I was daft to get on to it in the first

“I was daft to get on to it in the first place but it is just too easy,” said Mr Simpson. “I started off on prescription painkillers and when someone offered me some heroin I stupidly took it.”I was in tears when I came in the first time, saying I had to get off the stuff. I have been on the programme for a while and it is a great treatment As long as people want it to work it does seem to. The best thing is not to get on it in the first place.” How the law will work Where are we exactly with this cannabis thing?The drug will be downgraded from Class B to a Class C by July 2003.

The police are to expand Brixton’s controversial “seize and warn” policy across London by the autumn.Does that mean I can sit on the steps of Brixton police station and skin up?No. It will still be illegal to possess cannabis and users can still be arrested for “aggravating factors” such as the involvement of children or “flagrant disregard” of the law. For simple possession the police are more likely to seize the drug and issue a warning.What happens if they do?If you are arrested and charged you will face a maximum prison sentence of two years.So, if I’ve got my stash in my pocket I’m fine?As long as nobody knows it is there and it’s not a large stash.What if I buy it with friends?The maximum penalty for dealing is to be increased from five to 14 years. Mr Blunkett specifically rejected calls for a lesser crime of “social dealing”.How much would I have to have on me before police thought I was a dealer?That depends. In reality you could probably get away with an ounce, which is worth about £100, but not if you were also caught carrying weighing scales or large amounts of cash.When will it be OK to take it around the rest of the UK?It will not be OK to have a stash of anything anywhere, and you will have to wait until next July before the downgrading of cannabis comes into effect throughout the UK.What about other drugs? Cannabis has been downgraded to allow police to concentrate on class A drug dealers – heroin, crack, cocaine and ecstasy.Andrew Johnson.

Spain, already sore over its thwarted claim to Gibraltar, writhed with humiliation yesterday following the comic-opera “invasion” by Morocco of a disputed islet off a Spanish enclave on the north African coast. act of hostility”.While Morocco flung itself into a weekend of wedding celebrations for King Mohammed VI, Spain’s newly-appointed Foreign Minister, Ana Palacio, downplayed the incident, which some in the Spanish media are whipping up into a mini-Falklands crisis.Ms Palacio said that she had phoned her Moroccan counterpart, Mohamed Benaissa, for a conversation she hoped “would help to provide a satisfactory solution”. She also hoped the Moroccans would understand that their action was “incompatible” with the Spanish-Moroccan friendship treaty of 1991, “even though this is not going through its best moments”.Ms Palacio pointedly made no Spanish claim to the island of Perejil, simply urging Morocco to withdraw and “restore the status quo” Yesterday Morocco refused to budge. Ownership of the half-mile island, which the Moroccans call Leila, home to goats since the last Spanish legionary quit in the 1960s, swung from one power to the other down the centuries, and its present status is – as Spanish officials have to admit – a fudge.Rabat justifies Thursday’s seizure by 12 Moroccan gendarmes bearing two flags and two tents as an attempt to curb the trafficking of illegal immigrants and drugs across the 12-mile strait between Morocco and Spain.

Its reasoning was summed up by one Moroccan yesterday: “This island is attached to our land, and has always been considered part of Morocco.”The timing has caused maximum embarrassment in Madrid, exposing a foreign policy vacuum while the new minister scrambles to settle in. The clash of claims over a rock inevitably throws up comparisons unflattering to Spain over Gibraltar, at the moment when negotiations over the British colony have stalled.There was speculation that Rabat’s seizure of the island was a cheeky warning to Madrid that it believes it has as good a case for claiming Ceuta and Melilla, Spain’s other enclave in Morocco. Madrid says they are not mere colonies, such as Gibraltar, but parts of Spain whose residents opted for Spanish nationhood.Indeed, irate Ceutis yesterday warned darkly of fears they would be next: “If they let the moros get away with this, there’ll be no stopping them,” said one. Irate Gibraltarians made similar dark warnings over Spain’s ambitions following Jack Straw’s announcement on Friday that he would press ahead with plans to share sovereignty over the Rock with Spain.Perejil formed part of the Spanish protectorate of northern Morocco, handed back to Rabat in 1956, except for Ceuta and Melilla. Spain considered Perejil part of Ceuta, but after objections from Rabat, did not mention the islet in the final document..