Title – Cannabis law change ‘illogical’Source – www.bbc.co.uk
Date – 26th January 2009
The day has come and gone without great fanfare; cannabis has been upgraded to a class B drug again and now carries a penalty of up to 5 years imprisonment and unlimited fine for possession and up to 14 years imprisonment and unlimited fine for dealing.
But in reality special rules have been introduced for cannabis, so although it remains a class B drug, the way it will be policed is through a system of warnings, fines and a ‘three-strike’ rule for possession of small amounts.
The confusion this will cause is well documented in previous blog entries and clearly this is a politically motivated change to make a government look tough on drugs and yet not have too much of an effect on the status-quo with regard to how the drug is treated by the police and through the courts. The arguments and political wrangling can continue but those tasked with enforcing the rules will have to grasp the realities. There is a problem with ever increasing strength of ‘skunk’ and the more common availability of it, but the classification system is a little pointless if it does not reflect the harmfulness of the drugs accurately. There are not too many for example who would argue that ‘skunk’ should be a class B drug while the alarming increase in Ketamine use as a recreational drug and the potential harm this drug causes, hardly justifies it remaining a class C drug; then there is ecstasy and the talk of reclassification from class A to B… confused?
For those working in sectors where drug use and drug dealing cause serious problems with disorder,
Workplace Violence and dangers of infection from drug litter, the real change is that if there is anyone ‘turning a blind eye’ to drug use in their premises, the threat from cannabis users just got substantially greater.Date – 26th January 2009
The day has come and gone without great fanfare; cannabis has been upgraded to a class B drug again and now carries a penalty of up to 5 years imprisonment and unlimited fine for possession and up to 14 years imprisonment and unlimited fine for dealing.
But in reality special rules have been introduced for cannabis, so although it remains a class B drug, the way it will be policed is through a system of warnings, fines and a ‘three-strike’ rule for possession of small amounts.
The confusion this will cause is well documented in previous blog entries and clearly this is a politically motivated change to make a government look tough on drugs and yet not have too much of an effect on the status-quo with regard to how the drug is treated by the police and through the courts. The arguments and political wrangling can continue but those tasked with enforcing the rules will have to grasp the realities. There is a problem with ever increasing strength of ‘skunk’ and the more common availability of it, but the classification system is a little pointless if it does not reflect the harmfulness of the drugs accurately. There are not too many for example who would argue that ‘skunk’ should be a class B drug while the alarming increase in Ketamine use as a recreational drug and the potential harm this drug causes, hardly justifies it remaining a class C drug; then there is ecstasy and the talk of reclassification from class A to B… confused?
For those working in sectors where drug use and drug dealing cause serious problems with disorder,
If you are the proprietor, owner or in control of a premises where drug use or drug dealing occurs and you are aware of it but fail to resolve it or report it, you can be held as liable for the activity as those taking part. There is no defence of not being directly involved. For those working in the Licensed Retail Sector, the added threat of a premises licence review also looms and is much more likely with class B drug activity than class C drugs; not that any illegal drug activity is likely to be overlooked…
Maybe it will get easier to send a strong message out now that cannabis is a class B drug again and easier to enforce zero tolerance policies, but the question will be how much confusion this muddled message causes and if that is not actually more counterproductive than the reclassification itself.
At Beyond The Blue we run a number of courses for those working in the Licensed Retail Sector including The National Certificate for Licensees Drug Awareness (NCLDA). Our bespoke Drug Awareness (DA) courses, which examine illegal drugs, their effects and the drug litter synonymous with their use are designed to reflect the nature of our clients working environment. Our Conflict Management and Resolution (CMR) course compliments these courses to help employees deal with Workplace Violence and drug related behaviour.
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