UK: Reform urged by drugs law inquiry
01 March 2000
An inquiry commissioned by the Police Foundation has called for reform of England and Wales' 30 year-old drug laws. The Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA) of 1971 classifies drugs as Class A, B or C with punitive measures applied accordingly. The recommendations of the inquiry include:
- cannabis be down-graded from a Class B to Class C;
- ecstasy and LSD be transferred from Class A to Class B;
- heroin and cocaine remain in Class A.
With cannabis offences accounting for the vast majority of cases brought under the MDA (76% in 1997) the inquiry argues that:
"the existing law and maximum penalties against the possession of cannabis produce more harm than they prevent. In addition to the demands placed on police time and resources, it bears most heavily on young people in inner cities - especially those from minority ethnic communities. It also inhibits accurate education about the relative risk of drugs..."
The inquiry also recommends that:
- prison should no longer be a penalty for possession of drugs in Class B or C;
- maximum sentence for possession of Class A drugs be reduced and imposed only where community sentences and treatment have failed or are rejected;
- cautions become the statutory response to possession (these would not be placed on criminal records);
- police powers of arrest following "stop and search" should be removed in the case of Class C drugs.
This last recommendation - which appears particularly pertinent in relation to criticisms of racist discrimination in the operation of stop and search and related police powers - was subject to a sole reservation by the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Denis O'Connor (one of two police representatives of the 11 (originally 13) inquiry members). The inquiry also called for the removal on the ban on the use of cannabis for medical purposes, endorsing the 1998 findings of the House of Lords science and technology committee, and a strengthening of the law in respect to dealing and trafficking in drugs and the confiscation of dealer's assets.
Law and order politics and criminal justice
The Police Foundation's inquiry highlights the gulf between consensus on the need for reform and the administration of criminal justice in the UK. Their report suggests:
"If, as we argue, the present classification is not justified, it follows that the response of the law is disproportionate to the drug's harm, and may bring the law into disrepute."
One month after the publication of the inquiry's report, Home Office statistics showed that the number of people convicted by the courts for cannabis possession continues to rise sharply. Convictions have more than doubled in the past six years, reaching 40,000 in 1998 (the number of cautions issued for cannabis possession also continues to rise, but at a slower rate; 48,000 were issued in 1998). Achieving a sense of "proportion" in the response of the law seems a distant prospect. The Home Office response to the Police Foundation report was that the government did not support the reclassification of cannabis, ecstasy or LSD. "Drugs tzar", Keith Hellawell, ACPO (the Association of Chief Police Officers) and a conservative spokesperson all agreed. Those recommendations the Home Office did consider "worth exploring in more detail" related to law enforcement as opposed to reform:
the suggestion of a new offence of dealing, greater controls on private prescription of class A drugs and the idea of attaching conditions to cautions.
"Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971" The Police Foundation, March 2000 (148pp, ?20) and press release 27.3.00; Home Office press release, 28.3.00; "Cannabis: the scientific and medical evidence" Report of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, November 1998; Guardian, 5.5.00.