DUNCAN SMITH HAS A BAD TRIP ON HIS DAY OUT TO THE STREETS OF BRIXTON

The trouble with buying drugs from strangers in places you would not
normally be seen dead in is that you have no idea what kind of rubbish is
in them or what kind of harm they can do to you.

It was a lesson apparently not learnt by Iain Duncan Smith yesterday when
he swallowed everything he was offered during a bizarre meeting that could
influence his party's future drug policy.

Conservative Central Office announced that its leader was to meet residents
of Brixton to highlight the "failure" of the Lambeth experiment in relaxing
the police's approach to the use of cannabis. However, instead of marching
along the mean streets of Brixton Market and Coldharbour Lane, Mr Duncan
Smith met eight grandmothers, two members of the clergy and a youth worker
in a church.

The result was something like a bad trip as the Conservative leader emerged
from the meeting to denounce the Lambeth experiment and to warn that Home
Office plans to extend it would end in disaster.

His comments were timed to coincide with an announcement expected today
from David Blunkett that cannabis is to be reclassified from a class B to a
class C drug, meaning that possession of small amounts would no longer be
an arrestable offence.

The Conservatives' drug summit took place at the Brixton Baptist Church,
where the minister, the Rev Chris Andre-Watson, and his flock have some
genuine concerns over what they see as a growth in drug dealing in the area
since the policy of relaxation was introduced by Commander Brian Paddick,
the controversial officer who has subsequently been put on desk duties at
Scotland Yard.

Since the scheme was introduced, under which users are cautioned instead of
prosecuted, they feel drug dealers have become bolder, cannabis smoking has
gone public and more young people are being drawn into it. "We have grave
concerns over the way the policy has been implemented," said Mr
Andre-Watson. "These people are now selling cannabis openly. There is
concern among our mothers and grandmothers that their children are being
sucked into a criminal culture."

Others expressed similar concerns, although two out of four interviewed by
The Independent said they wanted to see the results of the experiment
before calling for it to be scrapped. Two out of the four did not know who
Mr Duncan Smith was.

Outside, Shane Collins, the Green Party's spokesman on drugs and a member
of the police's consultative group on drugs, was miffed that, as a local
resident, he had not been invited. "There are problems with cannabis
dealers selling crack and heroin, but that does not mean you should treat
cannabis in the same way as the hard drugs," he said. "If we took cannabis
sales into cafes, you could raise money that could be put back into the
community, you could separate cannabis from the class A drugs and arrest
the hard drug dealers left out on the streets."

Since the experiment was introduced, 1,400 hours of police time have been
freed and the number of class A drug dealers arrested is up by 10 per cent.
A recent Mori poll showed that 83 per cent of the residents of Lambeth
thought the experiment was a success.