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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Why softer line is making life hard for the people of Brixton Peter Foster The Telegraph Friday 03 May 2002 THERE is a little game that visitors to Brixton or Stockwell play with themselves on almost any given 10-minute walk through the borough - count the number of times you are openly offered drugs. "Skunk weed mate? Skunk weed? Powders? Brown? White?" is the usual introductory line, issued from doorways and street corners in a stage whisper to any likely-looking passer-by. The visitor might be shocked by the casual prevalence of such offers but for residents living through Commander Brian Paddick's experimental "softly, softly" approach to cannabis, this is now a routine feature of the evening walk home from the Tube or the pub. While the Home Secretary, backed by social research organisations such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, considers relaxing the law on cannabis, the residents of Lambeth have been given an early taste of what that decision might bring - more dealers on the streets, more petty crime and a climate in which parents and teachers cannot stop their children using cannabis because the police and state tacitly approve of its use. In the community centre of the Stockwell Park Estate, Julie Fawcett has seen at first hand the effects of leniency. "I have kids coming in here high on skunk [a particularly potent form of genetically engineered marijuana] and it makes them psychotic. They smoke it in their lunch hours and you can't tell them to stop it because they say 'the police don't mind'. What do you say to that?" Ms Fawcett, whose office still bears the blackened mark of an arson attack, believes that legalisation is a middle-class project got up by people who do not understand the effects it has on the ordinary people who live on her estate. "This is a middle-class agenda from people who may smoke their dope responsibly. They don't buy from the dealers on the street who run everything here. The police have basically given up." For parents trying to bring up their children in a world of increasing temptations - a teenage cannabis dealer can easily make £80 a day - the new police approach to cannabis sends out, at the very least, an unhelpful message. On the Angell Town estate, off the Brixton Road, Cathy Valentine, a resident for 15 years who has two teenage daughters, is one of those brave enough to speak out. "I was in the Chinese takeaway last night. There were some kids in there and they were paying for food with a £50 note. The dealers are up on the road every night. We know they are there, the police know they are there, but no one does anything about it. We just want to walk safely down the street. "It has never been as bad as this. It seems like every dealer from miles around thinks it's OK to come to Brixton. There have always been drugs here but they used to be behind closed doors. Now it's a free-for-all. One night they even started firing their guns in the air in the park and still the police didn't come. I think they are scared." Privately, police in Lambeth concede they have had to deal with an influx of dealers, drug tourists and the petty crime such people bring with them. A majority of Lambeth police officers who responded to an internal survey also said that the policy would increase the use of drugs in Lambeth (both Class A and cannabis) and the policy should not be extended to other boroughs. The rationale behind Commander Paddick's initiative - which only pre-empts plans to re-classify cannabis as a Class C drug - was to give police more time to deal with serious crime, like crack dealing, guns and violent robbery. The latest figures appear to support him. The Metropolitan Police Association evaluation of the Lambeth Drugs Pilot shows that, after the first six months, 1,350 hours of police time had been "released" by not arresting those caught with cannabis - equivalent to 1.8 full-time officers. However, most residents said street dealing was on the increase. Across the road from the Stockwell Park estate, in one of the Victorian streets of privately owned houses off Landor Road, Chris Claudius, a music producer, is in no doubt that things have got worse in the last six months. Landor Road used to be a haven for crack dealers but was cleaned up in recent years. Now the dealers are coming back. Mr Claudius, 32, became so concerned that he organised an emergency meeting of local residents who were despairing at crime levels and the dealers. Brian Moore, Lambeth's new police chief, attended. "The truth is that police in Lambeth never hassled dope smokers," Mr Claudius said. "But now they've gone public, it seems as if they've given a green light to the drug dealers. I've been mugged myself this year and two of the shops on Landor Road have been held up which is why we got a petition with 600 signatures to try and get something done. "You can't walk for five minutes without being hassled by the dealers and some of them are only kids. They think it's legal. They should either legalise it properly or just leave the issue alone." The muddle of the current policy under which usage is tolerated but supply remains illegal is even opposed by dealers. In a well-known Lambeth shop where cannabis has been sold under the counter for more than a decade, they were perplexed when, a fortnight ago, police raided the premises. The owner, a placid man by nature, says he is as against hard-drug dealers as anyone. "Herb [cannabis] is the local medicine. No one ever came to any harm from here. I don't know why the police come, they should go after the crack dealers." Kate Hoey, the Labour MP whose Vauxhall constituency covers a large part of Lambeth, is yet another person deeply unconvinced that going soft on cannabis has brought improvements. Her view is formulated through attending constituency surgeries, residents' meetings and consultative committees. "I don't know who all these research organisations are talking to, but it is certainly not my constituents. Lambeth is now the place where it is officially OK to do drugs and we are getting more and more dealers and buyers coming in. "The researchers should talk to the real people, living in depressed neighbourhoods, who are being experimented on. They should come and see the added hassle, the crime it's bringing in and the breakdown in law and order."
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