RELAXING CANNABIS LAW 'WILL SAVE UKP1 MILLION'

Relaxing the law on cannabis will save the Metropolitan Police a
million pounds a year in police time, a senior Scotland Yard officer
said today.

By April 2005 the Met expects to have clawed back up to a million
pounds in savings of officer time - the equivalent of 23 extra
officers on the streets.

Commander Steve James of the Met's drug directorate told the
Metropolitan Police Authority the figure amounts to a "significant
business saving".

The figures are a projection of the UKP421,167 savings in police time
recorded between April and August this year.

Cannabis was declassified from a B drug to a C class drug in January
this year. This allowed police to deal with many cases with a warning
but the drug remained illegal to use or sell.

Mr James said: "Over the whole year we feel we will now save around a
million pounds against the budget which amounts to between 20 and 23
full-time police officers being deployed to the streets of London.

"We believe that this policy is having a sensible impact."

Between April and August this year 8,148 people were arrested or
accused of cannabis possession, compared with 6,231 for the same
period in 2003.

Despite the rise in seizures, the change in the law has saved
officers' time because actual arrests have fallen.

Mr James stressed that cannabis had not been decriminalised. Some
young people understood this but have tried to flout the change in the
law to continue smoking cannabis freely.

He said: "Young people do understand it but we have given them an
excuse. They have heard the message but they are able to use it as an
excuse.

"We can explain it and explain it but there must come a time when we
say they can assimilate that message but they are using it to their
own ends."