Associated Press
LONDON — A pilot program relaxing curbs on marijuana in a London district has attracted users to the area and increased the use of hard drugs, a senior police officer said Tuesday.
Under the program, which began in July, people in Lambeth in south London found with small amounts of marijuana are not arrested, but receive a warning.
Police say the policy saves hours of paperwork, freeing up time to fight hard drugs and violent crime in the inner-city neighborhood.
But Fred Broughton, chairman of the Police Federation, said Tuesday that the pilot scheme didn’t appear to be reducing the use of drugs in the area as had been hoped. "The reverse seems to be true," he said.
Broughton, whose organization represents 126,000 police officers, said the program apparently gave some residents, including children, the impression that the authorities condone the use of marijuana, called cannabis in Britain.
"The change in procedures is encouraging more people to come to that area and more people are involving themselves in cannabis," Broughton told lawmakers in the House of Commons.
He also said that crack abusers and crack dealers are becoming more visible and more active.
The six-month program was due to end Dec. 31, but police continued it while they await two reports assessing its success. Scotland Yard says they will then decide whether to scrap the policy or extend it across the city.
Scotland Yard has said the program has saved 2,000 hours of police time and that 400 drug users had escaped prosecution.
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