Following a vote by the Scottish National Party supporting the decriminalization of medical cannabis and calling on the UK government to allow the Scottish government to regulate the drug, the Home Office said it has no plans to neither devolve drug laws nor transfer regulation oversight, the Scotsman reports.
A spokesman for the SNP said that the motion could not be simply overlooked because, according to David Liddel, chief executive of the Scottish Drugs Forum, cannabis legalization and decriminalization “are now part of the mainstream debate.”
“It is important to note that while the drug laws are a reserved to Westminster, the Crown and Police Scotland have significant powers in terms of enforcing laws particularly around possession of drugs,” he said in the report. “As ever there is a need for an informed open debate on drug laws and the wider issues of problem drug use and its causes, consequences and how Scotland responds to these challenges.”
According to a spokeswoman for the Home Office, the decision is due to a need for medical trials of cannabis.
“There is a clear regime in place, administered by the Medicines and Healthcare Products regulatory agency to enable medicines, including those containing controlled drugs, to be developed,” she said.
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