Some Progress.... In January 2004 the British Government, after much dithering, finally reclassified cannabis from class B to class C, roughly approximating to a move from the US schedule II to III. The effect was that possession of cannabis for personal use, whilst still technically a criminal offence, would no longer be an arrestable offence.

In many ways this move was of huge symbolic importance - being the first time since the drug laws were introduced last century that they had witnessed any positive reform - but in legislative terms fairly insignificant. In reality it merely enshrined officially what had been happening in practice for years - the police putting their limited resources where they felt they were more usefully deployed.

To read more, subscribe today