POLICE CHIEF: COCAINE OK AT WEEKENDS

Police Chief Turns Blind Eye To Weekend Cocaine Users

One of London's most senior police officers was rebuked last night by the
commissioner of the Metropolitan police after he told MPs he was not
interested in taking official action against weekend "recreational" users
of small amounts of cocaine and ecstasy.

Commander Brian Paddick, who is in charge of the Lambeth cannabis
experiment, told an all-party MPs' inquiry into reform of the drugs laws
that as far as he was concerned any of his officers who went into
nightclubs looking for people in possession of ecstasy were simply wasting
valuable police resources.

"There are a whole range of people who buy drugs, not just cannabis, but
even cocaine and ecstasy, who buy those drugs with money they have earned
legitimately. They use a small amount of these drugs, a lot of them just at
weekends. It has no adverse effect on the rest of the people they are with,
either in terms of people they socialise with, or within the wider
community, and they go back to work on Monday morning and are unaffected
for the rest of the week.

"In terms of my priorities as an operational police officer, they are low
down," Mr Paddick said, adding that his focus was tackling crack cocaine
and heroin addicts.

Last night a Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: "The commissioner has reminded
Commander Paddick that he is expected to follow and implement the
Metropolitan police policy in relation to class A drugs and Commander
Paddick respects that."

Mr Paddick later said he was committed to enforcing the Met's drugs policy
in Lambeth. He had made it clear to the select committee he was offering a
personal view and his remarks had been taken out of context, he claimed.

His comments came as the Association of Chief Police Officers backed
further radical reform of the drug laws by backing calls for ecstasy to
lose its class A drug status and for the idea of setting up legal heroin
injecting rooms or "shooting galleries".

The disclosure that there is strong support at the highest levels of the
police for a reform of Britain's drug laws that goes further than the
reclassification of cannabis proposed by the home secretary, David
Blunkett, was made during testimony to the Commons home affairs select
committee inquiry into drugs policy.

For the first time, the Police Superintendents' Association also made clear
that they did not "feel totally uncomfortable" with the idea of
decriminalising cannabis entirely.

The EU has just published a survey showing that cocaine abuse is rising
faster in Britain than any other European country.

"There is an upmarket trend of cocaine smoking in recreational nightlife,"
said the report of the Lisbon-based European monitoring centre for drugs
and drug addiction.

The deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Andy Hayman,
told MPs yesterday that the Association of Chief Police Officers would
support ecstasy being downgraded from a class A drug to class B if the
medical and scientific evidence supported such a move.

He said the police did not see the dance drug as so serious a problem as
other class A drugs such as heroin and cocaine and there was really not
much difference between ecstasy and other amphetamines classified as class
B drugs.

Changing the status of ecstasy would "make a stronger statement" about the
dangers of heroin, cocaine and other class A drugs.

Asked by the committee chairman, a former Labour minister, Chris Mullin, if
he thought the German idea of "shooting galleries", where heroin addicts
could inject using clean needles and be offered health advice, should be
introduced into Britain, Mr Hayman said his Association of Chief Police
Officers would support it if the medical authorities said it was
worthwhile, because it would reduce tensions in the community.

But Chief Superintendent Kevin Morris, president of the Superintendents'
Association, disagreed, saying that the present strategy succeeded only in
"weakening respect for the law".

He said a change in the law might lead to more people using cannabis but
the issue of decriminalisation had to be addressed. He said his own
association was "moving in that direction".