POLICE ON THE BEAT SEE 'SOFTLY, SOFTLY' FAILURE IN BRIXTON

FOR Constable Paul Needley, striding through Brixton town centre in the
rain, David Blunkett's proposed reclassification of cannabis to a Class C
drug is a grave disappointment.

He has experienced at first hand the effects of Lambeth's experimental
"softly, softly" approach to cannabis on the streets of South London over
the past year.

Since police stopped arresting people caught in possession of small
quantities of cannabis, Brixton's drug problem has got worse, PC Needley
said. "It's been an absolute failure. They'll tell you different," he nods
towards his police headquarters a block away.

The policeman, standing at the corner of Brixton Road and Electric Avenue
with PC Iain Logan, said that since the borough's experiment began they had
found children "skinning up" before they got to school.

All the officers on patrol said that the new approach to cannabis had not
helped their work and what they saw as their main task: catching those
dealing in hard drugs.

As the officers turned towards the bus stop by the Kentucky Fried Chicken,
the men sitting there drifted away. They were dealers and the police knew
their faces and names, but unless they catch them laden with drugs there is
little they can do.

One man walks briskly away clutching his mouth, as if he has toothache. The
chances are it is crammed with cellophane wraps of crack cocaine that he
will sell for ?9 each. "It is ?15 a wrap in Thames Valley, which shows you
how common it is around here," PC Needley said.

"It's blatantly obvious what's going on," one young black woman ordering
chicken and chips said. She did not understand why the police did not
arrest the dealers. "If they get rid of them it'll make the area safer,"
she said.

Police chiefs in Lambeth estimate that the cannabis experiment freed 2,500
hours of police time in the first six months. The officers on patrol
estimate that 80 per cent of their day is spent tackling drug-related
crime. Dealers frustrate them "most of the time", PC Logan said. "If we've
got a dealer and he swallows, that's it," PC Needley added. "He'll go round
the corner, puke it up and sell it next day."

The paperwork surrounding a drug arrest is still "unbelievable", according
to PC Needley. When they simply seize cannabis from someone without
arresting them, the paperwork "takes more time to do and there is no gain".
The person they caution often gives them a false name. If he is a dealer,
the intelligence is lost.

There are more police on the streets, however. When PC Needley began
patrolling Brixton two years ago there were four officers on the beat; now
there are ten. "You don't see anything whizzing round in a car. I much
prefer to be on my feet," he said. "You can talk to people, it makes them
feel safer," PC Logan added.

Most local people agree that police and community relations have improved
since the experiment began. But there is still anger on Electric Avenue.
"Don't believe everything he tells you," shouted one middle-aged woman
about one of the officers.

As PCs Needley and Logan head off for lunch, their replacements race out of
the station, radios crackling. A WPC is clambering over the garden wall of
a boarded-up house round the corner. There are sounds of a scuffle. "You
are now being searched," one of the officers tells the suspect pinned to ground.