Pubdate: Thu, 10 Dec 2015
Source: Herald, The (Glasgow, UK)
Copyright: 2015 Herald & Times Group
Contact:  http://www.heraldscotland.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4784

RATIONAL RESPONSE TO LAWS ON DRUGS

AS officers know well, it is not for the police to shape laws on 
drugs. There might be a ready audience for another debate over the 
decriminalisation of cannabis, but that is not, strictly speaking, 
the business of Police Scotland. Instead, the force is preparing to 
ask important questions of its own.

Where petty offences are concerned, those could be summarised as 
what, how and why? If the offence involves an individual caught in 
possession of a small amount of cannabis for personal consumption, 
what should an officer do? As things stand, the issue of "how" 
follows, given the high chance of a report to the Crown Office 
leading to no action.

Hence the inevitable: why?

For police and prosecutors, all this is an endlessly frustrating 
waste of time and resources that could, self-evidently, be better 
spent. When around 45 per cent of offences fail to justify 
prosecution through the courts, there has to be a more sensible way to proceed.

Equally, the police cannot lose sight of the public will. Urinating 
in the street counts as petty to all save those who suffer the 
consequences. It cannot simply be ignored.

Discreet cannabis smoking might have no effect on anyone save the 
user. Parliament has nevertheless deemed it a criminal offence.

A nod and a wink will not do. We have reached the point, 
nevertheless, at which common sense becomes imperative. Registered 
Police Warnings are unlikely to appeal to those who subscribe to the 
myth of zero tolerance, but they are a rational response.

Even those wedded to a war on drugs should ask themselves which they 
prefer: officers filling in pointless reports, or serious narcotics 
investigations.

Next month's changes involve deeper considerations than the alleged 
toleration of cannabis.

Implicitly, police are asking us to wonder why they - highly-trained, 
forever overstretched  should be left to deal with the wandering 
alcoholic, the disturbed shoplifter, or the youth urinating in the close.

Too often, such policing amounts to improvised social work. When the 
offences are too petty to trouble the courts, the exercise is futile.

The new warnings should also help to fix an old problem.

Hitherto, the range of possible responses to petty offences has 
failed to meet the definition of proportionate. One miscreant might 
have suffered a fixed penalty notice; another, caught for the same 
offence, could have earned no consequences. Equally, the use of 
"adult police warnings" has revealed old, pre-merger habits.

There has been no consistency across the country.

Welcome as the new system is, a few questions arise.

One involves the Lord Advocate's confidential prosecution guidelines. 
If police discretion is to be exercised, there needs to be more 
transparency. What is a "small amount" of cannabis?

And what harm is there in telling the public?

Equally, there is the wider issue of petty offences and the effort 
demanded of police.

A vast volume of their work involves the minor infractions of motorists.

Of all the demands on time and resources, that one truly invites the 
question: why?
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom