BRITAIN: Shake-up over drugs planned; Cannabis to stay at grade C level.Byline: By DAVID BARRETT David Barrett may refer to:
A RADICAL overhaul of Britain's system for classifying illegal drugs was signalled by home secretary Charles Clarke
It came as he said he would not reclassify Verb 1. reclassify - classify anew, change the previous classification; "The zoologists had to reclassify the mollusks after they found new species" class, classify, sort out, assort, sort, separate - arrange or order by classes or categories; "How would you cannabis - which was downgraded two years ago - despite fresh fears about its side-effects. He disclosed plans for a complete overhaul of the way drugs are categorised and prohibited. The home secretary also said that draft guidelines published by his department in November which would have allowed people to carry up to half a kilogram of leaf cannabis for "personal use" will be watered down. He told MPs: "The more that I have considered these matters the more concerned I have become about the limitations of our current system. "Decisions on classification often address different or conflicting purposes and too often send strong but confused signals to users and others about the harms and consequences of using a particular drug. "There is often disagreement over the meaning of different classifications. "For example many people wrongly interpreted the reclas-sification of cannabis to mean that cannabis was not harmful and that its use was acceptable and even legal." He added: "For these reasons I will in the next few weeks publish a consultation paper with suggestions for a review of the drug classification system, on the basis of which I will in due course make proposals." The existing system has just three categories - Class A, B and C - with substances classed according to clinical evidence of their harm to users. It was thought a replacement could take extra factors into account, such as the social harm caused by each drug - for example, the antisocial antisocial /an·ti·so·cial/ (-so´sh'l) 1. denoting behavior that violates the rights of others, societal mores, or the law. 2. denoting the specific personality traits seen in antisocial personality disorder. behaviour by dealers or thefts by users to feed their addictions. A new system may also feature a larger number of categories. Shadow home secretary David Davis criticised Mr Clarke's "tragic" decision to keep cannabis in Class C and accused him of failing to "grasp the nettle nettle, common name for the Urticaceae, a family of fibrous herbs, small shrubs, and trees found chiefly in the tropics and subtropics. Several genera of nettles are covered with small stinging hairs that on contact emit an irritant (formic acid) which produces a ". Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Mark Oaten said: "Charles Clarke is right to base his decision on the best available evidence, and not on hysteria or political pressure." Opinion-Page 14 welshnews@dailypost.co.uk |
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