r/unitedkingdom • u/RandomUsername1604 • 25d ago

Police officers say cannabis is effectively ‘decriminalised’ in the UK .

https://www.leafie.co.uk/news/police-cannabis-decriminalised-survey/
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u/After-Anybody9576 25d ago

That report presumably not aware that police policy is not to stop based on that alone as per CoP guidance?

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u/limpingdba 25d ago

Like that ever stopped them. Walk past a cop stinking of weed and when you're searched, tell then it's against their policy. See what happens.

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u/[deleted] 25d ago

[deleted]

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u/SmileAndLaughrica 25d ago

Where do you live?? In London I think I see police at least once a week

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u/PurpleEsskay 25d ago

In London

Theres your issue. Most places are not London. London works very differently to the rest of the country, where most of us live. You'll rarely see a police officer, and you certainly wont see them walking anywhere.

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u/Regular_mills 25d ago

Yet I live in a town in the midlands and I see police weekly and they do in fact walk. You can’t generalise the whole country based on anecdotes.

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u/eggrolldog 25d ago

in the midlands

Theres your issue. Most places are not the midlands. The midlands works very differently to the rest of the country, where most of us live. You'll rarely see a police officer, and you certainly wont see them walking anywhere.

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u/LoveGrenades 25d ago

I also live in the midlands, and although I see plenty of police cars zapping up and down, I can’t remember the last time I saw a police officer on the street anywhere, unless at a crime scene standing next to their car.

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u/Ivashkin 25d ago

When I lived in Manchester, the only time we saw the police was during the first 2 weeks of lockdown when they set up a mini-FOB outside the post office and began questioning people on where they were going and if they really needed to go to the shops or not. When the government told the police to back off, they packed up and were never seen again.

In my new town, we only see them at big events (fireworks, Christmas lights etc).

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u/dmmeyourfloof 24d ago

That's BS.

Police are constantly patrolling central Manchester.

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u/Ivashkin 24d ago

I wasn't in central manchester.

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u/dmmeyourfloof 24d ago

I've seen them regularly in Radcliffe, Prestwich, Bury, Whitefield, Didsbury, Trafford, Central Manchester, Bolton and more besides.

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u/SoylentDave 22d ago

I lived in one of the shittiest bits of Manchester and while I only occasionally saw foot patrols, there were plenty of vehicles and plastic police (pre Covid)

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u/gphillips5 Cornwall 24d ago

I live in Cornwall and haven't seen a police on the streets for months. In places like this, you really can go a long period without ever seeing police, bar from the odd car here and there.

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u/Tonerrr 24d ago

South Yorkshire here. Fuck all police on the streets...

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u/CurmudgeonLife 24d ago

Probably CSO's, you really only see police on foot now if they're trying to get somewhere they cant drive to like a town centre.

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u/Kwinza 24d ago

Redditch? Because theres a reason you see cops there. :P

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u/yrmjy England 25d ago

Doesn't mean it's not an issue

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u/masofon 25d ago

Wow.. I hadn't thought about this at all, but I can't remember the last time I saw a police officer.. as a kid I remember seeing them just casually patrolling on a daily basis.

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u/aesemon 25d ago

Nah, Bethnal Green mostly has the fast tracking to higher jobs and just get seen going by in cars at best.

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u/Maleficent_Resolve44 24d ago

I mean it's harder to walk places in a lot of cities outside of London. Makes sense, they'd be zipping by in cars.

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u/SmileAndLaughrica 25d ago

When I lived in Manchester I saw police also pretty regularly around Piccadilly Gardens, especially Friday or Saturday night. Granted when I lived in a tiny town in Cumbria I didn’t see them regularly, but definitely more regularly than once a decade! I even remember seeing armed police or mounted police!

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u/Odd-Yesterday-2987 25d ago

Police in a city centre? God I am shocked. Its almost like that's the point OP was making. Not all places are city centres.

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u/SmileAndLaughrica 25d ago

Literally just said I saw them in my tiny town centre? 11,000 people…. Hardly booming

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u/Iyotanka1985 25d ago

You still have police? I haven't seen them in years and I kinda forgot they exist outside the A1

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u/kahnindustries Wales 25d ago

Same, see a special plodding around the town centre at Xmas at most

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u/Phyllida_Poshtart Yorkshire 25d ago

Yeah my dear old Community Officer is always far more visible at Christmas nipping into the shops for her freebies

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u/International-Pass22 25d ago

I see them multiple times a day!

...

But then I work right next to a patrol base

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u/hundreddollar Buckinghamshire 25d ago

But then I am Dame Cressida Dick.

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u/Hatanta 25d ago

Yeah I see them all the time (I am a policeman)

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u/PurpleTeapotOfDoom Glamorganshire 25d ago

I walk/cycle to work right past my city's main police station and only see police in a car sometimes, never on foot.

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u/Krinkgo214 25d ago

Yeah there are literally no police here.

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u/FartingBob Best Sussex 25d ago

Figuratively?

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u/Krinkgo214 25d ago

More or less, aye.

You never see them on the beat they only show up if there's bovva.

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u/ADelightfulCunt 25d ago

Where in London do you live I see probs see at least 4 groups on a daily outing. Also police didn't even stop me when I mistakenly chased a friend down a street picked them up and took a joint out of their mouth. They just laughed at us in their squad car.

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u/ferretchad 25d ago

Really? Outside of the train stations (and other high risk targets) or in the immediate vicinity of a police station, I very rarely see them, at least not on foot.

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u/Secretest-squirell 25d ago

Other than the odd speed camera van maybe twice a month. Odd blue light toward the usual trouble areas. That’s about it.

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u/AdvantageGlass5460 25d ago

Strange. I live in London and can't remember the last time I saw one. Must be different by boroughs as I live in one of the ones on the outskirts.

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u/aesemon 25d ago

In Bethnal Green only ever saw them go by in a car, but out over knightsbridge with long sweeping roads with no small streets and alleys? Got a Bobby patrolling........

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u/west0ne 25d ago

I'm in the Midlands. I think the only time I've seen a police officer on foot in the last two years is at the airport. I do see them most Sunday mornings picking up their sandwiches from the cafe but they drive there.

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u/WitteringLaconic 25d ago edited 25d ago

Not seen any in my town for months. Police station only open office hours, only 4 officers covering the town and outlying villages.

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u/GoldMountain5 25d ago edited 25d ago

Only ever see them in London, and only in busy areas or hotshots. Otherwise I can go months without ever seeing one in most of my nearby towns. I haven't seen a police car in my commute to/from work in years that wasn't already attending a major invident/crash.  There's almost no presence at all, and unless it's a major crime in progress they take weeks to show up only to say there's nothing more they can do other than to file a report and claim on your insurance.

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u/[deleted] 25d ago

Lol I was just thinking this!

I think its a case of a few factors for me.

1) I no longer walk everywhere so spend less time actually walking in the streets vs driving etc. Less opportunity to then walk by police officers.

2) I'm an older man now... nearly 40.. i have a lot more experience and am just generally less likely to be stopped in the first place as I'm less likely to pose a threat to society in most people's eyes. I'm also a family man and tend to walk when with my wife and young child. Again I seem like much less of a target for a stop and search.

3) it was always about reducing the exposure and risk of getting caught. Never leaving the house with too much if I was walking. Try not to take public transport where ur trapped. Always keeping eyes and ears open to ur surroundings and any danger and just being alert.

I can honestly say that I have been stopped and searched a good few times and mainly from the "smell" of cannabis. Not once have I ever been caught with possession, though. I'd always make sure that I had a way to dispose of it (even if I was in open sight, like throwing in to the thames when i was being chased by the cops, or smoking near sewage drains so i could throw the lit spliff down if i needed to in a pinch) and not, therefore, be caught with any evidence. I've even muched it before as a last ditch effort when I didn't have an opportunity to dash it. But this was over a decade ago. Nearly 2 decades ago! Plenty of paraphernalia, never any product.

I actually have quit now.. It's been 3 weeks.. im going nuts. I really miss it! It was the only way i could quit tobacco... so I'm done with both for now. Which is a shame as it really helped my athritis

They really need to legalise it though. I'm getting sick and tired of not having that freedom of choice for drugs. I should be able to legally grow a plant or two at home and enjoy the product nice and clean. I used to grow here in the uk for personal consumption (and to give away for free to my mates and family) but that apparently made me a criminal... foukdnt risk it when my daughter was born do stopped and ended up paying stupid prices for the next 7-8 years. Black market won.

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u/madpiano 25d ago

Round my area the kids walk past the police smoking. Nothing happens, even though they are clearly younger than 18 as well. I guess it keeps them calm which may stop another stabbing. Win/win.

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u/pipnina 25d ago

When's your birthday?

22nd February

What year?

Every year

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u/chinto30 25d ago

I genuinely can't remember the last time I saw one walking around my town, easily 5 plus years ago.

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u/Zealousideal_Day5001 25d ago

I'm a middle class white man and I have been smoking weed when cops walk past and they have never bothered me

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u/ridethetruncheon Antrim 25d ago

I’ve been lifted twice for smelling of weed as a white woman

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u/SamPlinth 25d ago

I have been stopped 3 times for smelling of weed as a white woman. What I find particularly annoying is that I am actually an Asian man.

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u/ridethetruncheon Antrim 25d ago

Wait.. am I an Asian man too 😂 nah but when I was homeless in my early 20s I was a bit of a cheeky cunt to cops so I do think I’m just ‘known’ to a group of cops where I’m from (Belfast). Most love me, a handful were clearly hoping for any excuse to arrest me after life became stable and those two arrests were during that time. They leave me alone totally now.

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u/PJHart86 Belfast 25d ago

username checks out

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u/recursant 25d ago

The police are still a bit transphobic.

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u/BikerScowt Aberdeenshire 25d ago

Sounds like you have a case against them for both mis-gendering and racism, payday coming in :)

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u/Terrible_Discount_48 25d ago

I’m white and I’ve had it said to me. It really shouldn’t be enough to stop someone.

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u/After-Anybody9576 25d ago

I mean, you'd be hard pressed to find one to walk next to anyway, they don't just dordle about hoping to catch a (literal) whiff of something anymore.

Obviously there's never anything you can do in the moment if a police officer decides to exercise any legal power on you, correctly or incorrectly. They'd have some questions to answer afterwards though if they stop-searched someone on a busy street based on smell alone and you raised a complaint. Purely for the obvious reason that smells can come from anywhere, hence why that policy was brought in.

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u/Any_Turnip8724 25d ago

this is the key bit for “not smell alone”- on a busy street. I’d be bonkers to target one in a crowd of fifty.

If I’ve walked past you on your own with noone around, smelt it (not a vague whiff but a recently-departed cloud’s worth), doubled back, can still smell it and you’ve turned away, walked off, discarded summat, done the awkward “ahhh feck” face while still holding it, etc etc, I’ll still declare the smell as part of my grounds and record it on the stop because it’s what “drew my suspicion” initially.

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u/After-Anybody9576 25d ago

Yeah for sure. It was OP's link I was objecting to, he seemed to be implying the police can just pull up minorities at random, stick "I smelt cannabis" down on the report and it's all A-ok.

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u/Any_Turnip8724 25d ago

I can guarantee if I did that I would be ripped apart.

As I always tell people if they think I’m somehow not following the rules- it’s not worth my pension or my paycheck.

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u/After-Anybody9576 25d ago

Glad an actual PC has come on here to back me up on this haha.

Every officer I know IRL has said much the same, even going so far as to say they actively avoid stop-searching unless there's something really jumping in their face as it's not worth the hassle anymore.

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u/Any_Turnip8724 25d ago

my decision to stop/not do so is very context based, but I’ve spent most of my time in a proactive unit where we get a bit more flexibility.

If I’m one of two officers out, and I walk past some teenager with one joint- I’m going to just take it out your hand and stamp it out and tell you to not be such a plum and go somewhere that I’m not, because I’ve probably got far worse things just around the corner. Changes if there’s loads of us about.

If it’s weapons or stolen property, I don’t care what’s going on, you’re getting searched.

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u/AspirationalChoker 25d ago

Stop search is basically only used when you've had a proper report and description given where I'm at anything else and you're probably getting investigated for years or sacked and so on its the same with use of force

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u/Phyllida_Poshtart Yorkshire 25d ago

*Dawdle sorry but made me chuckle did dordle as it sounded right yet looked so wrong

Yeah my son is a daily smoker and constantly smells and the only time he got stopped was in the park of all places in the middle of nowhere, by a very small community officer who asked him if he had weed on him as he smelled, told her nope but said he'd just come from outside the bus station where everyone was smoking so that was probably why and no more was said. He never smokes outside the house anyway so never has any on him

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u/MousseCareless3199 25d ago

I think you're cosplaying in the wrong sub, this isn't the US.

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u/KevinAtSeven 25d ago

No it isn't, but London is in the UK and the Met's reputation for abusing stop and search and disproportionately targeting black and minority men on the street wasn't earned for nothing.

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u/R_Lau_18 25d ago

We have big problems with police brutality & racism here. 1 person has died in police custody approx per week in this country since 1989.

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u/MousseCareless3199 25d ago edited 25d ago

It's all well and good looking at historical data, when there was legitimate concerns and issues with police brutality and racism (which will bump up the average). However, more recent data paints a much more positive image.

Additionally, these stats also include people who are shot by police and deaths that are a result of police pursuits and subsequent road traffic accidents. It also includes deaths following police contact/custody. So, if we look at the data more granually, we can see that less people died in actual police custody last year, compared to the headline figure.

Further, if you take a look at the link, you'll find a lot of the deaths in police custody are related to illness, rather than any kind of malicious brutality or racism.

There were 24 deaths in or following police custody, an increase of one from 2022/23, and the highest figure since 2006/07:

Fifteen people were taken ill or were identified as being unwell in a police cell.

Eleven were taken to hospital where they later died. Four people died in a police custody suite.

Six people were taken ill at the scene of arrest. Three people were taken to hospital, where they later died. Three people died at the scene.

Two men were taken ill in a police vehicle, and were taken to hospital where they died.

One woman died following release from police custody. Post arrest she had been taken to hospital for treatment for facial injuries and then returned to custody. She died three days after release.

I'm not sure you can peddle the idea of big problems with police brutality and racism based on those numbers.

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u/R_Lau_18 25d ago

Eleven were taken to hospital where they later died. Four people died in a police custody suite.

https://www.voice.wales/this-is-police-brutality-the-fight-for-truth-justice-after-the-death-of-mohamud-hassan/

His Aunt describes him returning from police custody with “lots of wounds on his body and lots of bruises…He didn’t have these wounds when he was arrested and when he came out of Cardiff Bay police station, he had them.”

Hassan died shortly after leaving custody, succumbing to severe wounds.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/08/iopc-apologises-marcia-rigg-black-man-sean-rigg-died-police-custody

Sean Rigg died in custody at Brixton police station in 2008. Why did the cops "apologise" to his family if he wasn't murdered?

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u/MousseCareless3199 25d ago

I'm not saying police brutality while in custody doesn't happen, only that the issue isn't as big as initially stated.

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u/umop_apisdn 25d ago

In your opinion how many people are the police allowed to kill with impunity while they are in their care?

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u/MousseCareless3199 25d ago edited 25d ago

The police aren't allowed to kill anyone unlawfully. However, there's a difference between widespread systematic police racism/brutality and the odd police nutjob.

Nuance is a powerful tool and combined with analysing the data as posted above, we can see that peddling lines like "The UK has a big problem with police brutality and racism" does not seem to match up to reality.

Why people say things like this, I don't know. Perhaps for ideological or political reasons. The most important thing to remember however, is that we must try and stick to the data and reality as it presents itself, rather than approaching reality as we wish it to be.

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u/Astriania 25d ago

Ah so we've gone from "we have big problems" to "wellll, there was one time in 2021 and one in 2008".

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u/AspirationalChoker 25d ago

Have you seen the amount of drugged up crazies in jail every night? I don't think people realise how lucky we are more done die due to the care constantly given every day

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u/limpingdba 25d ago

As someone who would brazenly bounce round the town centre smoking spliffs I can say that with some authority. Of course they'll fucking stop and search you if they smell weed. I doubt that's changed much in the last 5 years. I'm also not saying I agree nor disagree with them. What I disagree with is this idea that they don't use "smell alone". Of course they do.

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u/sobrique 25d ago

I don't need to. I'm a middle class well built white guy. They don't stop me in the first place.

(Which is kinda making your point a different way, I'm agreeing with you).

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u/Fenrir-The-Wolf GSTK 25d ago

Visited a mate in Birmingham, he sorted me out with an ounce and some oil. On the day of my return home it was a match day, so there were coppers fucking everywhere in the stations. Had to walk past a rank of drugs dogs and not a single one of them marked me out.

I was fully shitting myself lmao, dunno why they didn't mark me, but fuck me did I feel a lucky bastard.

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u/limpingdba 25d ago

Most likely the dogs were there to sniff explosives only

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u/Fenrir-The-Wolf GSTK 25d ago

I've been marked out by drugs dogs before when I wasn't even in possession so yeah, that would probably make more sense.

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u/ComfortableAd8326 25d ago

Guidance being the operative word here

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u/After-Anybody9576 25d ago

That guidance, alongside force policies which are based off it, are what inform tribunals in misconduct cases.

Essentially, an officer might be legally entitled to exercise certain powers in particular ways under strict reading of the law, but the police as an employer still have the right to restrict that practice further in the same way any employer can.

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u/ComfortableAd8326 25d ago

So another layer of discretion

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u/After-Anybody9576 25d ago

Well there's no discretion for the officer...

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u/R_Lau_18 25d ago

I live in London & have intervened in stop & searches p.regularly. Actual coppers have used this justification. When I have mentioned this, they said it was "a recommendation". You can guess who they were stop & searching every single time.

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u/Ok-Veterinarian-5381 25d ago

Oh good. A policy. We're saved.

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u/After-Anybody9576 25d ago

Isn't everything just a policy when it comes down to it?

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u/Strange_Rice 25d ago

Reports on actual behaviour of police do tend to find discrepancies with the policy on paper. If we could rely on written policy being followed 100% of the time we wouldn't need to do research on the actual realities of police behaviour.

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u/Duckstiff 25d ago

Force dependant if you look at the UK as a whole, certainly still do it in Scotland.

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u/PenitentGhost 25d ago

Growing up a police van used to be parked outside our council estate, funnily enough my appearance always matched the description they were given for an unspecified crime nearby.

I had no idea what my rights were until recently.

Maybe this doesn't fit here but I had to tell someone

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u/Square-Competition48 25d ago

CoP guidance probably says the police shouldn’t rape people too but it doesn’t seem to discourage them.

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u/After-Anybody9576 25d ago

Much like the law itself doesn't discourage the general public who commit rape at a far higher rate than police officers do...

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u/Zealousideal_Day5001 25d ago

I'd be surprised if the general public rape as often as cops. For a start, 65% of police officers are male. Not even mentioning what kind of person might want to be a cop.

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u/After-Anybody9576 25d ago

To meet the per capita rate, we'd need to see something like 500 convictions of police officers per year. Despite the news reporting every single case which gives the impression of large numbers relatively speaking, it's nowhere near that (it's somewhere in the dozens at the very most).

Yes there's a male lean in the police, but equally officers ARE vetted, and offences of more or less every kind are typically repeated, and so weeding out past offenders makes a huge difference.

Also your final comment about "hat kind of person might want to be a cop" says a lot about your outlook, but perhaps the answer, by and large, is people who want a rewarding job enforcing the law? The numbers definitely don't back up the reddit narrative that it's largely predatory men seeking to rape as many women as possible.

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u/Zealousideal_Day5001 25d ago edited 25d ago

I'm sure cops are more likely to be assertive, confident, physically strong, aware of power dynamics, interested in being on the right side of them. Most people in an office are not confident or physically strong and are very poor at asserting themselves.

I think your 500 figure is bullshit too.  67,928 rapes recorded last year and 147,746 police officers in the UK. Only 0.2% of Brits are cops. That's about 100 rapes p/a for parity, if 100% of rapists were identified. (my maths are probably shit)

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u/After-Anybody9576 24d ago

I calculated for sexual offences generally not just rapes. And just to say, there's also nowhere near 100 police officer-committed rapes either.

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u/Zealousideal_Day5001 24d ago

we have no idea how many police officers rape someone in any given year just like we have no idea how many men rape someone in any given year. My figures are just the number of rapes recorded by the police, not the number of men convicted of rape.

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u/After-Anybody9576 24d ago

Fine- in so far as there isn't a huge national conspiracy concealing offences, police officers are vastly less likely to commit a sexual offence.

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u/shadowed_siren 25d ago

Police are statistically much less likely to commit all crimes than the general population.

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u/Zealousideal_Day5001 25d ago

what about corruption in public office

I have a 0% chance of committing that crime

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u/shadowed_siren 25d ago

I said general population. Holding a public office isn’t the general population, is it?

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u/Zealousideal_Day5001 25d ago

Oh so you just mean crime in general by 'all crimes', you don't mean 'the police are less likely to commit all types of crime' when you say 'all crimes'?

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u/shadowed_siren 25d ago

Yes. I mean police are statistically less like to commit crime than the general public.

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u/Square-Competition48 25d ago

Weird take to say that the number of police officers running around raping people is okay.

At this point if someone tells me they’re a police officer I just kind of assume they’re a rapist because if they aren’t then they’re clearly fine with being seen as one or they’d get a better job.

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u/After-Anybody9576 25d ago

More like it's a weird take to make everything about rape

It's quickly becoming the new "it's like Nazi Germany"-style argument as regards the police, it gets rolled out every day no matter how tenuous the link. Maybe you could take a day off.

Edit: Not to mention that, in any case, your argument was essentially the fallacious argument people can roll out about any policy/law when they feel like it, that being that laws/rules are pointless because people can still break them. Which of course misses the whole point.

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u/Square-Competition48 25d ago

Maybe the police should take a day off from all the raping?

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u/After-Anybody9576 25d ago

Maybe the whole country should take a day off from all the raping?

Don't see why the 99% of victims who weren't raped by police officers should be left to suffer...

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u/Square-Competition48 25d ago

They’re just left to suffer by the police and CPS who don’t take rape cases seriously and have an appallingly low conviction rate.

Because we’ve got foxes guarding the henhouse.

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u/After-Anybody9576 25d ago

If you think "the police" as a whole are "foxes", by which I assume you mean rapists/would-be-rapists/rape-sympathisers, then I think you need to take a break from the internet for a bit ang get some perspective.

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u/Square-Competition48 25d ago

Kinda feels like you’re launching a personal attack in lieu of an argument against an extremely valid and widely held criticism of the police.

Without making too much of an assumption about your profession I’d suggest a bit of introspection on why the police have become seen as non-receptive to criticism.

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u/Chalkun 25d ago

The fact that conviction rates are so low if anything suggests that the police and cps pursue charges that havent got solid evidential basis. Theyre not meant to even charge you unless its over a 50% chance of conviction, in reality its 2% for rape. Which means theyre actually pretty liberal with charging people even when the evidence is weak. The CPS isnt to blame for a juries' verdict anyway, so your point is kinda silly.

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u/Square-Competition48 25d ago

Okay do the police incompetently bungling cases on a massive scale is proof of how much they care?

That’s an original take at least.

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u/shadowed_siren 25d ago

CPS aren’t made up of police officers. They’re generally lawyers. So do you think all lawyers are rapists too?

People like you will criticise police for stopping and searching “all Asian men” and in the same breath call all police rapists. Completely unironically.

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u/Square-Competition48 25d ago

I’m aware of who the CPS are.

Who are “people like me”?

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