CANNABIS U-TURN; Brown to get tough on drug as he orders review.

Byline: By James Lyons 

CANNABIS laws are set to be toughened in a review of drugs strategy ordered by Gordon Brown.

The PM said the Government would look at reversing a decision to downgrade cannabis to Class C, which effectively decriminalised it.

The policy is being looked at again after the emergence of high-strength strains such as "skunk", linked to an upsurge in mental illness cases.

Brown yesterday told MPs that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith would look at reclassifying cannabis as a Class B drug again.

Smith's predecessor David Blunkett was behind the original change, which saw possession treated as a non-arrestable offence.

It was aimed at freeing up police to tackle serious crime. It has since emerged that 500,000 users in the UK may be dependent on the drug.

Some have developed schizophrenia-like symptoms and been sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

Psychiatric hospital admissions due to cannabis have risen by 85 per cent since 1997 and there has been an increase in crimes carried out by heavy users suffering mental health problems.

Last week, student William Jaggs was sent to Broadmoor hospital indefinitely for hacking a neighbour to death at her home in Harrow, north London.

In March, Thomas Palmer, 19, was jailed for life for knifing friends Steven Bayliss, 16, and Nuttawut Nadauld, 14, to death in 2005.

Ex-government drugs tsar Keith Hellawell, who resigned over the downgrade, welcomed the review.

But Martin Barnes, of charity Drug Scope, said it would "only serve to further confuse young people".

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SHAKE-UP: Cannabis