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Cannabis Law to Stay!
Posted by FoM on July 12, 1999 at 05:02:59 PT
Lord McCluskey re-ignited the cannabis debate 
Source: BBC
A senior Cabinet official has rejected a leading Scottish judge's call for a review of sentencing policy for cases involving cannabis. 
Lord McCluskey, who is Scotland's longest serving judge, questioned whether cannabis caused as much harm as alcohol and tobacco. And he raised doubts over sentencing, saying it often failed to act as a deterrent. Cunningham: No change in law But Cabinet "enforcer", Dr Jack Cunningham, speaking on BBC Radio Four's Today programme, said that while the judge's comments about sentencing would be studied, the law would not be changed. Easing laws on cannabis would merely lead to greater problems in controlling other drugs, he argued. "There is no doubt that if you were to legalise cannabis - make cannabis freely available on the streets - it would simply facilitate the work of drug pushers and drug dealers to get into areas where young people in particular are to push other drugs," he said. Lord McCluskey said a rapist could expect to receive six years in jail while someone convicted of importing a £1m worth of cannabis was likely to receive a sentence four times as long. Importation of cannabis Speaking at the Law Society of Scotland's 50th anniversary conference in Edinburgh, he told delegates: "If you import cannabis you get 25 years - is importation of cannabis four times as bad as rape? "There is a vast amount of evidence that suggests cannabis is not a danger to life. It's certainly not the same kind of crime that rape is. "And do the penalties we impose deter? The statistics tell us absolutely plainly that they do not. Deterrence in my view has no role at all." Lord McCluskey: Other drugs "more harmful" The judge also questioned why police were "chasing" cannabis users and suppliers, and alienating youngsters by turning them into offenders. He said: "The police can't devote resources to chasing heroin users who are doing real harm. Police resources are diverted away, so are prison resources. "A Royal Commission should be set up to look at the issue of decriminalisation. "We should hear the people themselves who are going to raves and consuming this stuff." However, the judge received support from a Labour MP who has been vocal in calls for a change in the law. Paul Flynn, MP for Newport West and a member of the Welsh Assembly, said: "The judge is saying in public what most informed experts say in private - that cannabis laws needlessly criminalise the majority of young people." "Even the Drug Czar, Keith Hellawell, has admitted that cannabis use is 'normal' among young people."Monday, July 12, 1999 Published at 11:01 GMT 12:01 UK 
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