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Tittel:	The Wootton Retort: The Decriminalisation of Cannabis in Britain
Forfatter:	Abrams, Stephen
Språk:	Engelsk
Kildeadresse:	Vis og kopier kildeadressen
Publisert:	1997
Emner:	Historisk bakgrunn, Kriminalisering og legalisering, Helse,

 

THE WOOTTON RETORT

The Decriminalisation of Cannabis in Britain

 

by

 

Stephen Abrams

 

June 1997, revised August 1997; version 1.01

 

 

 

 

 

Stephen Abrams was Head of the Soma Research Association and Joint-Managing Director of Avalon Botanicals from 1967 to 1970. He was the author of the Soma advertisement in The Times and a witness before the Wootton Sub-Committee.

 

 

Summary

 

Up to the mid 1960s, the majority of cannabis offenders in Britain were imprisoned. The law did not distinguish between cannabis and heroin or between use and supply. The schedule of penalties encouraged imprisonment of first offenders.

 

In July 1967, the Times published a full paged advertisement in support of cannabis law reform. The advertisement described the existing law as "immoral" and "unworkable" but stopped short of proposing legalisation or "decriminalisation." The advertisement cited evidence that cannabis is "the least harmful pleasure-giving drug, probably much safer than alcohol or tobacco." It said that users of cannabis should not have to face the prospect of imprisonment and that the law should be amended to abolish absolute offences and to permit medical and research applications. The advertisement was sponsored by the Soma Research Association and was signed by sixty-five people, including Francis Crick, Graham Greene, nine doctors, members of Parliament and The Beatles.

 

The purpose of the advertisement was to influence the terms of reference of the so-called "Wootton Committee", the Sub-Committee on Hallucinogens of the Home Office Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence. The aim was to persuade the Sub-Committee to go beyond their brief to report on cannabis alone and to make proposals for law reform. One member of the Sub-Committee signed the advertisement, and another allowed his name to be used to solicit signatures.

 

In October 1968, the Advisory Committee submitted the "Wootton Report" on Cannabis to the Home Secretary, James Callaghan. The Report was published on his authority in January 1969. The "Wootton Report" endorsed the Times advertisement and gave cannabis something close to a clean bill of health. The Report concluded: "The long term consumption of cannabis in moderate doses has no harmful effects." With respect to law reform, the principal recommendation was a modest proposal that "possession of a small amount should not normally be punished by imprisonment." To this end, the Sub-Committee proposed that new drugs legislation should distinguish between hard and soft drugs and that in the case of possession of cannabis, the maximum penalty on summary conviction should be reduced from one year to four months. Offences with a maximum sentence of six months or less rarely incur prison sentences.

 

In 1970 James Callaghan introduced new legislation to implement the main proposals of the "Wootton Report". This legislation was reintroduced by the incoming conservative government and became law as the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The Act reduced the maximum penalty for possession by half, to six months. When the legislation gained the royal assent, the Lord Chancellor instructed magistrates to "reserve the sentence of imprisonment for suitably flagrant cases of large-scale trafficking."

 

In 1976 the maximum penalty on summary conviction was again reduced by half, to three months, one month less the maximum proposed in the "Wootton Report".

 

In 1979 the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (the statutory successor to the Advisory Committee) proposed further reforms whose effect would be to remove the remaining powers of the courts to sentence offenders to imprisonment. These proposals were reiterated in a second expert Report on Cannabis, in 1982. The response of the Thatcher government was to move in the direction of decriminalisation by introducing cautioning and compounding (small on the spot fines for smuggling).

 

By the beginning of the 1990s, the majority of cannabis offenders were cautioned and thus escaped without a criminal conviction. Cases which do reach the courts normally result in discharges or small fines. Sentencing guidelines prevent imprisonment of minor offenders.

 

When the Times finally came out for legalisation of cannabis, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Soma advertisement, the leading article said, "the law against cannabis is all but unenforced."

 

This straight-forward account of cannabis law reform in Britain has been consistently denied by the media, politicians and drugs experts, who maintain that the Times advertisement was a failed initiative for legalisation, that James Callaghan firmly rejected the "Wootton Report", and that the Misuse of Drugs Act increased the penalties for cannabis offences.