THE CONSEQUENCES of drug driving are being highlighted in a new TV advertising campaign being launched by South Yorkshire Police this week.

Aimed specifically at male drivers aged between 17 to 30-years-old, as they are the group that predominantly return the highest number of positive drug tests at the roadside, the advert will be aired on Sky TV.

To run over four weeks on the small screen, the advertisement is funded by the South Yorkshire Safer Roads Partnership.

MPs have spoken out against the legalisation of cannabis during a Parliamentary debate.

A Westminster Hall debate was held on Monday in response to an online petition calling for the production, sale and use of cannabis to be legalised.

Home Office Minister Mike Penning MP said that the Government would not support the call.

‘Disaster’

Cannabis was downgraded from a Class B drug to a Class C drug in 2004 in a move which was later branded a “disaster”.

In the three years following the downgrade, the number of cannabis users receiving NHS treatment doubled. The number of children aged 15-and-under being treated for mental illness also rose dramatically.

A British man jailed in Indonesia for possession of drugs has reportedly been released from prison.

Paul Beales was sentenced to four years in December 2012 in a case which involved three other Britons, one of whom is facing death by firing squad.

Beales was found guilty of illegal possession of cannabis after being arrested with Rachel Dougall and her partner Julian Ponder earlier that year in a sting operation against alleged drug traffickers.

They were held alongside Lindsay Sandiford, from Cheltenham, who was found with cocaine worth about £1.6 million as she arrived on the island three years ago.

Just 14 out of a possible 650 MPs attended a parliamentary debate on whether Britain should legalise the production, sale and use of cannabis, despite it being triggered by a petition that attracted nearly a quarter of a million signatures.

The debate in Westminster Hall was scheduled after a petition arguing legalising cannabis couldbring in £900m ($1.3bn) in taxes every year to the UK, save £400m on policing, and create over 10,000 new jobs was signed by 220,000 people, making it the third most popular parliamentary petition ever.

Exclusive: Private analysis for the Treasury concludes that regulation could also produce huge savings for the justice system

Legalising cannabis would raise taxes worth hundreds of millions of pounds and produce large savings for the criminal justice system, a private analysis for the Treasury has concluded.

It judged that regulating cannabis, which was used by more than two million people in the UK last year, could generate “notable tax revenue” and “lead to overall savings to public services”.

The Treasury study, seen by The Independent, was commissioned by the former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg ahead of the general election to help formulate Liberal Democrat drugs policy if the party remained in office.