession will no longer be an arrestable offence, come next spring. However, possession will still remain a criminal offence, theoretically punishable with two years in prison or an unlimited fine. And in case anyone imagined the downgrading suggests government drugs policy was about to recognise reality, a few days after announcing the change in cannabis?s status, home secretary Blunkett categorically ruled out downgrading either LSD or ecstasy from class A to class B, something which had been proposed by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo). Unexceptionally, of course, the government?s stance on drugs is not based on scientific fact, medical advice, or even forensics, but merely on crass political expediency and its continuing attempt at social control of the United Kingdom?s subjects.

Just as the licensing laws for alcohol were introduced in World War I to make sure that munitions workers turned up to work on time, so the laws on drug use in general have been imposed to ensure a disciplined workforce and a managed population.

Let us not forget that anyone arrested by the police can be searched, and if cannabis is found in their possession this will still be illegal under its changed status, so it will still be possible to add illegal possession of a class C to any charge sheet. Alternatively, police can anyway administer a warning or a caution, or have the person summoned to attend court. If an amount found on someone is thought to be sufficient, a charge of possession with intent to supply may then be preferred: in other words, such a person can be charged with dealing, and be subject to serious penalties if found guilty. In any event, even without legal consequences, the cannabis found during a search can be confiscated by police, who can then do what they want with it, of course, including smoke it themselves.

In 1999, the independent inquiry into the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, set up by the Police Foundation and chaired by Viscountess Runciman, reported (the ?Runciman Report?) that the UK ?has a more severe regime of control over possession offences than most of the other European countries?. This inquiry recommended not only transferring cannabis from class B to class C (which was, as its report says, ?a recommendation first made in 1979 by the Council on the Misuse of Drugs?), but also transferring ?cannabinol and its derivatives from A to C ? ecstasy from A to B ? LSD from A to B ? buprenorphine from C to B.?

In fact, of course, the government is only acting now upon the first of the recommendations in the Runciman Report (but which it rejected at the time, saying ?it would not be right to reclassify cannabis at this moment in time?).The government?s formal response to the Runciman report states, ?The Police Foundation correctly concludes that ecstasy is less toxic and less addictive than heroin and cocaine,? and, ?As with ecstasy, the government would accept that the acute risks of taking LSD are less than for heroin or cocaine ?? But in neither case was the government prepared to give ground to the logic of the case put before it by those who still want overall compulsion to remain. Interestingly, in view of the Conservatives? desperate desire to reinvent themselves, former Tory minister Peter Lilley said the government had ?missed the main point? and should have licensed cannabis outlets to ?break the link? with criminal suppliers (The Independent October 24). Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Simon Hughes has been hinting that his party?s year-long review of drugs policy might recommend decriminalisation of all drug use; during an interview with GMTV he referred to Portugal, whose government is considering legalisation of personal use of all drugs.

Placing cannabis within class C of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 means that it will enjoy the status of such legal moneymaking drugs as Temazepam and Valium. This will be fortunate for GW Pharmaceuticals, which is testing a cannabis-based painkiller on multiple sclerosis and cancer sufferers. The company?s share price rose 14% on the London Stock Exchange when the change in cannabis?s status was announced. Geoffrey Guy, chairman of GW, said ?he expected the first products would be ready for approval by the Medicines Control Agency in 2003? (The Independent October 25). Blunkett had already announced that he would recommend the legal use of cannabis-based drugs for medicinal reasons, subject to clinical trials. This is an important aspect of any change in the drug laws toward legal access: legal regulation allows the government to continue to keep control (including the beneficial effect for users of quality control standards, of course) of access to drugs, while company?s will be able to make a good profit out of providing them. At the moment large profits are only going into the pockets of illegal drug dealers.

According to the Transform Drugs Campaign, the illegal drugs trade ?is now one of the largest commodity trades in the world and cannot be stopped by police?. Transform Drugs estimates that the ?global illegal drugs trade makes up 8% of international trade and is valued at ?300 billion annually. It is one of the top three largest commodity trades on the planet (with arms and oil) and by far the largest source of income for organised crime. In Britain, the government spends an estimated ?1 billion annually on processing drug law offenders through the criminal justice system.? And since most drug convictions are for cannabis possession (100,000+ every year), it is quite likely that a considerable part of this latter may be saved by means of downgrading cannabis to class C.

What the government looks likely to do is divert expenditure from pursuing those using cannabis to combating ?drugs barons? dealing in cocaine and heroin, especially as part of its drive against ?terrorism?. Almost all the heroin that comes into the UK is estimated to come from Afghanistan, after all; the US has for some time had its eye on the way cocaine may have funded various antagonists it has in Latin America. It would be quite useful politically, and make sound business sense, if these twin bastions of capitalism were able to utilise the current hatred of ?terrorism? to seek and destroy more effectively those whose appropriation of surplus value does not come within the legitimate world capitalist system.

While Blunkett and the New Labour government will be making this change in the status of cannabis in the early months of 2002, he also ?announced plans to make heroin more widely available on prescription where doctors considered it to be appropriate? (The Independent October 24). But clearly the focus is going to change, so that police resources will be concentrated in future on ?hard drugs? offenders instead of the great majority, cannabis offenders, as at present.

All these moves by government are nonetheless still at some distance from current British opinion. Subsequent to the government announcement on cannabis, Mori?s poll (October 25-26) for the News of the World showed that 65% wanted cannabis legalised and 91% thought it should be available on prescription for sufferers of diseases like multiple sclerosis. Alcohol and tobacco were rated as more dangerous by 45% of 18-34 year olds. And while 45% of all those polled believed cannabis led to harder drugs, 41% said it does not.

What is becoming clearer in public discussion of the question of illegal drugs is that many recognise it is the very illegality of drugs that produces a bigger problem, and that criminal control of the illegal drugs distribution system poses health risks of a very significant level to the mass of users. Deaths from hard drugs like heroin are largely not from the heroin itself, but from the substances that unscrupulous dealers mix with it: anything from talcum powder to strychnine.

The question of drugs policy is a democratic question for communists. What individual adults want to put in their bodies must be up to them; it is certainly not the business of the state and especially not something for the criminal law. We demand the complete legalisation of all presently illegal drugs. Just as those who have eating disorders, alcoholism, nicotine addiction, and so on, must receive help to solve their problems, we too want those who find they cannot cope with cocaine, heroin, or any other drug to receive help too. But those who want to use any substances must have that right, safe in full knowledge of their effects, including any side-effects, and with the security that their drug of choice is up to a requisite quality level, without adulteration.

Jim Gilbert