Cannabis policy is flawed says Yard chief

A senior Scotland Yard officer has voiced the most serious criticism yet of the controversial Brixton cannabis experiment.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Mike Fuller, head of the Yard's drugs directorate, said the scheme had "significant flaws".

The project, in which people caught with small amounts of cannabis are warned but not prosecuted, has won overwhelming support from the community and saved 1,350 hours of police time.

However Mr Fuller, writing in the magazine Police Review, said that the aims and procedures of the experiment had not been well communicated to the police or the public - most of whom believed, mistakenly, that cannabis had been legalised.

Recent figures showed that the scheme led to a 13 per cent rise in the number of dealers and drug users moving into Lambeth.