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Police call for dope ‘tickets’
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.
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| Your Comments: |
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Just another way to grab money from the public.
Charlotte Hough |
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