Given the way that the Government has staggered from policy to policy on the classification of cannabis, you might be forgiven for wondering just who has been smoking something. In the face of advice from the very independent experts it commissioned to advise it on the matter, the Government announced plans yesterday to reclassify cannabis as a Class B drug, reversing its policy of 2004 when it downgraded cannabis from B to C.

Considering that the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs recommended keeping the classification at C; and that cannabis use has fallen in the four years since it was downgraded; and also that there is scant indication that reclassification will materially alter how severely cannabis possession is policed, there would appear to be little reason now to reclassify the drug, except as a gesture of political braggadocio. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, told the House of Commons that she saw “a compelling case for us to act now, rather than risk the future health of young people”, even though she also said she accepted all the advisory council's 21 recommendations “bar those relating to classification”. This is like ticking every answer in an examinee's test paper, and then deciding to fail the pupil anyway.

The Government appears to want to send a message - though given that the council was asked last July to revisit the classification of cannabis, this message may have been intended by Gordon Brown to woo voters for what proved to be a phantom autumn election. When Tony Blair addressed the Royal Society in 2002, he won over his audience by purring that “science matters”. Yesterday Jacqui Smith added: sort of.