A WIGAN teacher has been banned from the country’s classrooms for at least five years after being caught growing cannabis at his home.

The ban was imposed on Alan Taylor, 43, by Education Secretary Michael Gove, following a disciplinary panel finding that Taylor was guilty of breaching the standard of conduct expected of teachers.

It is the second time that Taylor – who taught science at Westleigh High - has found himself before a disciplinary panel over his cannabis use.

GW Pharmaceuticals, the biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercialising novel therapeutics from its proprietary cannabinoid product platform, announced that Sativex®, its treatment for spasticity in Multiple Sclerosis, has today been rescheduled in the UK from Schedule 1 under the Misuse of Drugs Act to Schedule 4, part 1. The move follows a recommendation to the Home Office by the Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), which determined that Sativex® has a low potential for abuse and low risk of diversion.

Criminologist Professor Alex Stevens has refuted media reports that reducing penalties for cannabis possession has led to increased drug use, crime and health problems. He said published data shows that these claims are unfounded and in fact highlight that cannabis use and crime have gone down since the 2004 declassification of cannabis to a class C substance.

He said: ‘Government policy on cannabis hit the headlines again recently, when both the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph ran articles on it claiming reductions in penalties for users of the drug have increased both crime and drug-related hospital admissions. If cannabis declassification did cause these effects, it would be an interesting and novel finding. Most researchers who have studied this issue have found little evidence of changes in use or related harms as a result of changes to penalties for users.

A few weeks ago I had a coffee with one of the most admired Tory thinkers. A radical libertarian, he spent his time railing against the interventions of Europe and inadequacies of government, arguing how they combined to infringe basic freedoms. Given the stridency of his views and hostility to the state, I asked if he supported the legalisation of drugs. "Oh no," he said. "That's totally different. It's just wrong."

TWO brothers who ran an online drug-dealing business dubbed “Amazon for drugs” have been locked up.

Michael and Alan Burns took orders over the internet, which they sent across the world from their local post office.

A website registered to Alan Burns, 24, offered cannabis, diazepam and a psychedelic drug known as 2C-B for sale.