POLICE IGNORE CANNABIS DEALERS IN ATTEMPT TO CRACK DOWN ON HARD DRUGS

Police have effectively abandoned the targeting of cannabis dealers to
concentrate on heroin and cocaine, the Scottish Executive confirmed last night.

Official figures obtained by Scotland on Sunday reveal that while police
forces are confiscating ever-increasing amounts of `Class A' drugs,
including heroin, seizures of "soft" drugs have fallen by up to 90%.

Although ministers have refused to tone down their official line on
cannabis, behind the scenes they have encouraged chief constables to throw
their full resources into the battle against hard drugs.

An Executive spokesman admitted: "There has been a change in policy. All
forces are now targeting hard drugs as the main priority rather than other
substances. Targets are set in terms of seizing Class A drugs.

"It does not mean we are completely ignoring Class B drugs, but Class A
drugs have been identified as the most pressing area for urgent action."

Bill Aitken, Scottish Conservative deputy spokesman on law and order,
reacted with fury to the figures. He said: "It would appear from the
derisory seizure for class B drugs that the Executive is largely turning a
blind eye to the use of so-called soft drugs such as cannabis. This clearly
demonstrates that its current approach of simply talking tough on drugs is
not working."

He added: "There is clear evidence that cannabis is a gateway drug that
leads users into abuse of even more dangerous drugs such as crack cocaine
and heroin. The evidence that we are losing this war at present can be seen
in the streets, the courts, the hospitals and in communities throughout
Scotland. These new figures are themselves a damning admission from the
Executive of the impotence of its own approach."

The figures, which were published by the Scottish Executive last week, show
that since 1998 police forces north of the Border have dramatically changed
their focus from soft to hard drugs.

In 1997, Scottish officers seized UKP 30.1m worth of class B drugs and UKP
2.3m worth of class A drugs, a pattern which the forces continued to follow
in 1998, as UKP 42.9m of soft drugs and UKP 5.5m of harder substances were
held.

However, in 1999, the last year for which Scotland-wide figures are
available, the picture was dramatically reversed. Officers seized UKP 16.4m
of hard drugs and just UKP 4.5m of soft drugs.

Latest figures from individual forces confirm police are continuing to
place less emphasis on soft drugs in their day-to-day inquiries. The latest
figures from Tayside show that the amount of cannabis seized fell by 60%
while the amount of heroin recovered increased 20-fold - from over UKP
300,000 in 1999 to UKP 111,000 worth of drugs in 2000. Meanwhile, the value
of heroin confiscated soared from UKP 8,500 to UKP 182,000.

Figures from Strathclyde Police, Scotland's largest force, show seizures of
soft drugs continue to fall as a proportion of total drugs confiscated. In
1998, 29% of all drugs seized were soft drugs. By 1999 that figure had
fallen to 10%, and last year only 6% of all drugs held were soft drugs.

Linda Hendry, the Scottish spokesperson for the Campaign to Legalise
Cannabis, said: "This is another demonstration of why cannabis should be
legalised. It is now more and more random whether people will be prosecuted
for using cannabis. That means that those who do happen to be prosecuted
are even more victimised than before."

But the go-easy policy on cannabis has not been put into practice
throughout Scotland. Biz Ivol, of St Margaret's in Orkney, who famously
sends MS-sufferers chocolates containing the drug as a palliative, was last
week raided by Orkney police.

She condemned the inconsistency in the law as it stands. She said: "It's
just crazy. They turn a blind eye to it in one place and here they are
clamping down on us for trying to help other people get over pain. It's a
scandal."