Cannabis — reclassification from class C back to class B — 12 Nov 2008 at 21:01

The majority of MPs voted to reclassify cannabis from a class C to a class B drug^[1] by approving the The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2008.

This order reversed the reclassification of cannabis from class B to class C that was voted on by MPs in 2003 -- in which all the Labour MPs switched sides, while the other parties remained consistent.^[2]

No debate was scheduled among MPs on this order (though there was a debate in the Lords),^[3] and there nearly was no vote at all.

The vote only happened because an MP in the Commons chamber on 10 November was able to follow the absolutely opaque procedures and shout "Object" at exactly the right moment, and then have enough of friends around to shout "No" when the speaker muttered the words "Motion number twelve". The exchange is available on video.

Although Parliament widely applies computers to the production of printed documents at an ever increasing volume, its procedures and accountability for what it does remain stuck in the 19th century -- when such volumes of information were far less insurmountable. For example, they do not use a system for uniquely tagging these orders so that computers could create databases to link up all the official instances of an order in Parliament in order to allow people to navigate through this overwhelming mass of misfiled data. Instead, it has taken me over an hour to locate and verify this vote on this Order and create this page so that people can actually find out where their democratic representative stands on an issue. If the information is not available to the public, then the election of these representatives by the public cannot be informed by it, and their basis for claiming an irrevokable mandate for their political judgment is open to dispute.

• [1] Class A, B and C drugs, Home Office
• [2] Cannabis - reclassification from class B to class C, House of Commons Division, 29 Oct 2003
• [3] Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2008, House of Lords, 25 November 2008

Debate in Parliament | Source |