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National and International news

Apr 26, 2005

More young people with substance misuse problems could end up in custody due to a decline in the number of residential rehabilitation centres, drugs service providers warned yesterday, writes Maria Ahmed.

Over the past 12 months, adolescent units at Kenyon House, Prestwich, Promis in London and one unit at Middlegate in Lincolnshire were closed, leaving “too few” residential options for young people.

Martin Barnes, chief executive of Drugscope, raised concern over the closures at a Drugscope conference yesterday, saying they showed how the government’s drug strategy was “not pulling in the same direction” as young people’s services.

Barnes cited the high cost of residential rehabilitation services as a reason for the decline in referrals, with the average cost of a bed ranging between £2,000 to £5,000 a week.

One service provider warned that residential rehabilitation centres for under-16’s were becoming “a dying breed” and argued that cost “should not be a factor in providing the best treatment”.

Delegates at the Drugscope conference in London also raised concerns that young people with substance misuse problems would not be “top of the list” in the new children’s trust arrangements.

Chris Hanvey, director of operations at children’s charity Barnardo’s, said there was a need to ensure the Every Child Matters agenda would be “at the root” of creating child-centred services for young people with substance misuse problems.

John Carvel, social affairs editor
Friday April 22, 2005
The Guardian

Young women in Britain, already outdrinking their counterparts on the continent, will consume more than three times as much alcohol as young women in France and Italy by 2009, market analysts said yesterday.
A report by Datamonitor forecasts that British women under 25 will increase their intake by 31% over the next five years.

In 1999 young female adults in the UK drank an average of 162 litres of alcoholic drinks, but were outdone by their German sisters, who consumed 168 litres that year. By 2004 the young British women had taken the lead on 216 litres, compared with 200 litres in Germany and 106 litres in the Netherlands.

After investigating social and economic trends, the analysts forecast that young women's alcoholic consumption will increase to 291 litres in the UK by 2009, compared with 245 litres in Germany.
Young Spanish women are expected to show the fastest growth in consumption, taking third place with 154 litres, compared with 52 litres in 1999. By contrast the young women of France, Italy and Sweden are forecast to raise their intake more modestly and keep their consumption below 100 litres a year.

Danielle Rebelo, author of the report, said: "Female young adults have more independence than previously, higher levels of disposable income and there is a growing acceptance for women to consume alcohol. For women, socialising is primarily about conversation and interacting with the group, whereas for men it is driven more by a shared event or activity.

Young adult women were more likely to order a mixed round of drinks, while men tend to want identical drinks.

"This greater individuality reflects a qualitative difference in women's and men's attitudes to going out to drink," Ms Rebelo said. The drinks industry responded by introducing new products for women such as Vodka Mudslide, Baileys Minis and Diet Lambrini.

A report last year by the Office for National Statistics showed that binge drinking was increasing among young women in England, but had not yet caught up with the rate among young men. Between 1998 and 2002 the proportion of young women binge drinkers increased from 24% to 28%, while the proportion among young men fell from 39% to 35%.

The charity Alcohol Concern said alcohol-related liver disease, once the preserve of the over-40s, was appearing in young women, most notoriously in the case of a 17-year-old, diagnosed three years ago. It urged the government to fund health warnings against excessive consumption on television and elsewhere.

The European School Survey Project on Alcohol and other Drugs found that 29% of girls aged 15 to 16 in the UK admitted binge drinking at least three times in the previous month, compared with 26% of boys. The rates were the highest in Europe, except for the Netherlands, Ireland and Isle of Man. Binge drinking was defined as having more than five alcoholic drinks in a row.

Campaigners are worried that more advertising is being aimed at women and that 24-hour licensing will do nothing to combat the problems.

Schools urged to use sniffer dogs

BBC - 20.4.05

Local education authorities are being urged to use sniffer dogs to stop drugs being brought into schools.
Criminologists evaluated a pilot scheme at six Buckinghamshire secondary schools and found the dogs effective.
The John Grieve Centre for Policing and Community Safety made an independent study of the programme and recommended that it should be extended.

Researchers warned procedures needed to be robust so that children did not play truant to avoid being caught.
Two kinds of sniffer dog were used in the schools.

A proactive dog, typically a spaniel, searched buildings and classrooms, while a passive dog, a Labrador, was stationed inside school gates to detect whether pupils were carrying drugs, or had come into contact with them.

Professor Allyson MacVean, who led the study, said the animals should be part of every school's anti-drugs strategy.
But she said personal searches might be more effective if they were conducted at random while lessons were in progress.
If pupils thought they would be checked as they came in, they would play truant.

Children could also warn their peers of searches by mobile phone.

A study by Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, found most pupils (82%), parents (98%) and staff (92%) were in favour of the use of dogs.

The report said those caught in possession should be subject to both a "robust disciplinary procedure" and rehabilitation and counselling. A National Centre for Social Research study of 225 English schools in 2000 found more than one third of pupils had been offered at least one drug, the most common being cannabis. For the Buckinghamshire Chilterns study, 260 questionnaires were returned - 100 from pupils, 88 from parents and 72 from staff.

Of the children, 11% said they had been offered drugs in school, while 12% had tried them.
Last year, sniffer dogs started working on some school buses in South Yorkshire, carrying out random checks.
Random drug tests on pupils have also been used at the Abbey School in Faversham, Kent, since January.

Comment: Professor Allyson MacVean is not just an academic: she heads up the John Grieve centre for Police and Community Safety. That's John Grieve, former Met Police Deputy, and now a professor with a unit named after him. Now far be it from us to assume that they would aproach any subject with anything less than scrupulous academic neutrality. But, one could fairly suspect that they would be seeking to endorse enforcement models..

Nothing reported explained WHY the Unit felt that sniffer dogs should be part of each school agenda, to demonstrate for example that episodes of possession dropped, or levels of use declined.

We have asked the Unit to supply a copy of their report so we can comment on it accurately...we are still waiting.

Police cleared of addict's death

April 20, 2005

The Guardian

Three police officers walked free from court yesterday after a judge ordered a jury to clear them of the manslaughter of a heroin addict who was dropped off at their force's boundary to find her own way home on a cold January night.

Michelle Wood, 25, was found frozen to death in a muddy field in February 2003, a month after being discharged from a police station where she had been questioned about an alleged shoplifting spree in a small country town.

The case at Hull crown court collapsed after a week, when Mrs Justice Dobbs ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove that a sergeant and two constables in Lincolnshire police had breached their duty of care in releasing Wood, a mother of three, five miles from her home after dark.

The judge accepted the defence's arguments that Sergeant Andrew Hickinbottom and PCs Andrew Wood and Ian Clark, who between them have 56 years of service, acted in good faith when they organised Wood's release. They had also been unaware that she had been illegally taking prescription-only drugs and had access to others, which were likely to have contributed to her death.

The three officers face disciplinary proceedings within Lincolnshire police and the judge made it clear that the force's arrangements for discharging prisoners appeared to be flawed. She said the police's failure to detect Ms Wood's use of illicit medicine was also alarming.

"This is a matter of concern that no doubt others will take up after this case," she said.

The trial heard that Ms Wood was clearly confused after her arrest in Louth, Lincolnshire, where the "shoplifting expedition" was allegedly planned. She behaved oddly and told one officer that she had flown to the town from Grimsby in an aircraft.

She was taken to the force boundary by the two constables on the orders of Sgt Hickinbottom, after being released from Skegness police station without charge. Peter Carter QC, for Sgt Hickinbottom, said the sergeant had given careful consideration to dropping her off somewhere with light and shelter. There was a garage and a callbox near the spot, but she appeared to have wandered in a state of confusion into the field. Her body was found a month later within sight of the A16 where she had been left.

Wood's mother Joan Call, 48, said outside the court: "We are saddened that despite this we still do not know why Michelle had to die."

Police accused of manslaughter after dumping addict at roadside

Friday April 8, 2005

The Guardian

A confused and hungry heroin addict, dressed in soaked clothes and with no money, bus ticket or mobile phone, was callously dumped on a near-freezing roadside by two police officers, a court heard yesterday.

Michelle Wood, a mother of three aged 25, died of hypothermia in a nearby field after she was taken from a police station and left at the Lincolnshire police force's boundary.

Two constables and a sergeant who ordered them to drop Ms Wood off five miles short of her home are all charged with manslaughter following the tragedy in January 2003. PC Andrew Wood, 44, PC Ian Clark, 43, and Sergeant Andrew Hickinbottom, 40, who between them have 50 years of police service, deny causing Ms Wood's death through gross negligence.

A jury at Hull crown court was told that Ms Wood, who lived in Grimsby, had been arrested on suspicion of attempted burglary in Louth and taken for questioning to Skegness police station. James Goss QC, prosecuting, said that after a decision had been made not to lay charges, the police faced the question of what to do with her.

"She had been behaving irrationally and was assessed as being a heroin addict 'in a very poor mental condition'. Physically she was thin and gaunt. Her clothing was wet," he said.

"It was early January, the weather was cold. She could not simply be turned out of the police station in those circumstances on to the streets."

Sgt Hickinbottom decided that she should be taken "towards her home but not right to it," said Mr Goss. "Rather, she should be dropped off that night at the boundary between the Lincolnshire police force and the Humberside police force.

"No doubt some of the thinking behind that decision was that she would then be 'off his force's patch' and no longer the Lincolnshire force's responsibility."

The sergeant had instructed the two constables to take Ms Wood to the boundary and leave her there. They had done what they were told, against all their training in their duty of care.

The court heard that the police car had stopped to talk to a passing patrol from Humberside police, but no request had been made for Ms Wood to be taken to Grimsby. She was last seen alive later in the evening by another driver, who was so worried about her staggering around on the road that he dialled 999.

"By their actions these officers removed Michelle from a place of safety in custody and placed her in danger, leaving her on her own, over five miles from home, on a cold, wet night without money or means of communication, in wet clothing, unrefreshed, as far as they were aware, and behaving in a way that had demonstrated irrationality and unreliability," said Mr Goss.

"Had she not been dropped off where she was and in the condition in which she was, then there is no reason for her to have died."

Mr Goss urged the jury not to be judgmental about her behaviour as a heroin addict.
Ms Wood had set out on a shoplifting foray to Louth to pay for drugs with a gang of other addicts from Grimsby. She was arrested after telling police she had been "dropped from an aeroplane to buy clothes." The case continues.

Comment: This case does not seem to have attracted the opprobium that it should have done. The Police and the DAT in Lincolnshire play role play games to explore how to tackle drug markets (see East Midlands links section below) and spending thousands on Detector equipment to detect substance use.

But in the meantime it seems that the Police and DAT have utterly failed in their abaility to provide basic care, to assess and respond to need and to address targets relating to drug-related deaths. The CPS has once again demonstrated a sloppy approach to case management. And generally, no-one has raised the slightest hue and cry about this.

It is to be hoped that the case is prosecuted privately - and that someone funds this action. But in the meantime the Police and the DAT in Lincolnshire should be hanging their heads in shame - not crowing about how they waste time and money.

April 20, 2005: The Guardian

A cannabis-based medicine formulated by a UK company to help sufferers of multiple sclerosis has been approved for use for the first time in Canada.

GW Pharmaceuticals and Bayer HealthCare announced yesterday that Sativex oral spray was given the go-ahead in Canada to treat neuropathic pain in adults with MS.

The move has raised hopes that the drug will soon be available to thousands of patients in the UK.

The UK medicines and healthcare products regulatory agency is expected to complete its review of the spray as a treatment for spasticity in MS in the summer.

Sativex was produced as a result of research by UK-based GW Pharmaceuticals and marketed by Bayer HealthCare.
Shares in GW Pharmaceuticals jumped 11.5p to reach 132.5p yesterday.

Retailers to challenge class A classification amid claims that new law will drive trade underground

April 16, 2005: The Guardian

Peers, MPs and drug advocacy groups have rounded on a new law reclassifying magic mushrooms as a class A drug, saying the legislation was rushed through parliament in last week's "wash-up" without adequate debate and will criminalise a group of people who were doing no harm to themselves or others.

Home Office sources have indicated that clause 21 of the new drug bill could come into effect in time for the Glastonbury festival in June. Magic mushroom retailers have vowed to challenge the ban, saying the statute contravenes European free trade regulations and is deeply flawed.

They also point out that the bill would create a grey area for other naturally occurring hallucinogens, many of which are traded on the internet and just as hallucinogenic as the banned cubensis mushrooms. Mescaline, for instance, like psilocin and pscilocybin, the active constituents of cubensis mushrooms, is identified as a class A drug under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. But the drug bill says nothing about the peyote cactus from which it is derived.

The bill also makes no reference to the fly agaric toadstool, a highly poisonous red and white spotted fungus which the Home Office warns about on its drug education website, Talk to Frank, and which grows wild in British forests. It also makes no mention of Salvia divinorum, a hallucinogenic plant from Mexico which Potseeds, a Totnes-based internet retailer, advertises as "the legal high our politicians forgot to ban."

But opponents of clause 21 say the main objection is that it would be unenforceable and would drive the trade in cubensis mushrooms - which, because of a loophole in the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, are considered legal - underground.

"By no stretch of the imagination can you equate magic mushrooms with heroin or cocaine," said Lord Mancroft, a member of the all-party group on the misuse of drugs and chairman of Mentor UK, which aims to prevent drug misuse by young people. "There's no evidence magic mushrooms are addictive, cause harm to people or are a public order problem. The bill is completely disproportionate.'

Lord Mancroft, one of three backbench peers who opposed the bill on its second reading in the Lords last week, also condemned the way government whips had rushed the the legislation back to the Commons before it could be properly scrutinised, claiming the process smacked of an election deal between the three main parties.

His comments were echoed by Paul Flynn, the Labour MP for Newport West and an advocate of the legalisation of magic mushrooms and cannabis, who on the bill's return to the Commons on April 7 condemned the law as having been "conceived in prejudice, written in ignorance and ... enacted with incompetence."

"We are banning psilocybin, a natural product that will disappear from the market, possibly to be replaced by drugs such as fly agaric, a far more dangerous drug," he said.

Mr Flynn contrasted the government's decision to ban magic mushrooms with its decision to reclassify cannabis from class B to class C and then refer the matter to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, because of concerns about the dangers that powerful new strains of "skunk" posed to people with schizophrenia and those with a history of mental health problems.

No such reference to the advisory council occurred in the case of cubensis mushrooms. "It's election politics pure and simple," Mr Flynn said.

The ban, which makes the importation, possession or sale of magic mushrooms pun ishable by a life sentence, comes as lawyers prepare to defend retailers in Canterbury and Birmingham from prosecution under the 1971 law.

Barristers are seeking to have the prosecutions thrown out as an abuse of process on the grounds that the retailers were advised by the Home Office that the 1971 act only applied to the sale of dried mushrooms or their "preparations", not fresh mushrooms.

Yesterday Celia Strange of MJ Reed solicitors, representing the Canterbury and Birmingham retailers, urged the Crown Prosecution Service to drop the cases, saying it was clear from the statute change that parliament considered the previous law flawed. The firm also pointed out the new act had serious implications for people who may be unaware they have a class A drug growing on their property.

Yesterday a Home Office spokeswoman said people would not be considered to have committed an offence merely for having magic mushrooms growing on their land.

Comment: Much as KFx does not approve of the decision to make possession of fresh products containing psilocybin illegal, we are equally disgruntled by the poor quality of discussion attached to it. Mr Flynn should be aware, for example, that Fly Agaric Mushrooms are already on the market and suppliers are selling packaged, dried and labelled Fly Agarics in highstreets now.

The other aspect with which Flynn et al are being disingenous is the idea that this is a substantial change in policy and comparable to reclassifiying cannabis. It's simply making the situation for fresh mushrooms the same as that for dry mushrooms - not changing the class or schedule of psylocybin per se. Magic Mushrooms are woefully misclassified - as of course are several other drugs. But that doesn't mean that there is any logic to fresh products being legal and dried products illegal. This certainly needed to be clarified. unfortunately, once again, the Government has done it badly and we wait with certain provocative humour, to see how they word guidance to ensure that person having mushrooms on their land commits no offence!

Guardian
April 13, 2005

A prisoner who claims that the refusal of the prison service to introduce a needle exchange policy represents a real and immediate risk to his life has started legal proceedings against the home secretary.

Lawyers acting for John Shelley, a long-term prisoner currently in Long Lartin jail, near Evesham, are seeking a judicial review of current policy. Under this policy, as revealed < http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1159193,00.html>\cf0\ulnone by The Guardian in March, prisoners are being issued with disinfecting tablets, which the Department of Health, doctors and drug-user support groups say are inadequate in protecting addicts from blood-borne infections such as HIV and hepatitis.

A gay former prisoner who was wrongly diagnosed as HIV positive claims that Home Office figures on the number of prisoners with HIV are the "tip of a hidden iceberg". He said this was due to prisoners failing to report their condition to jail staff from fear of discrimination. During one sentence, he said, he was moved 38 times because no prison would accept him.
The last survey of prisoners with blood-borne viruses was carried out in 1997/98. The Public Health Laboratory Service concluded that 0.36% of inmates were HIV positive and 7.8% had Hepatitis B. A further 7.5% tested positive for Hepatitis C, regarded as the most serious of these viruses, directly responsible of around 100 deaths a year in the UK and a major contributor to a further 5,000 deaths annually.

A recent Home Office report suggested that 2% of prisoners inject drugs in prison and it acknowledged that there may be significant under-reporting of the problem because of the stigma, and illegality, of drug use in prison. A previous study suggested that 6.7% of inmates injected drugs and that there was a high level of needle sharing by prisoners who used drugs intravenously.

When the introduction of disinfecting tablets was reported a spokesman for the Department of Health said it would not recommend it as a suitable method of sterilising needles. It later denied saying this. However, a department report, commissioned in 1999, states that, "although cleaning equipment is a safer practise than not cleaning at all, the practise - of disinfecting needles - has only been shown to reduce the risk of HIV and may offer little or no protection against more enduring or prevalent hepatitis C".

At least 99% of health authorities operate needle exchange programmes, which have proved to reduce the spread of blood-borne viruses among drug addicts who inject.

Shelley's solicitor, Sean Humber, said that the failure of the prison service to consider needle exchanges, "exposes prisoners and prison officers alike to unnecessary risks and is a breach of their human rights".
Glen Fielding was released from prison in October. In 1993, after being told he was HIV positive, he received his first jail sentence. During that five-year term he said he was in 38 different prisons as a result of staff refusing to have contact with him.

"Every time I was moved prison officers would refuse to be handcuffed to me."

He was advised to go on protection on the vulnerable prisoner wings and received daily abuse from staff and prisoners because of his supposed condition. "Staff were frightened of me," he said.

He went back to prison in 1997, serving seven years. Although he had by then been told that the earlier diagnosis was wrong, he was still treated with suspicion by staff and inmates. This was largely due to him not hiding his sexuality, he said.
Mr Fielding took a successful legal action to force the prison service to supply condoms to inmates.

Although Mr Fielding, 43, is not a drug addict, he said he began to notice the problems associated with needle sharing. In one prison, Littlehey, near Huntingdon, 32 prisoners were sharing one needle, fashioned from a biro and a needle that had been secreted by a diabetic prisoner, he said.

"Of the 32," he said, "four were HIV positive. By the time I left that nick, all 32, the whole shooting match, had contracted the virus."

Mr Fielding said that, in 12 months, in two jails in the south of England, he met at least two dozen HIV positive prisoners who had not declared their condition to prison staff.

"It may sound awful," he said, "but I could not blame them, after the dreadful experiences I suffered as a result of my wrong diagnosis."

He said the prison service had to face up to the reality of the drug situation and work to stop the spread of blood-borne viruses.

"Drugs are coming into prison, everybody knows that they are," he said. "Therefore the prison service has an obligation to prevent the spread of ill health."

Tim Newell is a former prison governor, widely respected for his innovative therapeutic work with prisoners at Grendon jail. Now a consultant for the Butler Trust, he said the issue of drug abuse was huge and needed a multi-faceted approach to address it. His basic view is that that the problem should be seen and treated as a health issue, rather than a prison one.
"I agree that what they are doing - in relation to disinfecting tablets - may be a dangerous practice," he said. "The ideal way of dealing with this serious problem would be for the prison service to implement a needle exchange policy."

A new government database of drug services will reveal a surprisingly high number of young opiate users, a conference has heard today,

Tom Aldridge, young person' s manager for the National Treatment Agency, predicted the national drugs treatment monitoring service, currently being piloted, would surprise people by showing the true number of young opiate users in drug treatment programmes.

Aldridge told the drugs and alcohol today conference in London that, as substance misuse services targeted at young people became more established, there were likely to receive more self-referrals from those currently not accessing support such as homeless people and sex workers.

The true demand for young people' s substance misuse services had probably been underestimated because of a lack of robust local needs analysis, he argued.

" How can we have a high adult drug population but no young people using drugs," he said. He predicted the waiting time target for young people's drug and alcohol services would be set at a maximum of three weeks.

A more family-centred approach to parental drug and alcohol abuse could prevent thousands of children entering care each year. Alison Benjamin reports on moves to expand this type of treatment

April 6, 2005

The Guardian

Jane and Andy Ellis had never taken their two young sons to the local park, the swimming baths or the seaside. "The TV was their mum," says Jane Ellis. "Emotionally, we weren't there for them. We were only there for the bottle of alcohol. I'd be up at 6am to buy a bottle of cider. I'd have to have a drink before I could even get one of the kids dressed."

The only outing Michael Wilson's two-and-half-year-old son had been on with his dad was to McDonald's. "I always put my own needs first," says Wilson, a 24-year-old former heroin addict whose girlfriend walked out three months after the child was born. And there were no bedtime stories. "I'd put him to bed once he'd fallen asleep on the sofa."

There are an estimated 1m children in the UK whose parents are alcoholics, and 350,000 children of problem drug users. Not only are they neglected, they may also have to take more responsibility for themselves from a very young age, says Bill Puddicombe, chief executive of Phoenix House, a charity that operates two residential family drugs rehabilitation centres. "We concentrate on working with the whole family because the parents' drugs problems have a huge impact on the child," Puddicombe says.

The Home Office's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, comprised of professionals from various fields, acknowledges that "parental drug use can and does cause serious harm to children at every stage". Its 2003 Hidden Harm report on the needs of children of problem drug users lists a range of hazards, from "dangerously inadequate supervision" to "exposure to criminal or other inappropriate adult behaviour". It called on ministers to take action.

Last month, the government finally responded to the council's 48 recommendations. Derek Twigg, the junior education secretary, said it would ensure that problem drug use by parents did not stop children from being "healthy and safe to enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution to society, and enjoy economic wellbeing".
He says: "For those children and young people who are at risk of harm ... Every Child Matters [the white paper] will put in place a stronger statutory and multi-agency framework to protect them, and provide services and support for them and their families."

According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, up to 40% of children each year entering care for the first time do so primarily because of parental substance misuse. More than half of the 50 or so children who go through the two Phoenix House projects in Sheffield and Brighton annu ally are likely to be the subject of some type of order that could result in their parents losing custody.

"One of the drivers for setting up the projects 10 years ago was recognising that many drug misusing mothers were not coming forward for treatment because they feared having their children taken away," Puddicombe says.

Although it costs £60,000 to send a family of four to Phoenix House for six months, care proceedings, substitute care and adoption can exceed £100,000. Yet there is no mention in the Hidden Harm report of expanding the type of family approach Phoenix House offers.

Puddicombe believes that the focus on child protection at the expense of a family-centred approach stems from the stigma surrounding substance misusers. "It is difficult to envisage that they could be good parents," he says. "In some cases, treating parents' problems separately may be correct. For others, however, a whole family response is going to achieve a better response."

Jane Ellis's two attempts at detox failed because she went from hospital straight back to an alcoholic partner. Michael Wilson lasted three weeks on a home detox programme before he was back on heroin. "Detox doesn't sort out the reasons why you start taking drugs, nor does it help you to become a better parent," he says.

Teaching clients the skills to build a stronger family unit while overcoming drug and alcohol addiction is an integral part of the six-month rehabilitation process, along with child-centred activities to promote development.

The Addaction charity also believes that working with families is key to reducing the harm to children by parents who misuse drugs. Research shows children are more than eight times as likely to become drug users themselves. It too runs a residential drug treatment service for mothers and their children, but is today launching a pilot scheme that will introduce a new type of professional - a family worker, trained as both social worker and drugs worker - in three of its community drugs projects in Cumbria, Derby and Tower Hamlets, east London.

The four-year, £1m Breaking the Cycle scheme, funded by the Zurich Community Trust charity, is the first major response specifically to address recommendations in the Hidden Harm report. It aims to deliver support for families, including those yet to be identified by social services, and to accumulate evidence of what works best. A steering group set up to oversee the scheme could become a national association of agencies - one of the Hidden Harm recommendations.
Peter Martin, chief executive of Addaction, says: "When you think that most of Addaction's adult clients began their drug use when they were 13, and 20% were in care as children, it does not take a genius to realise that we must reach those families and children early on."

The charity hopes to raise funds to run a similar scheme for alcoholic parents.
If Jane and Andy Ellis had received joint treatment when they first started drinking heavily after the birth of their eldest son, now five, it could have prevented years of neglect. Jane Ellis believes, however, that she could not have kicked her addiction without family residential treatment.

"You can't do it without a unit," she says. "You find every trick to get out of it. If you're not honest with yourself, others are not going to get anywhere. Here [at Phoenix House], they sort out your inner fears."
Wilson says that improving his literacy skills at Phoenix House has helped too. "I couldn't read very well before I came here," he whispers. "Now I can read my son a bedtime story."

Some names have been changed.

A triumph of hearsay and hysteria

Asbos are targeting the vulnerable so the government can win votes

Matt Foot\Guardian

Anyone who dares to criticise antisocial behaviour orders is immediately accused of being out of touch with those being terrorised on housing estates. New Labour's home secretaries Jack Straw, David Blunkett and Charles Clarke have all resorted to throwing insults such as "Hampstead liberals" at those challenging any of the 34 "anti-crime" bills introduced since 1997.

So what are the criticisms? One rather obvious problem with Asbos is that they are increasingly used against people who have never "terrorised" anyone. Take a few recent examples. A 23-year-old woman who repeatedly threw herself into the Avon was served with an Asbo banning her from jumping into rivers or canals. A man with mental health problems was banned from sniffing petrol anywhere in Teesside. A woman living on an estate in East Kilbride was given an Asbo ordering her not to be seen wearing her underwear at her window or in her garden. The local Asbo unit handed out diaries to her neighbours to record when she was seen in her underwear, giving a new meaning to neighbourhood watch.

All the people cited above face up to five years in prison for any breach of their Asbo. Yet in 2002, the lord chief justice, Lord Woolf, advised magistrates to think carefully before handing down short-term sentences, because rehabilitation was virtually non-existent due to the prisons being so full.

The examples given are not anomalies. When introducing Asbos, Jack Straw said they were not to be used against people because they were different. But that is exactly what is happening. Asbos are primarily being used against the mentally ill, the elderly, the very young, drug and alcohol addicts, sex workers and beggars. Yet there is no official central record of which categories of people are coming under the order.

Many Asbos are being used against vulnerable people with complex problems. The order does nothing for such problems as it can only ban behaviour - often non-criminal behaviour such as hanging around in groups. And they aren't working. An increasing number, more than 40%, are breached and result in people being imprisoned.

The reason for the diverse nature of Asbos is the ridiculous breadth of what constitutes criminal anti-social behaviour under the Crime and Disorder Act 1988. You can be served with an order if you have behaved in a way "likely to cause alarm".
If the argument of Straw, Blunkett and Clarke is right and people are "terrorising" housing estates, why haven't the police arrested the "terrorists"? Surely they would be liable for arrest under, say, affray, harassment or perhaps even terrorism laws.

The reality is that the government uses exaggerated language in order to gain votes. There is absolutely no evidence, for instance, that antisocial behaviour has increased - crime has been on the decline for many years. However, the government hysteria over this issue has led to the growth of a whole Asbo industry and the excessive use of Asbos in some parts of the country.

Asbos also deny people the right to have a jury hear the evidence and decide on guilt or innocence. They also allow hearsay or gossip to be given in evidence. In these circumstances the police know that the local magistrate is likely to grant an order. Only 3% of applications for Asbos have been refused. The result is imprisonment for votes. It is a national scandal that as a result of Asbos 10 young people a week are being jailed, and that beggars and prostitutes are being imprisoned even though begging and prostitution are non-imprisonable offences.

Of course antisocial behaviour exists, and I am not arguing that nothing should be done. But surely the expense of imprisoning a youth at about £70,000 per year would be better spent on resources in the local community that would help to prevent anti- social behaviour?

Government ministers who simply insult the critics of Asbos do not seem to realise that these are growing in number and are closer to home than they think. I have been part of creating a coalition called Asbo Concern which believes that Asbo legislation is being abused and calls for a full government review. More than 20 organisations have signed up, including the National Association of Probation Officers, the Community and Youth Workers' Union, Inquest and the British Association of Social Workers.

The first person to attend the first meeting was a policeman from an Asbo unit. He told me he was worried that the police were operating without proper guidelines and with too broad a discretion. Is he, too, going to be accused of being a Hampstead liberal?

Cannabis medicine 'causes harm'

bbc 1st april 2005

Cannabis-based medicines can cause paranoia and anxiety in some people, a study has suggested.Swiss researchers found two out of eight men given drugs containing THC, a chemical extracted from cannabis, developed psychotic effects. The University of Lausanne team said the public needed to be aware cannabis medicine could have such side effects. The possibility of using THC to treat multiple sclerosis and pain relief is currently being explored. GW Pharmaceuticals, the firm granted a UK licence to develop cannabis-based drugs, said: "The levels of THC used in this study would not be used in our medicines. "We, and everyone else in this field, are aware that THC can lead to psychosis."

Great impact'

During the study, one man reacted to dronabinol, which is licensed for medical use in the US as it is a synthetic, and another to a liquid form of natural THC, the journal BMC Psychiatry reported.

Within hours of taking the drugs orally, both men started displaying psychotic symptoms. Neither had a history of psychiatric problems. Report author Dr Bernard Favrat said the findings were surprising as the doses used were relatively mild. "We were not expecting these results. The drugs had a great impact on the people and we have to recognise that drugs which are developed using THC have this risk. "I am not saying we should not develop them, but just that we need to proceed with caution."

Other recent studies have linked the use of cannabis to mental health problems. A study by New Zealand scientists, published in March, suggested smoking cannabis virtually doubled the risk of developing mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. And in December US researchers warned young people that using cannabis led to an increased risk of psychosis later in life. An MS drug containing 50% THC, which is being developed by GW Pharmaceuticals, is expected to come before regulators later this year. The firm is also developing other drugs containing THC for cancer and back pain. A spokesman for the firm said the drugs would also contain agents which modify the effects of THC.

The charity DrugScope said that it did not want to see any cannabis-based medicines banned simply because of fears that they may produce side effects. "There is strong evidence that cannabis can help to treat a range of conditions, and if they can we are in favour of them," it said.

Cliff Prior, chief executive of mental health charity Rethink, added: "This evidence confirms risk of mental health problems from cannabis. "The Department of Health must act on our campaign for a major education programme, particularly aimed at young people, to inform people of the risks of cannabis."

Comment: Once again, journalists and commentators utterly fail to differentiate between cannabis high in THC and that which is high in CND and CBN..

March 29, 2005

The Guardian

Some statistics don't do anybody any favours, and here's one of them. Since it was reclassified from class B to class C at the beginning of last year, cannabis has lost its lustre, especially for the young.

This is bad news for those lobbying to reverse the classification. It's bad news for people selling the drug, who are now caught in the classic Tory conundrum - if you don't attract new blood, all your supporters will eventually die. It's not even terribly good news for marijuana lovers, since nobody likes to see their poison of choice consigned to the dustbin of drug history.

Matthew Atha, director of the Independent Drugs Monitoring Unit, noted that the change in the law had had no effect at all. In fact, though, since the increase in regular users dropped to 0.5% last year, down from 45% in 1998, I'd say the legislation has had a very marked impact. It has made everyone lose interest. You might just as well have dressed this drug up in a sailor suit and sent it on tour with Geri Halliwell. It just isn't cool anymore.

An intelligent observer of youth behaviour in relation to government initiatives would be able to deduce the following: people below 25, say, are counter-suggestible. I chose that 25 figure totally at random, and since I'm still quite counter-suggestible and don't intend to change radically in the next couple of years, I'm going to amend it up to 35.

Thus, if you tell them things are dangerous, they will do them, and if you shrug and say "actually, it doesn't seem to do too much harm", they will do something else. Whole swaths of aberrant behaviour could be addressed with this in mind. Obesity, smoking, drinking, fighting, snowboarding and joyriding would all become terribly pass\'e9 if the government were to become their advocates, particularly if prominent members of the government were to lead by example and take up dangerous activities in a high-profile way. I rather fancy Alastair Campbell for this job.

Failing that, they could always start by decriminalising all drugs. There seem to be three main strands of argument for the criminal status of psychoactive substances. First, they're bad for people. Whenever anyone suggests slackening the laws against dope, for instance, the antis are immediately full of statistics about how very much worse are its effects than simply making everyone feel a bit foggy and forget to turn off the heating when they go to bed.

You'd think that by now we'd have devised ourselves a sliding scale for legality based not on the damage you do to yourself, but the damage you do to others. Regular smoking would therefore be a class A (for its efficacy as a long-distance carcinogen), alcohol would be class B (it makes people fight and drive badly), heroin and crack would be class C (they make people steal things), cocaine would be class D, along with PlayStations and an interest in sport (they make people very tedious) and dope would weigh in somewhere closer to the bottom of the alphabet (it sometimes makes people quite quiet), unless mixed with tobacco, in which case it would scooch back up to A.

The second argument is that, the laxer the penalties, the more people will do something. This might work with speeding (in cars, not on amphetamines). But it does not seem to work with drugs. It's possible that people only do drugs at all because the anti-authoritarian impulse behind law-breaking attracts them, but they are too decent to mug. That would be quite hard to prove, though.

Thirdly, there is the contention that people shouldn't take illegal drugs because they thereby keep buoyant an industry based on the most scandalous exploitation - a position given new expression since the release of the Oscar-nominated film Maria Full of Grace, which shows the horrifying realities of being a drug mule.

But, clearly, the only reason drug overlords can treat their mules so badly is that they're unregulated, and they're only unregulated because the product itself is illegal. And frankly, even industries that are regulated don't seem to be able to ensure that the workers at the bottom of their foodchain are treated an awful lot better.

These are all arguments that were rehearsed an awful lot a decade ago, but the debate seems to be steadily receding back to "Shall we or shan't we put people in prison for having the odd joint?". It's hard to say how that happened. Possibly, the first pioneers for legalised drug use have smoked too much dope and lost interest. And if that's the case, we can look forward to the next generation, registering almost no uptake of a dope habit, being very radical indeed.

Class C status helps drug slip out of fashion

March 27, 2005

The Observer

The long smoke could be over. Cannabis has started to lose its fashionable lustre among young people, with Britain seeing the smallest increase in regular use in a decade.

Contrary to claims that there has been an explosion in use since the government downgraded the classification of cannabis from Class B to Class C in January 2004, a new study has found that the increase in regular use fell to just 0.5 per cent in 2004, compared with 45 per cent at its peak in 1998. At the same time, the drug's image has slumped from the high days of the Nineties to a historic low.

'Our first indications are that [the change in the law] has essentially had no effect at all in user levels of cannabis,' says Matthew Atha, director of the Independent Drugs Monitoring Unit, which carried out the study.

The research asked 2,056 respondents to give cannabis a 'user-rating' out of 10, based on factors such as perceived addictive potential, the health risks and the high they got. The higher the user rating, the more glamorous the drug. Cannabis has slipped from a peak of 8.8 in 1997 to a low of 7.6 last year, while in the same period ecstasy, crack and heroin ratings have all risen.

'When the user rating falls it is like a drug is going out of fashion,' said Atha. 'It is also a good indicator of intention to use and whether someone is likely to become a regular user.'
The 10-year survey shows that after the government began talking about reclassification in 2001, the user rating of cannabis fell below eight for the first time.

Steve Rolles, of the drugs policy think tank Transform, says: 'This research backs up numerous other studies that show how drug policy and levels of enforcement have, at best, a marginal impact on levels of use. The recent fuss over reclassification is all about election politics and drug war posturing. It's nothing to do with the science, which is well researched and well understood.'

But some experts warn that it is too early properly to understand the impact of the reclassification. 'It is dangerous to try and assess overall trends in a 12-month period,' says Mike Trace, who was the government's deputy drugs tsar between 1997 and 2002. 'But one of the fears of reclassification was that there would be a sudden leap in use, and this shows that has not happened.'

The study follows Home Secretary Charles Clarke's call for the Misuse Of Drugs Advisory Board to review the reclassification after new studies highlighted the link between cannabis use among teenagers and mental health problems. But one of the authors of the Dutch study Clarke referred to told the Today programme on Radio 4 last week that the results should not be used to argue against legalisation. Dr Lydia Krabbendam of Maastricht University, whose study showed that adolescents who use cannabis regularly over a four-year period were twice as likely to develop psychosis, said: 'I don't think the effects of cannabis can be used as an argument not to legalise it. It is probably very hard to ban it altogether, and if you legalise it you can regulate the amounts of THC [the active ingredient within cannabis]'.

Meanwhile, a survey released today shows that teenagers place illegal drugs at the bottom of the list of ways to get high. The study by the government drugs awareness campaign, Frank, shows that more than one in four 11- to 19-year-olds get their 'best buzz' from winning at their favourite sport. Only three per cent said that drugs gave them the best high.

It boasts an 80 per cent success rate, the rock star Beck is a fan, and schools are inviting the Narconon centre into the classroom. So why are some people worried?

March 27, 2005
The Observer

You have a crack cocaine habit that costs you £1,500 a day, forcing you into prostitution. Someone tells you about a course that could you get off the drug, without putting you on substitute medication, but it costs £15,000. What would you do - especially if you found out the course was linked to the Church of Scientology, the controversial creed that boasts John Travolta and Tom Cruise as followers?

For Danielle Medford, 22, there was no debate. Ravaged by crack, her body was close to shutdown. Death was only weeks away. Her family read about Narconon on the internet and raised the cash to enrol her as one of the drug rehabilitation programme's first British clients.

Danielle weighed just over seven stone when, she walked through the doors of the 1920s mansion in a quiet street in the Sussex town of St Leon ards on Sea. Seven weeks later, she weighs 10 stone, she is off crack and about to go to Barbados on holiday. When she returns, Danielle wants to work with schoolchildren to warn them of the dangers of drugs.

'The course teaches you that you can be anything you want to be,' Danielle says with a wide smile. 'I hit the jackpot with Narconon. I have a brand-new life. I have a little girl and I neglected her, but not any more.'

It was only later, as she was finishing her course, that Danielle became aware of Narconon's controversial rep utation. Its programme, which claims to have helped 'purify' 300,000 people around the world, has been attacked by mainstream drug experts alarmed at the way Narconon dispenses massive amounts of vitamins to its clients above recommended daily limits. They point out that Narconon's claims that it has a success rate of 80 per cent, are almost impossible to verify independently, and express concern that the programme is a recruiting ground for Scientology.

But it is clear that many people fervently believe in the programme - which they can quit at any time - and, like Danielle, have become evangelists for it. Cheers star Kirstie Alley is now a spokeswoman for the organisation, which she credits with helping her ditch her coke habit. American cult musician Beck played a Narconon fundraiser in Los Angeles last year. He told an interviewer last week: 'The drug-rehabilitation programmes have the highest success rate of any in the world.'

When the St Leonards' centre held an official opening three weeks ago, the former manager of the Rolling Stones, Andrew 'Loog' Oldham, a man who did more to boost the coffers of Colombia's drug barons than practically anyone else in the world with his unfettered cocaine consumption, flew in to praise Narconon and to thank it for saving his life.

'I had a rollercoaster of a ride with the Rolling Stones for five years and then spent 30 years getting over it,' he said. 'The programme was an amazing experience for me personally and also because of the people I met on it. It was a glorious seven weeks as the acid came out first, followed by the coke, morphine derivatives, inoculation poisions as well as all of the drugs of life.'

Impressed by such testimony, schools have started inviting Narconon, a registered charity in the UK, into their classrooms to warn pupils about drugs. Students are given pamphlets with information about the programme and a number to ring if they are worried that someone is using drugs.

Local government is also hoping to pay for treatment programmes at the 60-bed clinic. When The Observer became the first newspaper to be given access to the clinic last week, two social services workers were being given a tour of the building, once an asylum detention centre.

Already the centre's claims are having an impact on other drug rehabilitation centres. Several clients interviewed by The Observer said they had opted for Narconon over The Priory or Clouds - two of Britain's most famous rehab centres, whose claims at successfully treating addictions are far more modest than the new entrant.

Perhaps Narconon's claims explain why it charges so much. The average course lasts three months and costs £15,000. But its clients believe it is a small price to pay.

Ryan Jarvis, 27, developed such a cocaine and alcohol habit that he could not hold down his carpentry job. As his life collapsed around him, Ryan left his partner and their child and fled to Marbella. He blew £18,000 on a seven-month orgy of drink and drugs before his father lent him the cash for the Narconon course.

Ryan, whose worn face belies his age, says: £15,000 is not a lot of money. Since I finished the course eight weeks ago I haven't got any problems. I'm back with my family and I have my life back.'

He admits he found parts of the course 'weird'. 'There was some stuff that wasn't my cup of tea, but a lot of it really helped me. You get out of the course what you put in.'

To the outsider, the entire programme must seem weird. Founded in 1966 by William Benitez, an inmate of Arizona State Prison, Narconon draws heavily on the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer and the founder of Scientology.

Critics argue Narconon is merely a front for Scientology. Hubbard's teachings and photos adorn the centre's walls and the language the staff use is redolent of Scientologists. Paul Dolan, the clinic's manager, admits he is a Scientologist and confirms that the centre could not have opened if it had not been for the generosity of members of the church. However, he denied suggestions that the clinic's profits will be ploughed into Scientology and insisted they will be invested in rolling the programme out nationwide, starting with London, Manchester and Glasgow centres

Nevertheless, the overlap between the church and the drug rehabilitation programme alarms Scientology's critics. They point out that each Narconon client must complete eight books based on Hubbard's teachings during their course, which is in three parts - withdrawal, detoxification and education - and draws on the Scientology founder's beliefs about mental and physical health.

During the withdrawal phase, which typically lasts five to eight days, a client is put on a course of vitamins, including huge doses of Niacin and B3, and given 'assists' by staff - Scientology techniques similar to massages which apparently soothe mental and physical pain. 'Pretty much every other drug rehabilitation course prescribes drugs. We don't,' says Dolan, a former engineer in the gas industry.

Critics say there is no scientific basis for Narconon's programme and are alarmed at the amounts of vitamins it prescribes. Dolan dismisses the worries. 'You could give the people in here up to 1,000 times the recommended daily dose and it still wouldn't be a health threat, because the drugs they have been on strip the vitamins out of the body.'

Claire Smith (not her real name), who says she was admitted to the centre five weeks ago addicted to morphine, heroin and crack, claims to be living proof that addicts don't need medication to help with their withdrawal. 'I was so ill my body couldn't take the vitamins at first,' she said. 'I'd been on methadone before, but that didn't work, my whole body just ached. But when I came out of the sauna I felt great.'

The sauna holds almost mystical properties to those who have completed the Narconon course. Clients spend about five hours a day 'sweating out their toxins' for up to three weeks. Jimmy Mulligan, 48, said he had been an alcoholic for three decades. 'But when you come out of the sauna for the last time you are free of everything.' Now sober, Jimmy's only regret is that his time on the course is ending. 'I'm not just saying that, I really mean it.'

Upon arrival at a Narconon programme, all clients are issued with a Hubbard pamphlet, The Way to Happiness, A Common Sense Guide to Better Living . 'It is in your power to point the way to a less dangerous and happier life,' is the opening maxim. 'Be temperate' is another. 'Sex is a big step on the way to happiness and joy. There is nothing wrong with it, if it is followed with faithfulness and decency,' another says.

The perfunctory writings are typical of Narconon manuals. Yet Narconon believes that Hubbard's words hold the key to whether their clients stay off drugs or drink when they finish the course. Clients are encouraged to read dictionaries, not only to make sure they grasp every word of the teachings, but also to give them a feeling of empowerment. 'I learnt 400 words on my course, words like cognition,' Danielle says with pride. 'I've learnt more here than I learnt in school.'

Armed with their new education, which also involves working through problems with clay models and talking to an ethics counsellor to help develop a moral code, a Narconon client is deemed ready to face the world without risk of falling back into addiction.

Many, however, do not seem to want to go very far. Of the 15 people who have completed the Narconon course since the St Leonards' clinic opened, five are now working for the company. Jimmy intends to sign up as an employee when he finishes the programme.

Lucy Graham, 22, who says she was on the verge of suicide because of binge drinking and bulimia, went home to Swindon after the course. 'But I really wanted to come back. It's made such a difference to my life. I'm now training to be a public relations manager for Narconon.'

Narconon, it seems, may set its clients free, but they don't want to be free of Narconon. As Hubbard writes: 'The way to happiness is a high-speed road to those who know where the edges are.'
To its believers, Narconon knows exactly where those edges are.

Comment: It really doesn't matter if it's a 12 step programme, Narcanon or the latest in drug therapies. If people wish to swap their dependency on drugs on to the latest from Schering Plough, Clouds or AA, that's their lookout. And the works of L Ron Hubbard are as bad or as good as much else depending on your stance.

Our stance is that Scientologists are a load of mad cultists, never happier than when they are strapping bean tins to their heads as they work through their engrams. The fact that they believe a load of sub sci-fi tosh about spaceships crashing in to Earth, alien races affecting our development, and that a process of auditing allows you to become an operating Thetan is neither here nor there. It is no more or less specious that many other therapies, or any other cult...

What becomes scary is when the swill promoted by Narconon becomes introduced in to mainstream education; keep faith and drugs well separate in schools, and let the credulous pursue any "cure" that they find works for them.

Home secretary seeks expert advice over fears that drug can increase the risk of psychotic behaviour

March 19, 2005: The Guardian

The government last night signalled it was having second thoughts about its decision to reclassify cannabis as a less dangerous class C drug.In a move that may be interpreted as a pre-election gambit, the Home Office asked the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to review the position in the light of fresh medical evidence.

Charles Clarke, the home secretary, wrote to the ACMD's chairman, Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, asking for advice on the toxicological content of skunk varieties grown hydroponically, which may have a higher potency.

The independent committee does not meet until late in May, after the expected date of the general election.
It was unclear last night whether Mr Clarke's intention was to prepare the way for a change in policy or to neutralise cannabis as an election issue by providing an answer to Conservative criticism that the government has gone soft on drugs.
In the Commons earlier this month, Mr Clarke resisted demands from the Tory spokeswoman Cheryl Gillan to rethink cannabis policy.

David Blunkett, Mr Clarke's predecessor, reclassified cannabis from class B to class C in January 2004 - placing it alongside steroids and some prescription anti-depressants. This made many cases of cannabis possession a non-arrestable offence.
Arrests for cannabis possession in London halved over the first year of the relaxed regime, the Metropolitan police said in January.

In a letter to Sir Michael, Mr Clarke asked the advisory committee to review medical evidence since it had recommended reclassification in 2001.He referred to a New Zealand study which considered how regular cannabis use increased the risk of developing psychotic symptoms later in life.It also highlighted a report from Maastricht University which concluded that use of the drug "moderately increases" the risk of psychotic symptoms in young people, but has "a much stronger effect in those with evidence of predisposition for psychosis".

Mr Clarke went on: "I want to be clear what influence the evidence presented within these studies has on the overall assessment of the classification of cannabis. I would also welcome advice on claims of increased prevalence of cannabis with high levels of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

"Typically these are grown hydroponically and are known as 'skunk' varieties of cannabis. I am aware the Dutch government are taking a particular interest in very high-strength strains and are considering whether cannabis above a certain strength should be a higher classification."

The Home Office was asked if the reference to the Dutch proposals indicated Mr Clarke was considering a two-level classification system for cannabis in this country. A spokeswoman said: "That will be a matter for the review to report on. Depending on what comes up they will discuss that with the Association of Chief Police Officers."

Sir Michael was abroad and unavailable for comment. A statement from the committee said it continued to take a keen interest in recent studies on cannabis.

Martin Barnes, chief executive of the drugs information charity DrugScope, said: "When the ACMD recommended reclassification it fully considered the available evidence that cannabis can trigger mental health problems."It is right that the classification of cannabis, as with all drugs, is closely monitored on an ongoing basis, but we must ensure that such monitoring takes place on a rigorously scientific basis and is not motivated by political factors."

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said: "We welcome the government's recognition that they got this wrong. "The downgrading of cannabis was a dreadful decision which sends out mixed messages about the dangers of drugs."

Comment: It seems highly likely that Clarke, given the chance, would love to re-reclassify cannabis. He made it abundantly clear during the Drugs Bill debate that he was not keen to be seen as soft on drugs. He would love the ACMD to request a reversal of policy.

But in reality, this is not why the Home Secretary has taken the step of referring this issue back to the ACMD. More likely, it was a sop to the Tories to get the Drugs Bill through in the wash up before the dissolution of Parliament. In much the same way that Section 8(d) was ammended without Debate in the Lords before the end of the last Parliament, as a way to get the Police and Criminal Justice act passed, so the Government had to give something to get the Drugs Bill passed.

The conservatives had been demanding reclassification of cannabis, something that the Government didn't want to do before an election as it would have reinforced the idea that reclassification had been a mistake. But if they gave nothing, there was every risk that the drugs bill would fall.