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2 Poly L. Rev. 1 (1976-1977)

handle is hein.journals/polylawr2 and id is 1 raw text is: Volumie2 nol Autumn 1976 £1.25 Law Review Contents The Office of the Attorney General The Right Hon S C Silkin QC MP The Criminal Process, Error and Civil Liberties Howard Levenson LLB BJur A Mental Patient's Right to Vote L Gostin BA JD Mistaken Identity - Beck to Turnbull A Survey S J Elgrod, Solicitor PLR Interviews Peter Hain James de Siun Book Reviews dooks Received EDITORIAL 3 One issue on which the position of American President Jimmy Carter is clear is cannabis. He favours 'decriminalisation'. The word is an awkward Americanism, but to 'decriminalise' cannabis is not just 7 a euphemism for legalisation. Its use would not be officially approved. Rather, possession of cannabis in small amounts would be regarded as a minor injraction, roughly equivalent to a parking violation. It is the expression of an attitude based I 7 on civil libertarian principles and a cool consideration of the purposes of the criminal law. Carter's endorsement of this attitude is neither idiosyncratic nor a slip of the 22 tongue. A federal commission, most of the members of which had been appointed by then-President Nixon, came to the same conclusion in 1972. Eight states have now put the principle into law, 25 and bills to the same effect are being introduced in Congress. In a word, it has become respectable The1972 report was titled 'Marijuana: 31 a signal of misunderstanding'. Its recommendations were based partly on a recognition that the laws on cannabis 32 were having a disastrously divisive effect. Many young people could see no good reason why use of their recreational drug should be a serious crime while alcohol and tobacco were tolerated and even encouraged. This trend is not limited to the United States. Prison sentences for simple possession have been abolished in Canada, and proposals to reduce penalties further seem likely to become law. South Australia has taken similar steps, and the Government ofNew South Wales intends to follow. Police in Denmark and the Netherlands have stopped arresting people for possession of small amounts. Have they all taken leave of their senses? After all, cannabis has not yet been proved to be safe. As for its dangers, a cautious 'not proven' verdict is all that can be given for charges that the substance is injurious. Does Britain have the balance about right in providing a maximum sentence of six months imprisonment (or five years on indictment) for possession, tempered here and there by the leniency of some magistrates? In considering the value of any criminal statute it is useful to ask what purpose it serves and what it costs. The purpose of the law prohibiting cannabis is to protect people from doing injury to themselves, and, in the opinion of some, to prevent a rupture in the seamless web of society's morality. But the injury to be prevented has not been conclusively demonstrated, and it pales in comparison with the effects of alcohol and tobacco. The proposition that the criminal lau should be used to preserve a society's dominant morality is not self-evident. It was rejected explicitly by the Wofenden Report on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution and implicitly by subsequent changes in the law. What does it cost? We do not know how much is spent on enforcement of the law on cannabis. In terms of human cost, we know that nearly 8,000 people were convicted of simple possession last year, and that 514 were jailed. The relatively lenient fines imposed by magistrates in some areas contrast with harsh sentences in others. Whatever the penalty, the effect of a criminal conviction on lives and careers can be disastrous. Also, there is the unquantifiable effect on the attitudes of a substantial number of Britons, many of whom are young and many of whom are not white, of a law which makes a crime out of what they see as a harmless pastime. It is eighty years since the British Army Indian Hemp Commission concluded that moderate use of cannabis produced no injurious effects. It is nine years since a full-page advertisement in the Times denounced the law on cannabis as 'immoral in principle and unworkable in practice' over the signatures of many of the famous and near-famous of that decade. It is eight years since the Wootton Committee recommended that penalties should be drastically reduced. That recommendation was flatly rejected by the Home Secretary of the day, whose name was James Callaghan. Is it sensible to continue with Dr. Callaghan's mixture as before, or should we try the Carter prescription ? P

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