'Chaos' warning over cannabis law

Any move to change the cannabis laws again would create chaos for police and the public, the Government is warned today.

Police and experts spoke out as Home Secretary Charles Clarke asked an independent advisory group to consider whether cannabis should be reclassified after growing evidence emerged of its link to mental illness.

Mr Clarke's move came just over a year after his predecessor David Blunkett downgraded the drug from class B to class C and ordered police not to routinely arrest adults found smoking it.

But today senior police officers and the architect of the original downgrading warned that another change in its status would only add to existing confusion. Since downgrading the drug, the Government has faced persistent warnings that the law is little understood and that police struggle to understand how to enforce it.

Rick Naylor, president of the Superintendents' Association, said: "There is a danger it could lead to confusion again because we are now used to a new way of doing things.

"Since the declassification, cops on the street have been dealing with cannabis in a very quick and efficient way.

"If we are going to start arresting people again it is going to mean us altering our focus, because all the time that has been saved from dealing with cannabis since the declassification would change.

"We would have to ... find extra resources because that police time has been used on other things."

He said the reclassification had freed time for the police to deal with "more serious things".

Lady Runciman, chairwoman of the Police Foundation inquiry whose report originally called for cannabis to be downgraded, said the public would also be confused.

Mr Clarke asked the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to review the reclassification of cannabis in the light of new research suggesting it could be more harmful than previously thought. But this was "entirely unnecessary", Lady Runciman said. "I think it adds to the great confusion created by the original move [to reclassify] which was entirely sensible," she added.

British law on cannabis is already among the most stringent in Europe, she pointed out.

Recent studies have linked cannabis with increased mental health problems and has stepped up pressure on the Government to re-examine the classification.

The change last year means cannabis is no longer a routinely arrestable offence and it has increased police discretion on how to handle people caught in possession of the drug.