24th June
2002
By ANNE MCELVOY.
SIR JOHN
STEVENS has admitted that an alleged increase in cannabis
use by children in Lambeth - where a "softly-softly"
policy on cannabis users is under way - is "incredibly
worrying".
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner called for the penalties
on selling the drug to children to be substantially increased.
In an interview with the Standard, Sir John indicated for
the first time publicly that the Met is unhappy about the
progress of the pilot scheme and says he shares concerns of
local critics.
He said: "Children are massively vulnerable. I do not
think that anything that exposes children to more contact
with drugs should be tolerated."
Sir John added that "risky" schemes and pilot projects
had to be weighed up carefully to judge their effectiveness.
He said: "A lot of people are worried and we have to
listen to their concerns carefully. There have been too many
mixed messages in Lambeth, which has led some people to believe
that there will be no enforcement of the law."
His remarks will be interpreted as a clear signal that the
Met is unhappy about the Government's impending reclassification
of cannabis to a class C drug without simultaneous steps to
protect children. Sir John said: "These suppliers are
the real enemies of the people and they have to be stopped."
The "softly-softly" scheme, launched last July by
Lambeth police chief Brian Paddick, was intended to free police
time to concentrate on other tasks. But it has been heavily
criticised by community leaders and residents who fear that
it will turn Lambeth into a haven for drug suppliers and users
who regard soft drug use as effectively legal in the borough.
Commander Paddick has since been moved to a desk job pending
an inquiry into claims that he smoked cannabis with a boyfriend.
Sir John called for a "significant toughening" of
punishments for supplying class C drugs to children to address
the fears raised by parents, community workers and the local
MP, Kate Hoey. The Commissioner said: "We've got to do
more. We have to seize their assets and confiscate their houses,
if necessary. We need iron enforcement, that's clear."
He defended the decision to pilot a more relaxed approach
to enforcing the law on cannabis possession, saying: "It
was a bold pilot scheme.
Sometimes you have to go to the very edge of things."
Asked if there were plans to replicate the experiment elsewhere,
the Commissioner said that he would not consider any such
step until the impact on children in the Lambeth project had
been fully assessed and faults addressed.
Mike Fuller, the Met's influential drugs squad chief, is also
thought to have reservations about extending the scheme.
The police chief 's comments come in the wake of criticism
from Asa Hutchinson, director of the US Drug Enforcement Administration,
who visited Lambeth last week and raised concerns about the
pilot scheme. The Commissioner was adamant that it should
not become "a slippery slope" to wider liberalisation
and admitted that there was a "widespread misunderstanding"
that cannabis was now legal in the borough. "It isn't
and it won't be," he said.
He specified the Dutch experiment, often cited by supporters
of a more liberal stance on drugs, as a disaster.
"What I saw there has always haunted me as a policeman,"
he said.
"Anything that exposes children to drugs is the wrong
way to go. When I visited Amsterdam, I was taken by the police
to a place where users met to consume hard drugs.
"I met a 16-year-old girl, very attractive and from a
decent background.
She was already so far gone that she was injecting heroin
in her arm and then snorting crack cocaine straight afterwards.
Her pimp was getting the stuff for her. She was dead within
a year and a half.
"It appalled me that I was being taken to see this by
police who were reduced to being spectators."
© EVENING STANDARD 24/06/2002
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