POLICE CHIEF SCORNS CANNABIS PILOT CRITICS

As Blunkett Decides Whether To Reclassify Drug, Pioneer At Centre Of
Lambeth Row Disputes Opponents' Evidence

The controversial police commander who pioneered the cannabis pilot project
in Lambeth today condemns his critics, saying they have consistently failed
to tell the truth about what is really happening in the borough by relying
on anecdote rather than facts.

Writing exclusively in the Guardian to mark the first anniversary of the
launch of the project, Mr Paddick says there is no evidence to show that
children are at more risk of being drawn into a drug culture, or that
Lambeth has become a destination for drug tourists - two of the main
concerns raised by opponents to the initiative.

"Children at risk may be a perception rather than a reality ... if there
seems to be more children smoking, perhaps they are being more blatant
about it, or maybe people are more aware now of what has been happening in
Lambeth for years?

Of drug tourism, he says: "The fact is cannabis and other drugs are so
easily available in all parts of London, and in other parts of the country,
who would want to come to Brixton for them?

"Particularly when you consider the way Brixton is portrayed in the media
as some kind of dangerous, lawless, wasteland (another gross exaggeration).
Drug tourism appears to be the expectation rather than the reality."

Mr Paddick accepts that there is considerable confusion about the project,
but believes that a relentless media campaign against him and the
experiment is at least partly to blame for the mixed messages.

He does, however, have the support of some senior officers. Last week the
deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Ian Blair, told the police
authority that the experiment was "undoubtedly a success - in statistical
terms".

At the same meeting Sir John Stevens, the Met commissioner, made a point of
saying that it was his decision to endorse the initiative, which was
launched a year ago today. In the same week, the deputy assistant
commissioner Mike Fuller, the Met officer in charge of drugs strategy,
described the time that had been saved since the project started as "a
godsend".

Publicity

Brian Paddick was hardly a household name in Lambeth, let alone the rest of
the country, when, as borough commander, he told his overworked officers to
caution rather than arrest people caught in possession of cannabis, so they
could concentrate on tackling hardnut crack and heroin dealers.

Now Lambeth is the battleground for the future of policing cannabis, the
last stand for campaigners who want to persuade the home secretary, David
Blunkett, not to reclassify the drug from class B to class C, a move that
would effectively roll out the Lambeth experiment nationwide; at the moment
there is no automatic power of arrest for this class of narcotic.

Mr Paddick, now widely known as the most senior openly gay police officer
in the country, has already become a victim of the row. He has been moved
to other duties pending an inquiry into allegations about his personal life
made by a former lover, who was paid ?100,000 for his story by two Sunday
tabloid newspapers.

But the experiment has endured. And the Met appears to have been emboldened
into a qualified defence of the pilot in the face of some vociferous local
opposition because of research that challenges those two main criticisms:
that more children are smoking cannabis and that the borough has become a
venue for drugs tourism.

A questionnaire was sent to all the borough's secondary and primary schools
asking headteachers if they had noticed any evidence to suggest that more
pupils were using cannabis. Seven of the 10 secondary schools replied, and
50 of the 66 primary schools.

Feedback

"The feedback is very clear," said Brian Moore, Lambeth's acting borough
commander. "So far there has been no escalation, which is a reassuring
response to some of those concerns."

Only one school in the borough was prepared to talk about this yesterday.
Leslie Morrison, headteacher of the St Martin's in the Fields high school
for girls, said the pilot had had no effect on her 675 pupils. "Cannabis
use is not an issue inside the school."

On drugs tourism, analysis of police data of the 1,190 cautions for
possession since last year suggests that there has been no increase in the
number of people coming into the borough to buy drugs. The proportions are
roughly the same as they were last year.

Has the experiment caused a crime wave? Street robbery in Lambeth has been
halved since October last year. In that month, there were 916. In May,
there were 438. And between January and May last year, police in the
borough arrested 249 people for possession of cannabis. In the same period
this year, 740 warnings were issued. More than 1,200 people have been
stopped and searched for drugs in the last year.

Senior Met officers insist it is not true to suggest that police have given
up on policing cannabis; more is being done now than ever before. Yet Mr
Blair has admitted that the "perception [in the borough] is different", and
there is an acceptance within Scotland Yard that a failure to properly
explain what the experiment was aiming to achieve has led to confusion and
mixed messages over legality.

Critics such as the Vauxhall MP Kate Hoey say the amount of police time the
pilot has saved - the equivalent of two extra officers on the beat - is
pitiful compared with the harm that it has caused.

The questionnaire from the schools is not valid evidence, she said
yesterday. "This is what infuriates me. It's absolute nonsense to rely on
the questionnaire because it's not the children in school who are at
greatest risk. It is those who are truanting, the children who are not part
of the mainstream that teachers are not in touch with."

Ms Hoey is due to meet the home secretary tomorrow and will urge him not to
reclassify cannabis. She believes the borough "has more drug dealers than
ever before", and that children are being given the message that "cannabis
is no worse for you than sweets".

Ms Hoey's position has been supported by other leading members of the
Lambeth community and local councillors.

Dr Clare Gerada, a member of the Consultancy Liaison Addiction Service,
told reporters that she knew of children who were smoking cannabis for
breakfast, and that the drug's popularity seemed to have soared in recent
months

The Rev Chris Andre-Watson, from Brixton Baptist church, has said he knew
of children as young as 12 arriving at school stoned.

Paul Amdell, of the Lambeth police consultative group, is a supporter of
the experiment, but even he concedes that the Met has not got its central
message across. "We need to develop the pilot to ensure young people know
cannabis is still illegal."

Crack cocaine

Drug workers insist, though, that cannabis use is the least of the
borough's drug problems. With crack cocaine and heroin use on the rise -
not to mention speedballs, a potent mix of crack and heroin - they do not
want officers wasting time rounding up cannabis users.

Justina Bennis, who works for Mainliners, an HIV and hepatitis C prevention
charity covering Lambeth, said: "We are pleased to see the police
concentrating on these and not cannabis. There is no more cannabis use on
the streets. Police are concentrating resources on class A drugs, which is
the real problem."

Another drug worker with 10 years experience in the borough also backs the
experiments. He did not wish to be named.

"It's like the media are saying we never had a crack problem before the
experiment. We've had crack for years. The experiment has made absolutely
no difference to the amount of people presenting themselves at the centre
where I work.

"Our biggest problem is heroin and crack, and over the last few years there
has been a huge explosion in crack. Cannabis is an irrelevancy when it
comes to people suffering from drug problems."

The Met says it cannot police cannabis in any practical sense in an area
such as Lambeth; its opponents say it has abandoned a principle that has
made a harmful drug appear legal. Mr Blunkett will show which argument he
is persuaded by within a fortnight.

Mr Paddick believes it is essential that the truth of what is happening in
Lambeth is made public. "People need to see the whole picture. In recent
months, all they have heard is one side of the argument."