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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: The Lambeth drug experiment: has it worked?
Stewart Tendler The Times
Tuesday 09 Jul 2002 The jury is still out on the success of the Lambeth drugs experiment launched last year by Commander Brian Paddick. The aim was to reduce the police effort in chasing cannabis users, diverting resources into reducing hard drug crime. Scotland Yard has estimated that taking a cannabis user through the courts for possession is costing 30,000 a case and yields a mere 10 fine. Under the experiment, a cannabis user caught by police has to hand over the drugs, which are destroyed, and he or she is given an official warning. In other parts of London and the rest of the country someone accused of possession would be taken to court and could be fined or jailed. The Yard's latest figures show that there were 249 arrests last year for cannabis possession against 740 warnings over the same period of the experiment. Police say that they are doing more to deal with hard drugs and the time taken to process cannabis possession cases has been drastically cut. The saving is worth about 1,350 man-hours. Within the Metropolitan Police many commanders are sceptical of the value of the pilot scheme and there are doubts that enough manpower has been saved. There are also divisions among residents in Lambeth. The black community is concerned at the risk to children and an increase in street dealing; whites are more relaxed and keen on greater liberalisation. The Yard has talked to every school in the area and has yet to find any sign of a discernible increase in cannabis. The geographic makeup of the people arrested for possessing cannabis does not show any change either: about 52 per cent come from outside Lambeth. There are reports of more dealers in evidence but this may be the usual dealers who have become more blatant. The Yard admits that Lambeth, with its high rate of street crime and the fame of Brixton as a drug market, may not have been the best place to try the experiment but David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, seems set to endorse it with a change in the classification of cannabis this week. But he may still leave police with some powers of arrest to prevent blatant use of the drug in public.
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