Cannabis law to be tougher

He announced a review of the "softly softly" laws brought in three years ago that saw the number of prosecutions plummet.

It is likely to see the drug re-labelled as a Class B drug, with more arrests for users and stiff jail sentences for dealers.

It follows evidence, since the decision to downgrade cannabis to Class C, of a big increase in the use of stronger types such as skunk that are linked to psychotic illness, depression and suicides among young people.

The move to downgrade cannabis in January 2004 was initiated by former home secretary David Blunkett. It was meant to save 180,000 hours of police time but was widely seen as a major mistake of the Blair years.

The Prime Minister told MPs this afternoon that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith will unveil a new drugs strategy next week, which will focus on new ways to improve drugs education and "chase out" dealers.

"As part of the consultation, and the Cabinet discussed this yesterday, the Home Secretary will also consult on whether it is now right that cannabis should be moved from Class C to Class B," said Mr Brown.

It is the latest spectacular ditching of a controversial decision made under Tony Blair, coming a week after Mr Brown scrapped supercasinos.

Among the MPs in the Commons was Charles Clarke, the former home secretary who rejected calls for the drug to be reclassified as Class B in 2005. The new review was debated "at length" by the full Cabinet and senior ministers backed the decision. Tougher laws will please campaigners who were alarmed that many people failed to realise that modern strains of the drug could cause or worsen illnesses such as schizophrenia in some people. Shadow home secretary David Davis said Labour should have acted years ago because it had been clear that softer drugs laws were a mistake. "We would welcome the reclassification of cannabis," he said.

"Drugs are a scourge on society and a major cause of crime which Labour has failed to tackle."

Keith Hellawell, the former government drugs czar who quit after cannabis was downgraded, said he hoped the review would reverse a massive mistake.

"There was never any justification for it being reclassified," he said. "It was at the whim of David Blunkett.

"It was a perverse decision that in my view put back drugs policy in this country for more than a decade.

"It is clearly something the Government is embarrassed by and is trying to resolve."

New research by the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit has shown that the average cannabis smoker uses almost twice as much of the drug - 44.5 grammes a year - as in 1994, when the figure was 24.8 grammes.

Downgrading cannabis was blamed for causing confusion over whether it was lawful to smoke cannabis at home or even in public places. That was made worse by police guidelines introducing a "presumption against arrest" for users.

In June last year, the Met announced that in Lambeth its officers would not arrest anyone caught with a small amount of cannabis but instead would caution them.

The Police Federation later claimed that the six-month experiment had failed and that cannabis was now being smoked openly on the streets of Brixton. It was claimed to have resulted in an increase in crack dealers in the area.

Brian Paddick, the senior Scotland Yard officer who pioneered the " softly softly" approach to cannabis in Lambeth, said in 2005 he had never recommended downgrading the drug.

A Home Office spokesman said today that the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) will be asked to review the danger from the wider availability of "skunk".