DM - Revealed, how police chiefs are getting softer on drugs: Surge in on-the-spot...

[edgarshade]

Revealed, how police chiefs are getting softer on drugs: Surge in on-the-spot fines as officers are 'sceptical' about arrests

By Jack Doyle and James Slack
PUBLISHED: 00:41, 4 February 2013

With reader comments

• Fines given to 16,000 cannabis users last year, up 11,000 from 2009
• Drugs spokesman says there is 'little merit' in banning legal highs
• He says police don't have the resources to battle new drugs

Police chiefs have quietly adopted a new softer policy on illegal drug taking, it emerged last night. They have decided to take a ‘less robust enforcement approach’ on possession of drugs such as cannabis. The switch, revealed in papers seen by the Daily Mail, coincides with a surge in the number of offenders receiving only on-the-spot fines. Last year, nearly 16,000 cannabis users were given this punishment, effectively a slap on the wrist. In 2009, it was just 5,000. In a letter to his peers by Tim Hollis, Chief Constable of Humberside, he disclosed many officers were ‘sceptical’ about arresting and charging drug-users. The papers also reveal that chief constables want so-called legal highs to be sold on the high street through licensed ‘head shops’.

Anti-drugs campaigners accused him of ‘waving the white flag’. Mary Brett, of Cannabis Skunk Sense, said: ‘These comments are totally irresponsible when children are dying from taking these drugs. ‘It is deeply worrying that Mr Hollis appears to have been captured by the vocal and well-funded legalisation lobby. ‘The law must be enforced for both existing drugs and new dangerous substances, which should be banned. 'Otherwise the wrong-headed message goes out that these drugs are harmless and the authorities do not care what young people are taking.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...cers-sceptical-arrests.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

 

[Portillo]

What about the kids who die from alcohol, doesnt anyone care about them?