Brown says message must be sent on cannabis | UK | Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - Gordon Brown said on Tuesday the government needs to send a message that cannabis is “unacceptable,” increasing speculation he will decide to tighten drug laws.

Brown has received a report from The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) on cannabis and will decide soon whether to upgrade it to Class B from a Class C, although a decision is not expected this week.

Newspapers have predicted that Brown will reclassify the drug even though the council has reportedly advised the government to keep cannabis in Class C.

“I don’t think that the previous studies took into account that so much of the cannabis on the streets is now of a lethal quality and we really have got to send out a message to young people — this is not acceptable,” Brown said.

Cannabis was downgraded to Class C — which includes substances such as anabolic steroids — in 2004. That means possession of the drug is treated largely as a non-arrestable offence.

But Brown launched a review by the advisory council, which comprises doctors, police, judges and counsellors, soon after he became prime minister.

And now he’s just about ready to completely ignore his advisory council, which is said to favor keeping cannabis decriminalized by a vote of 20-3.

But surely, when someone is quoted as calling cannabis “lethal”, you can’t expect them to accept pesky things like facts, logic, and science.  Brown wants to change the cannabis laws in the UK for purely political reasons.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 6:27 am and is filed under 4:20 NewsHour, Decriminalization, International, Pot 'n' Politics, Reefer Madness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a trackback from your own site.