POLICE URGE RETURN TO TOUGH LINE ON CANNABIS

Police Claim Drug Dealers Openly Flout the Law

Officers Fear Community Backlash Over Arrests

Police are demanding a U-turn over the softening of the law on
cannabis, claiming it has brought a 'sense of lawlessness' to the
streets as smokers flaunt their habit. Officers say more people are
openly taking and selling cannabis in public, with calculated attempts
to provoke retaliation, according to the chair of the Police Federation.

Jan Berry said her members were 'walking on eggshells' amid tensions
over whether they treated different groups in their communities
differently for smoking in the streets.

Six months after the government downgraded cannabis to a Class C drug,
there was still widespread confusion about how to treat blatant
smokers who went beyond 'acceptable behaviour' in public, she said.

'If a person insists on doing something to get themselves arrested,
you can use your skills to try and calm them,' said Berry, whose
organisation represents frontline officers. But 'there will be other
people watching how you react, if you react in one way to a group of
people and not the same to somebody else. It's very often walking on
eggshells.'

The legal change, which means that people can still be arrested for
possessing cannabis but are unlikely to be, had left officers
confused, Berry said.

Many would not, for example, arrest someone for blowing dope smoke in
their faces, but they were torn: 'The government's saying, "It is not
really serious, we don't want you to prioritise it." But it is an
arrestable offence, and now we get people saying, "Go on, arrest me".'

The Home Office insists the change allows the police to concentrate on
more serious offences involving hard drugs and that there is no
evidence of higher cannabis consumption. New figures expected to show
significant successes in tackling the smuggling of heroin, cocaine and
other Class A drugs will be used to justify the policy.

Caroline Flint, the Home Office minister responsible for drugs policy,
is monitoring national arrest patterns across the country to see how
different forces react.

Danny Kushlick, of the drugs charity Transform, said the reform had
made little practical difference: many officers had, in effect,
ignored personal use of cannabis before the law changed.

But some forces were still 'being quite heavy' on cannabis offences,
while others were letting smokers off without even a caution.

Kushlick said it was 'a hard thing' for officers to operate. 'You
effectively have a law that cannot be enforced.' The solution was the
complete legalisation of cannabis.

The federation's Berry called for a public debate over the law on soft
drugs. 'I think it would be wrong to change the law every six months
because it hasn't worked,' she said. 'But I am convinced it is not law
enforcement which will make a real different in drugs. It's about
properly raising awareness and treatment programmes.'

She is concerned about growing evidence of a link between cannabis
smoking and psychotic illness. Labour backbenchers want the government
to commission more independent research into the potential health risks.

Although a European Union-wide study found that potency of the drug
had changed little between 1979 and 2001, recent British research
suggests some versions are now two to three times stronger than average.

John Mann, Labour MP for Bassetlaw, who supported reclassification and
believed it was 'highly ignorant' to suggest the change had encouraged
dope smoking, also said more action was needed on the health risks.

'There is a difference between drinking a bottle of beer and a bottle
of whisky, yet people wouldn't immediately recognise the difference
with cannabis,' he said.

Mann wants Britain to follow the example of Queensland in Australia,
where dope smokers are cautioned, but sent to a health counsellor to
discuss their habit.

Home Office aides retorted yesterday that the Police Federation had
always been opposed the reform, and officers could arrest smokers who
behaved provocatively.

'This wasn't done at the behest of rank-and-file officers, it was done
at the behest of leader of the police services who wanted the
operational freedom to spend more of their time tackling Class A
drugs,' said a source close to David Blunkett, the Home Secretary.

'And part of the agreement we reached with police was explicitly to
give them the power to still arrest people who were effectively
winding them up,' the source said.

Evidence on the psychiatric effect of cannabis had already been
considered, and ministers had never denied it carried health risks.
'It remains harmful to the user.'

A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said it was
'too early' to judge how the law was working. It had issued guidelines
on when arrests should be made.