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Drug Strategy

One of the pressing arguments that persuaded the then Home Secretary to change the classification was evidence from parents of young people who had died of heroin poisoning. They said that their young people had gone through the following journey. They had been told that cannabis is a terribly dangerous drug, but then when they used it they found that they did not have great problems with it. Therefore, they disbelieved the fables they had been told, so they then disbelieved what they thought were fables about heroin. The idea was to make a difference between the classifications of cannabis—which has its dangers, of course—and heroin, which is far more dangerous.