By IRNA
London : The British government is set to reclassify cannabis as Class B in a reversal of its previous downgrading of the drug in 2004, according to reports.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith are said to want to restore cannabis’ higher grading when the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs completes its report in the next few months.
And according to the Times newspaper Wednesday, the home secretary is determined on re-classification whatever the expert body’s recommendation.
Instead of the current warning and confiscation of cannabis, the upgrade would mean that anyone found in possession of the substance could face a five-year jail term and an unlimited fine.
The advisory council, which rejected a previous attempt to reclassify the drug in 2006, has been told to take into account public attitudes as well as the medical evidence of its harm in reaching its conclusion.
At the last review, two years ago, the government accepted the drug could trigger serious mental illness but pledged a publicity campaign to warn of the dangers.
“The sentiment from Number 10 and the Home Office is very much towards re-classification. It has to be as much about the message that is being sent out as much as anything else,” a government source told the Times.
In a letter to the chairman of the advisory council, Smith was also said to have expressed that there is “really public concern about the potential mental health effects of cannabis use,” in particular the use of stronger skunk forms of the drug.
“This is in addition to the longitudinal studies undertaken in New Zealand and the Netherlands that link cannabis use to mental health problems,” she said.
Brown has also previously said that he wanted an upgrade of cannabis and “make it more a drug that people worry about is that we don’t want to send out a message, just like with alcohol, to teenagers that we accept these things.”