The cannabis saga - should it be reclassified again?

|PIC1|Christian drug education charity, Hope UK, feels that cannabis should be returned to its 'B' classification under the Misuse of Drugs Act.

Last week the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs listened to 21 submissions about cannabis. Their aim was to respond to a request from the Home Secretary about whether cannabis should be reclassified again.

Since it was downgraded to Class C, there has been widespread confusion about its status with many people thinking it had become 'legal'. At the same time, there has been a growing body of evidence relating to regular cannabis use and its effect on mental illness.

The Association of Chief Police Officers now recommend that it should be reclassified and supporters of this view point to the increasing availability of high strength cannabis like skunk which now accounts for 80 per cent of all street seizures by police.

Taking in the whole picture

Hope UK's submission to the AMCD argued that cannabis classification is only part of the whole picture and needs to be seen in a holistic context as does the classification of any substance.

The charity disagrees with the argument that reclassification to Class C has been a success because there has been an apparent fall in cannabis consumption. This simplistic view ignores the much higher profile that cannabis was given because of the way in which reclassification was handled.

In fact, one of the positive outcomes of the previous reclassification has turned out to be the controversy it generated. It may be that any drop in consumption has been a result of the adverse publicity that has been given to the use of cannabis with more people realising that it is a harmful substance.

Hope UK educators continually meet young people who equated the downgrading of the drug with a view that it was safe to use. Over time, this view does appear to have been partly eroded by the continuing publicity about the adverse effects of cannabis.

It is essential that a clear and consistent message about cannabis is given and its legal status plays a critical part in this. However, whatever the law says is only part of the story and there needs to be greater priority given to education and prevention, equipping those young people who do not use cannabis with the information with which they can influence their friends. The harm related to cannabis will only really start to reduce once people's hearts and minds are won over.

George Ruston is Director of Hope UK, a drug education charity that works principally in the voluntary and church sectors. They have 181 Voluntary Drug Educators, trained with an Open College Network-accredited course, whose aim is to enable children and young people to make drug-free choices.