COMMUNITY BACKS CANNABIS PILOT SCHEME

Softly, Softly Approach Criticised By Some Officers

The Lambeth cannabis experiment pioneered by the maverick police commander
Brian Paddick received timely support yesterday from two separate studies
that show it is extremely popular in the community and spares officers
hundreds of hours of administration.

Three days after Mr Paddick was removed from his post because of
allegations that he smoked cannabis regularly, the Police Foundation
reported that 83% of people living in Lambeth were in favour of the
initiative, which allows officers to caution rather than arrest people
caught in possession of the drug so that they can concentrate on tackling
more serious crimes. Only 8% disapproved of the move.

As revealed in the Guardian last month, the Met's own review of the scheme
found that over six months officers saved 1,350 hours. Under the old
practice they would have spent that time filling out forms. In turn,
civilian staff, who deal with the paperwork, were released from 1,150 hours
of processing and filing.

"There are clear merits to the scheme in terms of freeing up officers to do
other duties," said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Mike Fuller, head of
Scotland Yard's drugs directorate. "But more work has to be done. We need
to feel confident that there have been no detrimental effects that we
haven't been able to measure yet, such as the impact that it has had on
other crime in the area."

Mr Fuller said the force would wait to see whether the home secretary,
David Blunkett, reclassified cannabis from class B to C before deciding
whether to introduce the initiative in other areas. It will continue in
Lambeth.

Asked by the Met to test opinion about the project in south London, the
Police Foundation commissioned Mori to interview 2,055 Lambeth residents in
November and December last year.

In addition to the 83% who either supported the Lambeth experiment outright
or conditionally, 64% thought that the scheme would "improve relations
between the police and the community" and 71% said it was "a better way of
dealing with young people who use cannabis".

But the survey showed that there was considerable confusion in the borough
over what the experiment actually meant. Forty-one per cent of those asked
said they knew nothing about it at all and out of the 56% who claimed they
did, some believed that cannabis had been legalised or decriminalised.

Speaking to the Metropolitan police authority yesterday morning, Scotland
Yard commissioner Sir John Stevens stressed that support for the experiment
was not divided along racial lines. He said a larger percentage of white
residents than black or Asian residents supported the scheme.

Asked about its impact, 74% of those interviewed agreed that the police
would redirect resources into tackling serious offences but nearly half of
them thought the extra effort would make no difference to crime levels.
Nearly one-fifth thought serious crime would actually increase.

In a national survey conducted in January and February, the Police
Foundation discovered that opinions across the country did not differ
greatly from those in Lambeth; 76% of 1,952 people questioned gave outright
or conditional support to a Lambeth-style scheme being introduced to their
own area.

William Saulsbury, the assistant director of the Police Foundation, said he
was surprised that the mood of the country seemed to reflect the views of
residents in Lambeth.

He added: "There is strong evidence that a high proportion of Lambeth
residents support the scheme as a rational approach on the part of the
police. They recognise that such a scheme does not offer a magic wand for
reducing serious crime and use of hard drugs, but they expect that the time
saved with the new approach will be put to those ends."

The separate police study showed that 450 warnings had been issued to
people found with small amounts of cannabis during the six-month trial,
which started in July last year. There was a 35% increase in the number of
stops for possession and an 11% increase in trafficking offences.

The Met is wary about the attitude of officers to the experiment. Only 10%
of Lambeth's 800-strong force filled in a questionnaire, and many of those
complained that cautioning rather than arresting offenders restricted
efforts to disrupt street crime.

Mr Fuller also said the public was unclear about what was happening and
thought drugs were being legalised: "There are some flaws that need to be
ironed out... communication is going to be a key issue in any new scheme
which arises from the pilot."