The new Liberal Democrat minister responsible for drugs policy, Norman Baker, has refused to rule out a policy of legalising cannabis but said that it is not his prime objective in the job.
"I think it needs to be considered along with everything else. It is not my prime objective and I am not advocating it at the moment. We should be prepared to follow the evidence and see where it takes us," he said.
The drugs minister has opposed a royal commission on drugs, saying that while superficially attractive it would be expensive and take a long time. He is currently completing a year-long Home Office comparison of international drug policies and is due to visit the Czech republic and Switzerland next week as part of his research.
Baker was making his first appearance on Tuesday as drugs minister before the Commons home affairs committee. MPs were keen to press him over whether he still held to his previously expressed personal views on drugs and conspiracy theories now he had a job in the Home Office.
At one point the radical drugs policy campaigner and Labour MP, Paul Flynn, asked him whether it was necessary to have a lobotomy before he could do his job given his previous views. Baker memorably replied: "Had I had had a lobotomy I wouldn't be able answer that question." His response was immediately nominated as quote of the day by Westminster blogger Paul Staines, aka Guido Fawkes.
MPs were also keen to press Baker on his position on the recent ban on the drug, qat, which is widely used in the Somali and Yemeni communities against the advice of the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs.
Baker confirmed that despite being the drugs minister, the home secretary, Theresa May, has ensured that the ban is being taken forward not by him but by the security minister, James Brokenshire.
Baker explained that the decision to ban the mild stimulant had been taken in July before he joined the department and mainly on the grounds that there was a serious risk that Britain could become a regional hub for illegal trafficking as the majority of other northern European countries had already banned it. He said that it was therefore more a matter for the security minister than the drugs minister.
Baker is in charge of the Home Office international study on drugs which was started by his Lib Dem predecessor, Jeremy Browne, in response to the Commons home affairs inquiry recommendation that it was time to set up a royal commission to consider all the alternatives to Britain's failing drug laws, including decriminalisation and legalisation.