Pubdate: Thu, 11 Jul 2002
Source: Eye Magazine (CN ON)
Copyright: 2002 Eye Communications Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.eye.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/147
Author: Abigail Pugh
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?207 (Cannabis - United Kingdom)

BRIXTON BLUEPRINT SPURS LIBERALIZATION HOPES

LONDON -- Brixton, in south London, is inner city in a nutshell. Along with 
its street markets, club scene and grand Victorian row houses, the 
neighbourhood has long been famous for drug dealing, drug taking and 
associated street crimes such as mugging and burglary.

The U.K. media spotlight has been trained on Brixton over the past year due 
to dramatically relaxed drug policing strategies there. Those strategies, 
including a pilot project started by the local constabulary last year that 
gives amnesty to those found in possession of cannabis, have led directly 
to the national government revising its classification of the drug and a 
sudden flowering of public cannabis consumption throughout the country.

Tim Summers of Cannabis Action London believes the Brixton experiment 
"shows that police recognize the need to stop the cat and mouse, to stop 
searching school kids' pockets for dope and start focusing on the real 
problems of street attacks and violence."

"It's easy now to get away with smoking [cannabis] in bars," says Lisa 
Pickering, a student who lives in Brixton. "My boyfriend often has a sly 
spliff and nobody's bothered. After 7pm on the main clubbing streets, 
you'll get offered drugs -- especially if you're white, because it's 
assumed you've come down into the area to score. In central London, you 
can't have a joint in a club lineup because the bouncers would stop you: 
here, the bouncers are the dealers' friends."

The story of Brixton and drugs goes back to the late '50s. Caribbean 
immigrants tended to seek out specific parts of London, with Jamaicans 
heading for south London and those from the smaller islands settling in 
west London areas such as Notting Hill Gate. The Jamaican influence in 
Brixton, combined with high unemployment and poverty rates, meant that 
scoring was easier there than anywhere else in London. In 1981, an overtly 
racist police crackdown in Brixton intended to drive cannabis off the 
streets entirely resulted in riots that spread to many other inner-city 
areas of the U.K.

Mainstream attitudes toward cannabis underwent a nationwide softening as 
the '90s progressed. Cannabis came out of the closet as the middle class 
drug of choice, and in doing so, it came down in price and rose in quality.

According to the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit, the average U.K. retail 
price for cannabis is about half what it was in the late '80s.

In 1998, the Independent on Sunday -- the ultimate middle-class newspaper 
- -- sponsored a campaign to liberalize cannabis legislation. Summers says 
Brixton "was the natural centre of the movement." Protest marches through 
Brixton in 1999 and 2000 resulted in zero cannabis arrests, despite an 
estimated 30,000 participants. "The people took power, and the police stood 
back at these events," he says.

Cannabis prohibition has been a massive draw on police and judicial 
resources: in 1999, cannabis possession constituted 68 per cent of all 
drugs offences in the U.K., with a cost of UKP10,000 to prosecute each 
suspect. This expense, coupled with the fact that the London marches showed 
overwhelming public support for changes to the law, cued Brixton police to 
change the way they handled dope possession.

In June of last year, under Commander Brian Paddick, who took part in the 
1981 operation and witnessed its utter failure, police implemented a 
radical new plan that became known as the "Brixton experiment."

They changed their response to cannabis possession from arrest and trial to 
a simple written warning and confiscation of the drug. This approach has 
made cannabis possession, public smoking, and some say casual dealing, very 
easy indeed throughout the London borough of Lambeth, of which Brixton is a 
part.

The new policy has freed up impressive amounts of police time and money to 
fight other crime, halving muggings in the area. It has also focussed extra 
punitive efforts on those who deal cocaine and heroin, resulting in 
significant increases in arrests for such drugs.

The local force estimates that 2,500 hours of paperwork and the cash 
equivalent of two officer salaries were saved during the first six months 
of the scheme. Judicial cost savings including legal aid defence, 
magistrates and court time have totalled about UKP4 million (or about $9.5 
million).

A recent poll shows 83 per cent of the Brixton community actively approves 
of the policing changes. The London-wide Metropolitan Police assessed the 
new approach this spring and has officially deemed it a success, allowing 
the scheme to continue.

The new confiscatory approach to cannabis has spread to other London 
boroughs, in particular, neighbouring Southwark. Police forces in many 
other parts of the U.K. are following developments in London with interest 
and are likely to implement their own versions of the revised policing 
strategy.

The historic, street-level changes in south London quickly took a hold 
higher up. In a dramatic loosening of official cannabis policy, which the 
Labour government had long been loath to tamper with for fear of upsetting 
"middle England" (its conventional conservative voters), that government 
started to talk about "our experiment" even though it had initially 
distanced itself from events in Brixton.

In October 2001, Home Secretary David Blunkett officially declared his 
intention to reclassify cannabis from Class B to Class C, putting it on a 
par with anabolic steroids. There is no power of arrest for simple 
possession of Class C drugs.

"We need to warn young people that all drugs are dangerous," he said, "but 
Class A drugs such as heroin and cocaine are the most harmful. We will only 
be successful at delivering this message if our policy as a whole is 
balanced and credible...." He added, "the majority of police time is 
currently spent on handling cannabis offences. It is time for an honest and 
common-sense approach focusing effectively on drugs that cause most harm."

The Home Affairs Committee Report, awaited since Blunkett announced his 
intentions last fall, was released this May. It states its support for the 
change, and also recommends that ecstasy be reclassified as a class B drug, 
from Class A.

With the new police and community laid-back attitudes about public cannabis 
use have come opportunities activists and entrepreneurs alike could only 
have dreamed about five years ago.

Unofficial Amsterdam-style coffee shops have existed in Brixton for years 
and have recently sprung up in several other London boroughs. David Crane 
plans to push the envelope still further by very publicly opening a 
cannabis-based cafe and club called The Hempire this fall.

He is going to invest UKP200,000 in creating a "plush establishment" in 
London's hip Hoxton area, just east of the financial district, and has 
already started consulting with police, the local council and drug activist 
groups on the venture. Dope-smoking will be welcomed, but customers won't 
find cannabis for sale. "We're going for a particular kind of smoker," he 
says. "Over 25, works hard, has a good career and a good life."

But Crane's venture is risky. The owner of The Dutch Experience coffee shop 
in Stockport, Manchester, was recently jailed and, although now out on 
bail, is prevented from speaking to the press; Ganjaland in Bournemouth, 
Kent, was raided by anti-cannabis local police. Both establishments have 
reopened despite their difficulties.

While the situation looks positive for cannabis activists, there are 
detractors. The Labour MP for the Brixton area is reportedly lukewarm about 
the new policing strategies, and many police officers themselves are 
unhappy about it because they see it as giving ground to criminals.
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