UK: Met chief is against drug review

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Stuart Tendler

The Times

Friday 20 May 2005

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BRITAIN'S top policeman urged ministers yesterday not to toughen the law on
possession of cannabis and reclassify the drug.

Sir Ian Blair, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said that if
the drug were moved from Class C back up to Class B then possession should
be enforced only with a fixed-penalty notice.

The drug was reduced from Class B to Class C last year after experiments in
London showed that police time and bureaucracy would be saved because
courts were not enforcing penalties.

The change meant that offenders no longer face a court appearance or a
caution at a police station. Instead, police confiscate the drug and issue
a warning.

Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, has asked the Government's advisory
council on drugs to examine medical evidence that cannabis can cause mental
illness and consider reversing the classification.

Tony Blair has supported the re-examination of the drug and said that
cannabis "isn't quite as harmless as people make out".

But Sir Ian said: "In my view, in London we should stay where we are."
Otherwise, it would be "a waste of time, in terms of policing, to deal with
small amounts (of cannabis) because the courts and the CPS have refused to
do anything about it". If the Government does decide to reclassify
cannabis, Sir Ian said, Scotland Yard would push for the penalty to be a
fixed-penalty notice although he could not say what the levels should be.

The current maximum for a fixed penalty notice is UKP80. The notices are
used for minor offences such as drunk and disorderly, litter, shoplifting
and breaches of firework legislation.

Sir Ian said that the number of seizures of cannabis has risen since the
change was brought in. Up to then officers had not bothered to act because
of the absence of any penalties or seized the drugs unofficially and
destroyed them.

He said that his officers were continuing to carry out operations against
cannabis wholesalers and dealers.

The commissioner also rejected suggestions yesterday that a compromise
could be struck so that possession of skunk, a stronger version of
cannabis, could carry heavier penalties.

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