Cannabis ban should be lifted, says chief constable

The chief constable of Durham Police has called for the ban on cannabis to be lifted arguing that it puts users in danger and gives millions of pounds to organised criminals.

Mike Barton said people growing a couple of cannabis plants for personal use would not be raided by his force.

It comes after William Hague said the war on cannabis had failed and the Class B drug should be legalised.

I have come reluctantly over the years to the conclusion that we need to regulate the market. If you can regulate the market you can make sure it’s old-fashioned cannabis – not skunk or spice.

Chief Constable Mike Barton

Mr Barton said: “When I joined the police in Blackpool 38 years ago there was one drug squad detective; now everybody is on it. I’ve seen a remarkable deterioration in drugs in society over the last 38 years. What we are doing is not working.”

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According to the Guardian, he added: “The status quo is not tenable. It’s getting worse. Drugs are getting cheaper, stronger, more readily available and more dangerous. I have come reluctantly over the years to the conclusion that we need to regulate the market. If you can regulate the market you can make sure it’s old-fashioned cannabis – not skunk or spice.”

Cannabis has been in the news after the Home Office backed down over its refusal to release medicinal cannabis oil that it confiscated from the family of a severely epileptic boy earlier this month.

‘Prohibition has not worked’

Sajid Javid used exceptional powers to issue a licence for Billy Caldwell to be treated with the oil as a matter of urgency. Several US states have decriminalised or legalised cannabis.

Mr Barton said: ”If someone is an adult and makes a choice to do something that does not harm anyone else, who are we to judge? People have already made that judgment – a third of people have tried it.

“The people who think cannabis should be prohibited have secured the high ground on their moral position. But if it is a plant which is freely available and a third of people have decided they want to take it, the prohibition argument has lost its efficacy. Prohibition does not work. We are creating a latter-day mafia in the UK.”