CANNABIS THE WRONG TARGET

On a nightly basis we read in the Oldham Chronicle the effects of crime on
our town -muggings, alcohol fueled mayhem in the town centre, vicious racist
attacks using knives and machetes, rape and serious sexual assaults. We now
have a least three so called no go areas, Werneth, Westwood and Glodwick,
where many people are afraid to walk the streets at night. We hear how
stretched our police are in dealing with the rising tide of violence and
destruction around us. We read letters from frustrated crime victims
apparantly unable to get an adequate response when calling their local
police stations.

Of course these problems are not parculiar to Oldham, but there is one area
of criminal activity where the police, both nationally and locally are doing
spectacularly well. In the last ten years, arrests and prosecutions for
simple possession of cannabis have quadrupled and now number almost 100,000
annually. This despite the fact that the number of police officers
patrolling our streets is in decline. Ann Widdecombe was rightly lambasted
for her 'Zero Tolerance' to cannabis speech, but in reality successive
governments have been steering us towards such a policy for some time. The
police resources wasted on chasing cannabis smokers would be much better
spent in the pursuit of a 'Zero Tolerance' policy against the real criminals
that are causing so much damage to society.

JUST SAY NO TO 'ZERO TOLERANCE'