The Home Office again – including the strange case of the missing impact assessment V2

Toward the end of last year we heard rumours of a strangely very low profile study by the Home Office into the social costs of reclassifying cannabis back to class B under the Misuse of Drugs Act. This reclassification, you’ll remember, was our great leader’s idea when he took over from Tony Blair and, despite the advice from his own experts in the ACMD, the upgrading was pushed through last January.

The Impact Assessment was  something the government wanted to keep as quiet as possible because simply, it was “bad news”for Mr Brown. Indeed, it wasn’t even revealed to the House of Lords when they debated the issue. It listed the expected costs of reclassification which this blog highlighted back in December:

* It will cost around £50M in increased court and other costs. This is based on an assumption that the deterrent effect of the increased penalties will produce a significant reduction in the use of cannabis, an assumption for which there is no evidence. This figure does not include any extra cost for the prison service and so can be assumed to be a minimum estimate.

* Black and Ethnic minority communities will be disproportionally affected and this will impact on police community relations.

* The new regime will make no difference to the way the law is applied to children and young teenagers which is the main age group the government claims to be making the change to protect. The position will remain unchanged for under 18s who will continue to be dealt with under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998

* The change will make no difference to the way large scale dealing or cannabis production cases are treated by the law, which is the other main justification for making the change (ie to crack down on widespread cannabis farms).

* The increased focus on cannabis will mean a reduction in services for heroin and other drug users.

* It is hoped the reclassification will reduce antisocial behaviour caused by the use of cannabis, although there is no evidence to suggest it will.

* The decision  follows the advice from the ACMD not to reclassify and a public consultation which also came out against the move. So having consulted, the government ignored the findings.

* The move is being made to “satisfy public perception” rather than to address any clearly identified problem. By this they probably mean “placate the tabloid press”.

* Mention is made of the lack of real data at various points in the report.

The story was also covered on the Transform blog

So it was with interest that UKCIA heard just today that the link on this blog to  the document on the Home Office website didn’t work any more. The “Cannabis Reclassification Impact Assessment” used to be at

http://drugs.homeoffice.gov.uk/publication-search/cannabis/impactassessment?view=Binary

And this link worked fine back in December before quietly breaking, when it broke I have no idea.

The document is still online at the Home Office at a new URL of

http://drugs.homeoffice.gov.uk/publication-search/cannabis/impactassessment2?view=Binary

Look closely and you can see how the link was changed with the addition of “2” after the “/impactassement”. This can only have been a deliberate attempt to break existing links from sites such as UKCIA to a document they would rather was buried and out of public sight. Now from time to time UKCIA re-names webpages, it happens as the site gets updted, but all of our old links still work, the old addresses having re-directs. This is a very easy thing to do and, well, UKCIA is nice like that but clearly the Home Office isn’t.

Given the current debate about the need to reform our corrupt system of government, this has come to light at a very interesting time.

On the subject of  the Home Office drugs department,remember the comments I submitted to them about the cannabis information given on Talk to Frank? To recap: it was back on 16th April an e-mail was sent off to the Home Office – and acknowledged by them very quickly – pointing out errors in the advice given on Talk to Frank. Errors such as the claims that cannabis makes people sick (it has anti emetic properties), causes severe withdrawal symptoms such as “sweating, shaking and diarrhoea”and other issues. The acknowledgement from the Home Office promised a full reply as soon as possible. This blog published the full e-mail back on May 5th

The big story this week is that nothing has happened – still, well over a month later we’re still waiting for an answer.

Something is up. Documents are being hidden, valid comments are being ignored. It does seem as if the hatches are being fastened down to protect a policy which is very rapidly running into the sand. Far from being in any way based on evidence the UK cannabis policy is based on no more than the opinion of a failed leader of a lame duck administration.