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Drug Classification

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the Government’s difficulties is the public perception that the classification system is so linked to the criminal justice system that to decouple the two would cause irreparable harm to their fight against drugs? The Committee was suggesting—there is a genuine misunderstanding—not that the criminal justice system should not be looked at with regard to drugs, but that the classification system, in being decoupled, should have a clear evidence base for where drugs are placed in relation to each other in a classification of harm, leaving the Home Office, the Minister and his colleagues to look at policy on the criminal justice system. That is a real difficulty.