BRIXTON'S DOPE SMOKERS TASTE FREEDOM FIRST

Cannabis Users Get A Warning And Police Target Heavy Drugs, Reports Bronwyn
Sell

LONDON - In the infamously edgy London suburb of Brixton, you are more
likely to get into trouble for having a mobile phone at your ear than a
joint at your lips.

Notorious in the past for its racial unease, the South London suburb is now
branded by its night life and its street crime.

Large yellow police signs on fences near the Brixton Oval warn people to
watch their wallets and hide mobile phones - phone thefts are rampant in
South London.

Brixton also is famous for being the police frontline in Britain's war
against drugs. The markets offer fragrant herbs and spices and exotic meats
and vegetables, but not every transaction gets a receipt.

Buyers who know who to ask can also find cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and even
Viagra.

It seems contradictory then that Lambeth, the borough which contains
Brixton, is the most liberal place in Britain when it comes to cannabis
smoking. People smoke cannabis under the noses of the many police officers
on the streets without fear of arrest.

Since July, police in the borough have been officially taking a more
lenient approach to cannabis. Police chiefs and the local council were
frustrated that frontline officers were spending too much time processing
cannabis arrests and were losing focus on their priorities - hard drug
dealing and street crime.

They introduced a six-month pilot programme, in which people caught with
cannabis get a formal warning and have their drugs confiscated. The process
lasts about 10 minutes, compared with the four hours it takes for an arrest.

The trial's success will not be measured until it ends in December, but
last week, in a surprise move, the Government went a step further.

In a low-key announcement on Tuesday, Home Secretary David Blunkett said
that cannabis would be downgraded from Class B to Class C, putting it on a
level with steroids and Prozac.

From next year, police will not arrest anyone caught smoking cannabis,
although possession and supplying will remain criminal offences. Penalties
also will be cut - from 14 years to five for dealing, and from five years
to two for possession - in the rare cases where police bother to produce a
court summons to prosecute anyone in possession.

Blunkett also said he was ready to licence cannabis as a pain killer. And,
most boldly, he said he would promote wider use of prescribing for heroin
addicts.

Blunkett said the move would free police to fight harder drugs, and would
alert young people to the dangers of hard drugs.

"In spite of our focus on hard drugs, the majority of police time is
currently spent on handling cannabis offences. It is time for an honest and
common sense approach focusing effectively on drugs that cause most harm.

"We need to warn young people that all drugs are dangerous, but Class A
drugs such as heroin and cocaine are the most harmful. We will be
successful at delivering this message only if our policy as a whole is
balanced and credible."

He emphasised that the Government had no intention of legalising or
decriminalising cannabis.

The announcement followed a Police Foundation inquiry into drugs law. The
foundation's investigators concluded that cannabis was less dangerous than
alcohol or tobacco and proposed replacing cannabis arrests with warnings
and on-the-spot fines.

It also recommended downgrading Ecstasy and LSD from Class A to Class B,
but Blunkett last week rejected the suggestion.

The inquiry report was published last year but, until last week, it was
thought to have been ignored by a Government which claims a tough stance on
drugs.

Blunkett is considered to have won a rare victory in persuading Prime
Minister Tony Blair, a drugs hardliner, to agree to the concession. It
could not have hurt that opinion polls show widespread public support for
decriminalisation, and cannabis use has this year become the vogue
confession of MPs and even ministers. Of course, the confessors almost
invariably insist that it was a long time ago and they did not like it.

The police welcomed the reclassification. London's Metropolitan police
commissioner, Sir John Stevens, said officers would be able to concentrate
on tackling more serious crimes such as street robbery, which had increased
in London in recent months.

Predictably, anti-drugs campaigners said the liberalisation went too far,
and pro-cannabis groups said it did not go far enough. Both sides are
concerned about the inconsistency of having an illegal drug that can be
smoked but not supplied.

Tim Johnston, of the National Drug Prevention Alliance, said the changes
would make it harder for the 83 per cent of young people who were drug free
to remain drug free. Young people needed a clear message of what was
acceptable and what was not.

Steve Rolles, of the pro-legalisation group Transform, said the
reclassification had been unofficial police policy for some time. The move
was hardly ground breaking, as Britain lagged behind Europe in its stance
on cannabis.

But the issue does not seem to have incited the emotions that once it would
have. By the weekend the cannabis issue had all but disappeared from the
nation's papers. On the frontlines, the news is said to have had little
impact. In Brixton, dealers say they moved away from cannabis years ago, in
favour of more expensive, more addictive, and thus more profitable drugs.