Britain:
Labour
on
Drugs,
Wobbly
and
Confused
11/17/00
DRCNet last reported on changing attitudes toward cannabis use and the resulting reverberations for British politics in late October (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/157.html#britain). Since then, Britain's cannabis controversy continues to tie the Labour government of Tony Blair in knots. In the wake of a rash of "I smoked it" confessions by Conservative Party leaders and even some members of the Blair cabinet, Blair issued an edict ordering his cabinet to no longer discuss past cannabis use. But Dr. Mo Mowlam, Cabinet Office Minister and head of government drug policy, had already joined the ranks of the confessors. Mowlam made waves again last week when, in a break with longstanding Labour cannabis policy that could signal a softening of the Blair hard line, she told BBC's On the Record TV program that the Labour Party could consider relaxing the laws on recreational use of cannabis if the scientific evidence showed it was not harmful or addictive. In the interview, she said that the Blair government did not condone cannabis use, but that she did not consider it a "gateway" drug. Instead, she told BBC, it could be that "drug pushers persuaded cannabis users to try heroin." Later, in an appearance on BBC radio, Mowlam added that the cabinet was now reconsidering its posture toward cannabis in light of recent shifts in public opinion. "What is going on is not just a cabinet discussion," she said, "what is going on is what we want to see, which is a more open discussion of the impact of cannabis." "But," she hastened to add, "our position on cannabis has not changed." Mowlam's comments came just days after Ian McCartney, a Cabinet Office colleague whose son died of a heroin overdose, attacked the government's "just say no" policy as a failure and called for a "new realism" on drug policy. But stiff opposition to drug policy reform remains, as evidenced by the savaging undergone by drug tsar Keith Hellawell in some quarters of the media, after he had the temerity to challenge the gateway theory that cannabis leads to hard drug use. "I have never subscribed to the view that if you take cannabis you end up taking heroin," he told an interviewer. "There's no research I know of that proves the link." The tabloid Daily Mail promptly lined up a host of "experts" to denounce Hellawell, headlining its critical op-ed piece, "What is the Point of This Man? Employed as Drug Tsar, He Says Cannabis Does Not Lead to Harder Drugs." Within two days of that slash and burn attack, Hellawell recanted. He is now once more convinced that "cannabis is a gateway drug," he told reporters on November 8th. Lost in the hubbub over gateway drugs and possible legalization were Mowlam's remarks indicating that the Labour government is preparing to move forward on medical marijuana. She told the BBC News that action could come soon, depending on the results of scientific trials. "I hope that by the end of next year those scientific results will be out and then we can make a clear evaluation in relation to medicinal use," she said. When asked if this meant the Blair government might back legalization for medical use by the end of next year, Mowlam gave a qualified affirmative answer. "Yes, but legalize it in the form of cannabinoids which is a kind of derivative so people don't have to smoke it." If cannabis policy is giving the Blair government fits, Labourites can take some solace in the fact that it is also breeding nasty conflicts among the Tory opposition. Last week, James Bercow, a Tory home affairs junior spokesman, attacked his boss' policy on drugs. Conservative shadow cabinet member Anne Widdicome, had ignited the current cannabis furor in early October when she called for mandatory fines and criminal records for cannabis consumers. In an interview with the New Statesman magazine, Bercow said that Widdicome's plan for "a vast clampdown" on cannabis was unrealistic. "The idea that the police should raid every home in the land looking for dope-smokers is transparently absurd," argued Bercow, who is a member of the socially liberal Portillo faction within the Conservative Party. "Personal use has been effectively decriminalized... In this country we police by consent," he continued. "The police are not interested in launching an all out war on soft drugs. As far as I can see, alcohol and violence are closely related. It is not at all clear to me that cannabis and violence are." Finally, readers of last week's Sunday Times were titillated by news that the paper had found traces of cocaine in parliament lavatories, prompting one Labour Member of Parliament, Paul Flynn, who has advocated the legalization of cannabis, to make the following remarks linking the discovery to the gateway drug controversy. "Cocaine has become the social drug. But those addicted should be treated as patients, not as criminals," he told the Times. "At least the myth has been destroyed that if people start out on a soft drug, they end up on heroin. That they end up on the Tory front bench is not an enviable fate, but it is not quite as bad as lying in a gutter with a needle sticking out of you."
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