Pubdate: Sun, 05 Aug 2001
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2001 The Ottawa Citizen
Contact:  http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326
Author: Jared Manasek, Salon.com
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

BRITAIN'S CANNABIS 'SAFE HAVEN'

Police In London's Gritty Brixton Neighbourhood Are Losing The War On 
Drugs, So The Police Chief Is Experimenting With Not Enforcing Marijuana Laws.

When they kick at your front door in Brixton, chances are it won't be for 
drugs. Earlier this month, police in the south London borough of Lambeth, 
where Brixton is located, began a six-month experiment in which they are 
supposed to ignore minor marijuana offences. In one of the most serious 
attacks yet on Britain's harsh drug laws, Brian Paddick, the local police 
commander, has instructed his force to turn a blind eye to citizens caught 
with the drug. His success or failure will be a key factor in the growing 
national debate over the future of the country's war on drugs.

Britain has some of Europe's harshest drug laws -- a minor marijuana bust 
can bring up to six months in jail, with a fine of 5,000 pounds (about 
$7,000). But according to an exhaustive report on U.K. drug policy 
published last year by the Police Foundation, a think-tank partly funded by 
the government, this policy has largely failed. Meanwhile, Britain has 
developed Europe's biggest drug problem.

Moreover, as many police officers will readily admit, enforcement is a 
mess. About 90 per cent of drug arrests are for possession, and of those, 
around 75 per cent are for possession of cannabis. Yet with the exception 
of Lambeth's experimental program, there is no efficient way to handle 
simple possession cases.

Drug arrests in Britain are a bureaucratic nightmare for police, requiring 
up to five hours of paperwork and other red tape to process a suspect -- 
time many believe could be better spent on the streets fighting more 
serious crime. And officers who choose to go against policy and not make 
arrests are thereby eroding the authority of the police.

The result is a system that is plugged with minor drug crimes and a 
population that increasingly thinks the drug laws are inappropriately 
harsh. As has happened in the United States, police in the U.K. have come 
under fire for their stop-and-search policies and profiling of potential 
drug users and dealers.

Such tactics have drawn strong criticism in ethnically mixed neighbourhoods 
such as Brixton. Stop and search "has done little to engender good 
relations between community and police," says Danny Kushlick, director of 
Transform, an organization that campaigns to reform drug laws. The Lambeth 
initiative "will help in that regard," he believes.

Under the new rules, the police in Lambeth may confiscate your joint, but 
the most that will happen to you otherwise is a scolding, formally called a 
"caution." A caution involves about the same level of bureaucracy as a 
traffic ticket: The officer seizes the drug, and the person who is busted 
must sign the warning. That's the most lenient punishment police can issue 
after an arrest.

But despite its toothless name, a caution bites. It still requires a hefty 
dose of desk time for police -- and it can create legal problems for the 
recipient because it requires an admission of guilt. Worse, a caution shows 
up on a person's permanent police record, which often must be revealed, for 
example, to potential employers. And a caution can cause real trouble for 
anybody working in fields such as child care and health care, or anybody 
seeking a visa to live abroad.

Still, the initiative is the first step in a long journey for a country 
that has recently begun to show a willingness to experiment with 
alternatives to the strict enforcement of drug laws. Scotland, which enjoys 
a degree of autonomous rule, has gone possibly the furthest by developing a 
range of penalties for drug use or possession -- including warning letters 
and fines -- that require neither reams of paperwork by the police nor an 
admission of guilt by the person they've collared.

Most of the experiments involve treatment of hardcore addicts following a 
bust. There is a growing interest in alternatives to incarceration for hard 
drug users in Britain, including a pilot program that supplies 
pharmaceutical-grade heroin to addicts and then slowly reduces their dosage 
until they are no longer addicted.

Judges increasingly seek to get addicts into rehabilitation programs 
instead of prisons. Yet most of these solutions deal with hard drugs, not 
cannabis, and occur only after an arrest has taken place, not before.

It's not surprising, then, that politicians and policy experts are keenly 
interested in the Lambeth experiment. Seldom does police pragmatism square 
so neatly with the will of drug-law-reform activists, and the 65 per cent 
of voters who, according to a recent survey by the left-leaning Guardian 
newspaper, think marijuana possession should be the lowest priority for 
police. And nowhere has reform become more symbolic than in Brixton, a 
rough corner of Lambeth known for its great night life, serious crime and 
bad drug problem.

No matter what comes of the Lambeth trial, Britain is still in the Stone 
Age compared to drug law reform in Europe. Most North Americans are aware 
of the Netherlands' lenient approach to marijuana, which has 
decriminalized, but not legalized, possession and distribution of small 
quantities of marijuana.

Other European countries aren't far behind. Belgium recently decriminalized 
possession of small quantities of marijuana for any person over age 18, and 
both Italy and Spain have dropped criminal charges for possession of small 
amounts while retaining administrative penalties and fines. And in 1994, 
under a challenge made to German law, the nation's Constitutional Court 
ruled that turning minor cannabis offenders into criminals was 
unconstitutional. Although anti-cannabis laws remain on the books in 
Germany, almost no charges for possession have been brought since then.

The police may have been concocting the Lambeth scheme for ages, but it 
would never have come into existence without at least the tacit support of 
the government. Credit Tony Blair's Labour government with creating an 
environment in which the experiment could take place. David Blunkett, the 
new home secretary, has been in office only a few weeks, but has already 
made his mark on the drug debate: first by firing the ineffectual drug czar 
and eliminating the office, and then by allowing the Lambeth experiment to 
move forward.

Some members of the opposition Conservative Party have gone even further. 
Peter Lilley, who as former deputy leader of the Tories has solid 
right-wing credentials has made a call for full-scale legalization of 
marijuana. Although some party members consider the proposal outrageous, 
Mr. Lilley has some influential backers, including Charles Moore, editor of 
the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Despite the Lambeth experiment, and the apparent political support for it, 
there is little evidence that Britain's politicians are preparing to follow 
their European neighbours down the path to decriminalization.

The Labour government is unlikely to risk being called soft on crime by 
pushing for all-out change. And despite Mr. Lilley's position, the 
Conservatives never have been a true libertarian party.

Ann Widdecombe, a leading hard-line Conservative and critic of the Lambeth 
initiative, presses a completely different line. Ms. Widdecombe recently 
told a Sunday Independent reporter: "The Conservative Party is opposed to 
legalization and, indeed, decriminalization. If we legalize cannabis, it is 
very unlikely that the drug barons would just go home."

Still, the experiment has catalyzed public debate over the country's drug 
laws. As a compromise between extant legislation and the reality of 
enforcement police routinely confront, it may well point the way toward 
decriminalization by default -- a situation similar to Germany's, where the 
laws remain on the books but are seldom used.

Just days after Lambeth's police chief announced the launch of the pilot 
program, British police and customs officials said they would no longer 
hunt down marijuana smugglers. If officers stumble across marijuana in 
their pursuit of heroin and cocaine smugglers, they will confiscate it and 
make arrests. But they won't target the drug. The war on marijuana, blared 
the tabloids, is over.

That is, of course, an exaggeration. Growing, dealing or possessing 
cannabis is still a crime in Britain and the penalties are, by and large, 
still enforced.

However, for the next six months at least, Brixton will remain a safe 
haven. And what is happening there is both remarkable and ordinary: People 
are going about their lives as before, the smell of marijuana floats in the 
air no more frequently than before, and the drug dealers hustle as they 
always have. Except for one thing: Now a dreadlocked man has positioned 
himself at the exit to the Brixton Underground station.

As the station disgorges commuters, he calls out in his thick Jamaican 
accent: "Ganja! Sinsemilla! Don't be afraid to smoke in Brixton!"
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager