BRITAIN'S CANNABIS 'SAFE HAVEN'

Police In London's Gritty Brixton Neighbourhood Are Losing The War On
Drugs, So The Police Chief Is Experimenting With Not Enforcing Marijuana Laws.

When they kick at your front door in Brixton, chances are it won't be for
drugs. Earlier this month, police in the south London borough of Lambeth,
where Brixton is located, began a six-month experiment in which they are
supposed to ignore minor marijuana offences. In one of the most serious
attacks yet on Britain's harsh drug laws, Brian Paddick, the local police
commander, has instructed his force to turn a blind eye to citizens caught
with the drug. His success or failure will be a key factor in the growing
national debate over the future of the country's war on drugs.

Britain has some of Europe's harshest drug laws -- a minor marijuana bust
can bring up to six months in jail, with a fine of 5,000 pounds (about
$7,000). But according to an exhaustive report on U.K. drug policy
published last year by the Police Foundation, a think-tank partly funded by
the government, this policy has largely failed. Meanwhile, Britain has
developed Europe's biggest drug problem.

Moreover, as many police officers will readily admit, enforcement is a
mess. About 90 per cent of drug arrests are for possession, and of those,
around 75 per cent are for possession of cannabis. Yet with the exception
of Lambeth's experimental program, there is no efficient way to handle
simple possession cases.

Drug arrests in Britain are a bureaucratic nightmare for police, requiring
up to five hours of paperwork and other red tape to process a suspect --
time many believe could be better spent on the streets fighting more
serious crime. And officers who choose to go against policy and not make
arrests are thereby eroding the authority of the police.

The result is a system that is plugged with minor drug crimes and a
population that increasingly thinks the drug laws are inappropriately
harsh. As has happened in the United States, police in the U.K. have come
under fire for their stop-and-search policies and profiling of potential
drug users and dealers.

Such tactics have drawn strong criticism in ethnically mixed neighbourhoods
such as Brixton. Stop and search "has done little to engender good
relations between community and police," says Danny Kushlick, director of
Transform, an organization that campaigns to reform drug laws. The Lambeth
initiative "will help in that regard," he believes.

Under the new rules, the police in Lambeth may confiscate your joint, but
the most that will happen to you otherwise is a scolding, formally called a
"caution." A caution involves about the same level of bureaucracy as a
traffic ticket: The officer seizes the drug, and the person who is busted
must sign the warning. That's the most lenient punishment police can issue
after an arrest.

But despite its toothless name, a caution bites. It still requires a hefty
dose of desk time for police -- and it can create legal problems for the
recipient because it requires an admission of guilt. Worse, a caution shows
up on a person's permanent police record, which often must be revealed, for
example, to potential employers. And a caution can cause real trouble for
anybody working in fields such as child care and health care, or anybody
seeking a visa to live abroad.

Still, the initiative is the first step in a long journey for a country
that has recently begun to show a willingness to experiment with
alternatives to the strict enforcement of drug laws. Scotland, which enjoys
a degree of autonomous rule, has gone possibly the furthest by developing a
range of penalties for drug use or possession -- including warning letters
and fines -- that require neither reams of paperwork by the police nor an
admission of guilt by the person they've collared.

Most of the experiments involve treatment of hardcore addicts following a
bust. There is a growing interest in alternatives to incarceration for hard
drug users in Britain, including a pilot program that supplies
pharmaceutical-grade heroin to addicts and then slowly reduces their dosage
until they are no longer addicted.

Judges increasingly seek to get addicts into rehabilitation programs
instead of prisons. Yet most of these solutions deal with hard drugs, not
cannabis, and occur only after an arrest has taken place, not before.

It's not surprising, then, that politicians and policy experts are keenly
interested in the Lambeth experiment. Seldom does police pragmatism square
so neatly with the will of drug-law-reform activists, and the 65 per cent
of voters who, according to a recent survey by the left-leaning Guardian
newspaper, think marijuana possession should be the lowest priority for
police. And nowhere has reform become more symbolic than in Brixton, a
rough corner of Lambeth known for its great night life, serious crime and
bad drug problem.

No matter what comes of the Lambeth trial, Britain is still in the Stone
Age compared to drug law reform in Europe. Most North Americans are aware
of the Netherlands' lenient approach to marijuana, which has
decriminalized, but not legalized, possession and distribution of small
quantities of marijuana.

Other European countries aren't far behind. Belgium recently decriminalized
possession of small quantities of marijuana for any person over age 18, and
both Italy and Spain have dropped criminal charges for possession of small
amounts while retaining administrative penalties and fines. And in 1994,
under a challenge made to German law, the nation's Constitutional Court
ruled that turning minor cannabis offenders into criminals was
unconstitutional. Although anti-cannabis laws remain on the books in
Germany, almost no charges for possession have been brought since then.

The police may have been concocting the Lambeth scheme for ages, but it
would never have come into existence without at least the tacit support of
the government. Credit Tony Blair's Labour government with creating an
environment in which the experiment could take place. David Blunkett, the
new home secretary, has been in office only a few weeks, but has already
made his mark on the drug debate: first by firing the ineffectual drug czar
and eliminating the office, and then by allowing the Lambeth experiment to
move forward.

Some members of the opposition Conservative Party have gone even further.
Peter Lilley, who as former deputy leader of the Tories has solid
right-wing credentials has made a call for full-scale legalization of
marijuana. Although some party members consider the proposal outrageous,
Mr. Lilley has some influential backers, including Charles Moore, editor of
the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Despite the Lambeth experiment, and the apparent political support for it,
there is little evidence that Britain's politicians are preparing to follow
their European neighbours down the path to decriminalization.

The Labour government is unlikely to risk being called soft on crime by
pushing for all-out change. And despite Mr. Lilley's position, the
Conservatives never have been a true libertarian party.

Ann Widdecombe, a leading hard-line Conservative and critic of the Lambeth
initiative, presses a completely different line. Ms. Widdecombe recently
told a Sunday Independent reporter: "The Conservative Party is opposed to
legalization and, indeed, decriminalization. If we legalize cannabis, it is
very unlikely that the drug barons would just go home."

Still, the experiment has catalyzed public debate over the country's drug
laws. As a compromise between extant legislation and the reality of
enforcement police routinely confront, it may well point the way toward
decriminalization by default -- a situation similar to Germany's, where the
laws remain on the books but are seldom used.

Just days after Lambeth's police chief announced the launch of the pilot
program, British police and customs officials said they would no longer
hunt down marijuana smugglers. If officers stumble across marijuana in
their pursuit of heroin and cocaine smugglers, they will confiscate it and
make arrests. But they won't target the drug. The war on marijuana, blared
the tabloids, is over.

That is, of course, an exaggeration. Growing, dealing or possessing
cannabis is still a crime in Britain and the penalties are, by and large,
still enforced.

However, for the next six months at least, Brixton will remain a safe
haven. And what is happening there is both remarkable and ordinary: People
are going about their lives as before, the smell of marijuana floats in the
air no more frequently than before, and the drug dealers hustle as they
always have. Except for one thing: Now a dreadlocked man has positioned
himself at the exit to the Brixton Underground station.

As the station disgorges commuters, he calls out in his thick Jamaican
accent: "Ganja! Sinsemilla! Don't be afraid to smoke in Brixton!"