Cannabis upgraded to class B

It may not be the real thing but it doesn't matter any more. The government wants anything that might be seen as glamorising the use of cannabis to come with a health warning or a penalty. This is the new message accompanying its decision, against the advice of experts, to upgrade weed from a class-C to a class-B drug.

Ministerial spliffs

Reclassification wasn't important for Gordon Brown and his cabinet when it was first mooted. Ministers were then encouraged to own up to the odd spliff to try to embarrass the Tories. But now the government's priorities appear to have changed. The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, announced today that cannabis will be upgraded to the more serious class of drug.

What has happened since the government first reclassified cannabis, downgrading it, four years ago, is an explosion in cannabis farms - 1,700 were uncovered in one year alone. Organised crime has been getting a grip on a market serving some two-and-a-half million users, with little in the way of a coordinated police response.

The rise of skunk

However, the only significant change on the cannabis scene acknowledged by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs is that the more concentrated homegrown form known as skunk is now the UK's best-seller.

But that is not enough to justify reclassifying it again, according to the council's members, who voted by 20 to 3 against such a move.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs said the Blair government's decision to make cannabis a class-C drug should remain in place.

But Jacqui Smith said change was needed because of the "increased strength" of cannabis and its effect on young people's mental health.

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