| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Paul Flynn (Newport, West): Will my hon. Friend give way?
Caroline Flint: No, I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice).
Mr. Prentice: I am grateful to my hon. Friend.
I am interested in the therapeutic use of cannabis. It was available to doctors—in the medicine chest—before 1973. Many people out there take it because conventional medicines do not relieve their pain. What advice will the police be given when they find someone taking therapeutic cannabis?
Caroline Flint: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary agrees that we need to work on that. We are currently awaiting the outcome of scientific research into whether cannabis can be used medicinally to alleviate pain. We shall have to deal with the issues as they arise, certainly in the context of policing.
No approach to the drugs problem is simple or problem-free, but I hope that the strategy I have outlined will provide the best possible opportunity to introduce credibility to our drugs education, sharpen our messages about cannabis and give priority to law enforcement and treatment directed at class A drugs. The strategy has widespread support, not just from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the Home Affairs Committee but from the police and all major organisations that work with drug misusers.
I commend the changes proposed in the order, and hope that the House will support it.
2.19 pm
Mr. Oliver Letwin (West Dorset): The motion is, in practice, only part of the jigsaw that the Government have constructed. The purpose of the jigsaw is clear: to get to the point at which there is crypto-legalisation of cannabis, in the sense that most young people will be only marginally deterred from taking it. They may be arrested, and they will be warned—and the warning will
be that if they are subsequently arrested they will be warned. At the same time, the Government intend to strengthen the prohibition on the sale of cannabis, or rather to retain its present strength. The Minister made it clear that that is the admitted effect of the policies that she announced today.I recognise the force of the arguments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley). We may hear the same thing from the Liberal Democrat Benches in a moment. It is perfectly plausible to argue that there could be a significant beneficial impact by doing what my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) referred to a moment ago, namely, taking cannabis outside the field of drug dealing by hard drug dealers, legitimising it properly and allowing people to buy it under regulated conditions. I do not favour that policy, but I understand the rationale for it. It is also possible to argue that we should try to prevent young people from taking cannabis by doing what is done in Sweden—trying to take more effective measures to deter young people from taking it.
The policy that the Minister announced today is neither of those two things. It will have a clear effect, which relates to the questions about the gateway. I am not making an argument about whether cannabis as a substance, in any of its forms, is in principle a gateway drug. I accept the Minister's point; my experience, too, is that people with addictive personalities, who are on heroin, crack or cocaine, have typically moved through a cocktail that began with tobacco and alcohol and went on through cannabis, amphetamines and many other things. I am not making the argument that cannabis as a substance is more of a gateway than any of those other drugs but, and this is the critical flaw in the Minister's logic, there can be no doubt at all that if the only legal way to obtain cannabis in England is through buying it from a person who is, ipso facto, a very serious criminal—the Minister is ensuring that anybody selling the substance is exposed to a maximum sentence of 14 years, making the crime equivalent in its severity to some of the worst crimes currently committed—the Minister is putting young people in touch with very serious criminals—[Hon. Members: "No."] She is. If the Minister makes it the case that young people believe that she is crypto-legalising the substance and that they cannot obtain it except from a serious criminal, she is taking steps that irresponsibly ensure that a larger rather than a smaller number of young people will be in touch with serious criminals.
John Mann (Bassetlaw): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Letwin: I will in a moment, but not until I have finished the logic.
The purpose of those serious criminals will be to drag those vulnerable young people upwards from cannabis to the hard drugs in which the money can be made—[Interruption.] Yes, it will. The hon. Lady for some part of Lambeth—[Hon. Members: "Vauxhall."] Forgive me. The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey)—I am her constituent so I should know—was right to point out that the evidence of the Lambeth experiment was
that serious criminals moved into the area in an effort to drug people up from cannabis into hard drugs. There is no escape from that reality.
John Mann: Is not the right hon. Gentleman living in the past? There has been an increase in hydroponically grown cannabis. Estimates made in Australia by Hemp Embassy, major proponents of the legalisation of cannabis, are that 80 per cent. of cannabis is hydroponically grown, and that the vast majority of that is grown by people in their homes for their own supply. Health is the issue for the vast majority of people, rather than the buying of cannabis from so-called drug dealers.
Mr. Letwin: I fear that the person living in an unreal world is the hon. Gentleman. I know that he shares my passion about hard drugs, and if he were to go to our inner cities—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant) says that he does not know what I mean. I mean that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) shares my passion to do something to get off hard drugs the many young people whose lives, and the lives of those around them, are being destroyed by them. We share that ambition, but the hon. Gentleman is living in a fool's paradise if he believes that it is not the case that large numbers of very serious criminals—made very serious criminals by the Government's legislation—want to sell cannabis to people in order to lead them into the hard drug world. That is a fact which cannot be denied.
The House's purpose should be not to deny that fact, but to argue about whether the Government's policy makes sense, and it certainly cannot make sense to let young people be led in that direction. I do not know by how much the legislation will do that, and nor does the Minister. We do not know how far the guidelines and their effects on police behaviour will lead young people to take more rather than less of that substance, but we know that that must be the direction and that much of the cannabis will be sold by serious criminals who are engaged in hard drug dealing. The tendency, therefore, will be for more rather than fewer young people to be led into hard drugs.
Mr. Letwin: I will take the hon. Gentleman's intervention, although there is still another step in my logic.
John Mann: The right hon. Gentleman suggested that we should go to the inner cities. I have not done that, but I have visited my own community. I have spoken to 16-year-olds in all the schools in my constituency and I have talked to at least half of the current heroin users. They outline a straightforward position: five years ago, and before, people bought cannabis and heroin from the same dealer, but now they do not. People do not buy cannabis from heroin dealers or pushers but from different people. Indeed, on health issues, a great deal of cannabis is not even being sold—it is being given away. Many young people are producing it at home and giving it to their friends.
Mr. Letwin: I think that the hon. Gentleman knows that he is not describing the only pattern of activity. The
fact remains that hard drug dealers are still in the business of selling cannabis. Even if his suggestion were right, he would have to explain how it could be rational that the young people he has just described would be subject to a maximum term of imprisonment of 14 years for that activity. The Government are turning those young people into very serious criminals. The hon. Gentleman cannot escape that fact. The Government's policy is a dreadful muddle.Why have the Government introduced this policy? Do they deny the logic that I have described? Before the debate, I thought that might be possible, but the Minister has told us that legalisation would increase use. How, then, can she suppose that crypto-legalisation will not, to some degree, also increase use? Before the debate, I thought that the Minister would take the view that, under the proposals, people would not feel that they were routinely breaking the law. However, she has told us that young people are routinely breaking the law at present and that she intends cannabis to remain an illegal substance. She is saying that she is legislating in such a way that when young people buy, possess or take cannabis they will know that they are acting illegally. She knows that she is turning the people who sell the drug to them into serious criminals. She does not deny a single step of my logic, so what is the point of the policy? Why do not the Government introduce either proper legalisation of, or a proper clampdown on, cannabis? Why this muddled middle?
I do not specialise in saying such things about my political opponents, but in this case I think that the Home Secretary—who has chosen not to attend the debate for reasons that only he can tell—is seeking spurious, short-term popularity.
The polling evidence shows that the Home Secretary is on to a winner and that this policy is popular. Considerable numbers of our fellow citizens believe that selling the stuff should be highly illegal and almost equal numbers believe that not too much should be done about people who are buying the stuff. The Home Secretary is in line with current public opinion, and I think it is for that reason—I can find no other explanation—that he has chosen to adopt this tactic. That is not a responsible way to conduct the government of this country. We should not have, in a country like ours, a Government who adopt a policy about a matter like this on the basis of seeking spurious short-term popularity. We should consider the fate of our young people.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |