Cannabis News Students for Sensible Drug Policy
  Community Backs Cannabis Pilot Scheme
Posted by FoM on March 21, 2002 at 19:44:40 PT
By Nick Hopkins, Crime Correspondent 
Source: Guardian Unlimited 

cannabis The Lambeth cannabis experiment pioneered by the maverick police commander Brian Paddick received timely support yesterday from two separate studies that show it is extremely popular in the community and spares officers hundreds of hours of administration.

Three days after Mr Paddick was removed from his post because of allegations that he smoked cannabis regularly, the Police Foundation reported that 83% of people living in Lambeth were in favour of the initiative, which allows officers to caution rather than arrest people caught in possession of the drug so that they can concentrate on tackling more serious crimes. Only 8% disapproved of the move.

As revealed in the Guardian last month, the Met's own review of the scheme found that over six months officers saved 1,350 hours. Under the old practice they would have spent that time filling out forms. In turn, civilian staff, who deal with the paperwork, were released from 1,150 hours of processing and filing.

"There are clear merits to the scheme in terms of freeing up officers to do other duties," said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Mike Fuller, head of Scotland Yard's drugs directorate. "But more work has to be done. We need to feel confident that there have been no detrimental effects that we haven't been able to measure yet, such as the impact that it has had on other crime in the area."

Mr Fuller said the force would wait to see whether the home secretary, David Blunkett, reclassified cannabis from class B to C before deciding whether to introduce the initiative in other areas. It will continue in Lambeth.

Asked by the Met to test opinion about the project in south London, the Police Foundation commissioned Mori to interview 2,055 Lambeth residents in November and December last year.

In addition to the 83% who either supported the Lambeth experiment outright or conditionally, 64% thought that the scheme would "improve relations between the police and the community" and 71% said it was "a better way of dealing with young people who use cannabis".

But the survey showed that there was considerable confusion in the borough over what the experiment actually meant. Forty-one per cent of those asked said they knew nothing about it at all and out of the 56% who claimed they did, some believed that cannabis had been legalised or decriminalised.

Speaking to the Metropolitan police authority yesterday morning, Scotland Yard commissioner Sir John Stevens stressed that support for the experiment was not divided along racial lines. He said a larger percentage of white residents than black or Asian residents supported the scheme.

Asked about its impact, 74% of those interviewed agreed that the police would redirect resources into tackling serious offences but nearly half of them thought the extra effort would make no difference to crime levels. Nearly one-fifth thought serious crime would actually increase.

In a national survey conducted in January and February, the Police Foundation discovered that opinions across the country did not differ greatly from those in Lambeth; 76% of 1,952 people questioned gave outright or conditional support to a Lambeth-style scheme being introduced to their own area.

William Saulsbury, the assistant director of the Police Foundation, said he was surprised that the mood of the country seemed to reflect the views of residents in Lambeth.

He added: "There is strong evidence that a high proportion of Lambeth residents support the scheme as a rational approach on the part of the police. They recognise that such a scheme does not offer a magic wand for reducing serious crime and use of hard drugs, but they expect that the time saved with the new approach will be put to those ends."

The separate police study showed that 450 warnings had been issued to people found with small amounts of cannabis during the six-month trial, which started in July last year. There was a 35% increase in the number of stops for possession and an 11% increase in trafficking offences.

The Met is wary about the attitude of officers to the experiment. Only 10% of Lambeth's 800-strong force filled in a questionnaire, and many of those complained that cautioning rather than arresting offenders restricted efforts to disrupt street crime.

Mr Fuller also said the public was unclear about what was happening and thought drugs were being legalised: "There are some flaws that need to be ironed out... communication is going to be a key issue in any new scheme which arises from the pilot."

Special Report: Drugs in Britain: http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/0,2759,178206,00.html

Note: Softly, softly approach criticised by some officers.

Source: Guardian Unlimited, The (UK)
Author: Nick Hopkins, Crime Correspondent
Published: Friday, March 22, 2002
Copyright: 2002 Guardian Newspapers Limited
Contact: letters@guardian.co.uk
Website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/

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Comment #2 posted by Jose Melendez on March 23, 2002 at 17:09:25 PT:

what did I say?
Buy Virgin Airlines.

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Comment #1 posted by FoM on March 23, 2002 at 15:10:38 PT
CNN Transcripts: Cannabis & The UK
Britain May Make Cannabis a Lower-Schedule Drug

CNN SATURDAY MORNING NEWS

Aired March 23, 2002 - 07:27 ET

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: You know, this is one of those stories that the writers who sit behind us just wait for, right?

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Because it allows them to employ every pun that they can possibly imagine.

PHILLIPS: Creative writing to the highest.

O'BRIEN: So submitted -- You did it.

Complete Transcripts: http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0203/23/smn.04.html

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