Cannabis will not be legalised, Home Office minister says

Cannabis is more harmful than ever and will not be legalised, a Home Office minister said today, amid fresh calls for drug laws to be relaxed.

Jeremy Browne, a Home Office minister, said the Government has no plans to legalise any drug, including cannabis, which is six to seven times stronger than it was a few years ago.

His comments came after a new report from the Home Affairs Committee found current policies have failed to tackle dangerous dealers and help addicts.

Mr Browne said the argument for decriminalising drugs does not make sense when usage of illegal substances from heroin to cannabis has fallen under current tough policies, while the number of people seeking dangerous "legal highs" has risen.

"It is not true to say we are making no progress on drugs," he told BBC Radio Four's Today programme. "There's been dramatic falls in the amount of drugs consumption happening and the harm caused by drugs.

"That includes very serious drugs so heroin for example, crack cocaine, there have been dramatic falls in recent years. The average age of heroin addicts is going up as fewer younger people are coming on stream as heroin addicts. There's been significant progress on treatment."

He said the MPs' report on tackling drug usage was "thought-provoking" but there are no plans to change any laws.

"Although overall cannabis consumption is down, the strength of cannabis has gone up dramatically, about six or seven times stronger than it was a generation ago, it is the equivalent of people going from drinking a pint of beer to drinking a pint of neat vodka," he said.

"What they are consuming is much much stronger and more potentially harmful to them so the point I'd make is that we acknowledge that there is a constantly changed situation with drugs."

The Home Affairs Committee's year-long inquiry found legalising possession of small amounts of drugs "merits significantly closer consideration".

Keith Vaz, the committee's chairman, said it was a "critical, now or never moment for serious reform" and urged politicians to stop being "hysterical" about drugs policy.

He also called for a Royal Commission to consider decriminalisation but the Government says this is "simply not necessary".

The committee's report said Portugal's system in which possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use is not a criminal offence, designed in part to treat drug addiction as a health issue, "merits significantly closer attention".

The Home Office and Department of Health should take joint responsibility for drugs policy and the coalition should fund detailed studies of new systems in Washington and Colorado in the United States, where cannabis is being legalised, it added.

The government should also look at Uruguay where a state monopoly of cannabis production and sale is being proposed.

The MPs also called for users caught in possession of drugs to have the charge wiped from their criminal record within three years to help them overcome problems with finding jobs.

Giving evidence to the committee, comedian Russell Brand, a former heroin addict who has been arrested more than a dozen times over his drug use, said Britain should stop wasting money on policing minor drugs offences and decriminalise the possession of drugs.

The report comes 10 years after the committee's last inquiry into drugs, when David Cameron was among its members, also called for the government to look at the legalisation of some banned substances.

The Prime Minister told MPs in September the coalition was not convinced that an alternative approach would reduce the use and harms of drugs.

But Mr Vaz warned: "There is no doubt that we have failed to deal with the dealers and we have not focused on the users."

Vital areas of drugs policy, including so-called legal highs, money laundering by drugs gangs and the growing problem of prescription drugs, have been "dangerously neglected", the Labour MP warned.

New laws should be brought in to prosecute both retailers who sell untested legal highs which go on to cause harm or death and senior officials in banks responsible for laundering the profits of drugs gangs.

Mandatory drug testing for all prisoners as they enter and leave jail should also be introduced.

Maryon Stewart, who founded the Angelus Foundation after her medical student daughter Hester died aged 21 in 2009 after taking the then legal GBL, said the report showed drugs education "has fallen off a cliff".

She said: "We cannot just sit by and allow young people to get into trouble with this wave of new drugs and potentially play Russian Roulette with their wellbeing and even their lives."

The UK Drug Policy Commission (UKDPC), which carried out a six-year study and called for a "wholesale review'' of drugs laws, said the report was a "clear call for action".

Roger Howard, the UKDPC's chief executive, said: "The only thing we're lacking now is political will."

The charity DrugScope also backed the call for a Royal Commission, but mental health campaigners warned it was vital not to ignore the links between cannabis use and psychotic illness.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk 10/12/2012