cannabisnews.com: Pilot Program on Marijuana Well Received 





Pilot Program on Marijuana Well Received 
Posted by FoM on October 25, 2001 at 09:30:45 PT
By Chris Fontaine, Associated Press Writer
Source: Associated Press
Smoking marijuana is illegal in Britain, but an overstretched police force in south London can't be bothered to make arrests. Now one community's blind eye toward pot use is the model for national drug laws.Although the effectiveness of the experiment in Brixton has yet to be determined, Home Secretary David Blunkett announced this week that he wants to relax marijuana laws across Britain.
Fed up with the hours it takes to process paperwork for a crime increasingly viewed as innocuous, police in Brixton do not actively pursue marijuana users and will only confiscate the drug and issue a warning to those found smoking or carrying it.Instead, police are cracking down on harder drugs and violent street crime in the inner-city neighborhood.The six-month experiment began in July, and reaction from police chiefs, politicians and the general public has been largely favorable.Patrick Hines, a dreadlocked Rastafarian selling incense sticks at the entrance to the Brixton subway station, applauded the move Wednesday as a step toward decriminalization and greater social acceptance of regular marijuana, or cannabis, use.Hines said there might be a short-term danger of dealers attempting to sell more of the drug and youths abusing it. But if education went hand-in-hand with legal relaxation, he said police would achieve their aims."Decriminalizing cannabis is in a way a form of fighting people who are into hard drugs," said the 46-year-old from Guyana. "If people don't have access to a spliff (marijuana cigarette), they may go search for their high in harder drugs and with hard drugs comes violence and crime."Paul Andell, treasurer of the Brixton Community Police Consultative Group, said the proposal was a reflection of reality."We are here in the 21st century. Cannabis is a relatively innocuous drug and it was sensible to move in the way we have," Andell said. "Here in Brixton, it is still early days in the pilot scheme but the initial indications are it is a success."After the government announcement, investors snapped up shares of GW Pharmaceuticals, the only British firm licensed to grow marijuana for medicinal purposes. The company is conducting trials of a marijuana-based pain reliever and expects the medicine could reach the market by 2004, if government laws change to allow prescription sales.Evidence of increasing public acceptance of cannabis also could be found at the Body Shop outlet across the street from the subway station.The chain of beauty stores sells a line of products emblazoned with the distinctive five-pointed leaf of a cannabis plant. The British company stresses that its products are made with hemp, a close relative of smokable marijuana that does not produce a high.Under Blunkett's proposal, marijuana would be reclassified as a "Class C drug" -- putting it in the same category as anabolic steroids. It would still be illegal to possess or smoke, but police would not be able to arrest a violator. Instead, they could only issue a warning or a court summons.The proposal will be discussed among the nation's police forces for several months and perhaps forwarded to Parliament for approval in spring.Since the start of the experiment in Brixton, 218 people have been officially warned for possession of cannabis, compared with 168 people arrested during the same period last year.Complete Title: Pilot Program on Marijuana Well Received as Britain Proposes Relaxation of LawsOn the Net:Lambeth Police: http://www.met.police.uk/lambeth/Body Shop's Hemp Action: http://www.bodyshop.com/usa/hemp-action/index.htmlSource: Associated PressAuthor: Chris Fontaine, Associated Press WriterPublished: October 25, 2001Copyright: 2001 Associated PressRelated Articles:Campaigners Applaud Cannabis Reform http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11177.shtmlWhy Britain is Going Dutch http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11175.shtmlUK Bases Its New Policy on the Belgian Policy http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11176.shtml 
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