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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Police chiefs drop 'three strikes' cannabis policy
Ananova
Sunday 08 Dec 2002 Chief police officers have dropped plans to introduce a "three strikes and you're out" policy on cannabis, it is reported. The Association of Chief Police Officers will abandon the tactic they announced just three months ago, the Police Review magazine says. The plan was in response to Home Office plans to downgrade the drug from Class B to Class C. This magazine says ACPO has bowed to pressure from rank-and-file officers to retain their right to arrest users on the first occasion they are caught with the drug. Mick Barker, a member of the ACPO drugs working party, says the three strikes rule would "bring into total disrepute the authority and discretion of a police officer". It would make police intervention into a cannabis offence "nonsensical", he added. "The next draft will be altered to support - indeed openly state - the discretion of the officer is sacrosanct in respect of an arrest for this specific offence and is primary to any published guidelines," said Mr Barker. The three strikes policy was first outlined in September by chairman of the ACPO committee, the Met's Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman. It said the first two occasions someone was caught with up to three grammes of drug would lead to a formal warning and confiscation. A third incident in any 12-month period would lead to arrest, the original guidelines said. ACPO has made it clear that when the updated rules are published in the new year officers will be told to arrest dope users only in exceptional circumstances. The measures are expected to come into effect next July.
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