BRITAIN: The British Home Secretary, Mr David Blunkett, has emphatically ruled out downgrading ecstasy after a parliamentary committee recommended the change in an attempt to reshape political thinking on drug use in Britain.
In a report published by the Home Affairs Select Committee today, the cross-party group of MPs insists that while ecstasy is dangerous it is significantly less harmful than other Class A drugs and for many young people drug- taking is a "passing phase" which "rarely results in any long-term harm".
However, Mr Blunkett insisted the reclassification of ecstasy was not on the government's agenda and there was "no such thing as a safe dose" of ecstasy. "Ecstasy can, and does, kill unpredictably," he said. "It is important that we get the message across to young people that whilst all drugs cause harm not all drugs are the same. We have to focus our attention on the most harmful drugs."
The committee report suggests ecstasy should be downgraded from a Class A to a Class B drug with a call for greater emphasis on dealers rather than users by reducing the maximum sentence for ecstasy possession from seven to five years. The report also says the maximum sentence for supply or production of ecstasy should be cut from life to 14 years.
Significantly, the committee backs Mr Blunkett's plans to downgrade cannabis, saying that whether or not it is a "gateway" drug "we do not believe there is anything to be gained by exaggerating its harmfulness". The liberal recommendations of the parliamentary report follow the tough line taken by the Education Secretary, Ms Estelle Morris, on drugs in schools and her decision yesterday to make available to all schools a harrowing video detailing the life and death of former student turned heroin addict, Rachel Whitear.
The video, made by Rachel's parents following her death in a bedsit in March, will be shown to schoolchildren as young as 10 as officials acknowledged the "Just Say No" schools anti-drugs campaign of the 1980s and 1990s had failed.
At the same time, the government signalled its intention to introduce tougher laws to cut drug- dealing in schools with the recommendation that drug dealers who target children at the school gate should be given three to five-year prison sentences.
Recent police research has revealed that in some areas drug dealers offer free cannabis to children in the hope that they will become hooked and work as dealers. The government also suggested that head teachers permanently exclude children caught dealing drugs.