25/04/2007 16:00:00
UK: Police call for dope 'tickets'
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CURRENT government rules on cannabis are inadequate to deal with Camden
Town’s drugs blight, according to the borough’s senior policeman who is
calling for new powers.
Police should have the power to issue “tickets” and £80 fines to anyone
caught with cannabis if the High Street’s reputation for dope-pushing is
to be stubbed out, Chief Superintendent Mark Heath told the New Journal.
Under his proposals, existing Home Office guidelines, which advise
police to issue warnings rather than prosecute, would be replaced with a
system of on-the-spot fines that carried a criminal record.
This will fuel the debate over the current government’s robustness in
dealing with the class C drug.
He said: “We do some formal warnings but it doesn’t really cut the ice
much if you say ‘excuse me sir, you’re not allowed to have a bit of
cannabis in Camden Town, dreadfully sorry’. If it had a fixed penalty
notice attached to it for £80 it would be quite useful.”
The Camden Town experience of street pushers operating among stalls and
shops selling cannabis paraphernalia has no close parallel in London and
calls for special powers, he added, with only Brixton drug market coming
close.
Fixed Penalty Notices would be used against first-time offenders.
The proposals have formed part of the action-plan for tackling
anti-social behaviour in Camden put forward by Lib Dem crime tsar
Councillor Ben Rawlings, despite his party’s support for the Home Office
decision not to upgrade the classification of cannabis.
The Home Office said last week that there were no plans to change policy
on cannabis possession.
http://www.thecnj.co.uk/camden/042607/news042607_19.html
Source:
http://www.ukcia.org/news/shownewsarticle.php?articleid=12490
Author:
Camden New Journal via UKCIA
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