Cannabis Legalization in the UK
Cannabis reclassification in the UK is the transfer of cannabis to a different Class of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Former Home Secretary David Blunkett announced in 2001 that cannabis would be transferred from Class B of the Act to Class C, removing the threat of arrest for possession. Arrest would still be possible for distribution, however. The transfer was carried out in January 2004, after Class C penalties for distribution had been stiffened.
The change was designed to enable police forces to concentrate resources on more serious offences, including those involving harder drugs. When the change was introduced there were several attempts to establish Dutch-style coffeeshops. Most of these have failed as The new law creates no real protection or respectabilty for such establishments, and police action has forced their closure.
The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which was enacted on 1 January 2006, abolished the concept of an 'Arrestable Offence' by making all offences arrestable. This means that people may once again be arrested for possesion of cannabis.
The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), the independent control organ for the implementation of UN drug conventions, criticised the United Kingdom in 2003 for considering reclassification of cannabis. The INCB chairman said that "it is important that consensus prevails in international drug control. No government should take unilateral measures without considering the impact of its actions and ultimately the consequences for an entire system that took governments almost a century to establish."
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The oft-repeated story that marijuana use leads to hard drug use has never been substantiated. Both Holland, Switzerland accept marijuana use, and recently groups in Britain have rallied to decriminalize it. As for marijuana's therapeutic value, oncologists recommend it for the nausea associated with chemotherapy, ophthalmologists say it lowers intraocular pressures in their glaucoma patients, pulmonologists note its use in asthmatics. Marijuana relieves the pain of arthritis and as early as 1843 Jacques-Joseph Morceau extolled its anti-depressive qualities. Cannabis use in insomnia, alcoholism, drug withdrawal and migraine has been reported worldwide.