r/unitedkingdom • u/RandomUsername1604 • 29d ago

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

https://www.leafie.co.uk/news/police-cannabis-decriminalised-survey/

6.0k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

3.9k

u/lxgrf 29d ago

Thing is effectively decriminalising by not going after consumers is kind of the worst of both worlds. The real problem is and has always been the organised crime groups growing and distributing. Legalisation takes the power and the profit away from them. This doesn't.

Plus selective enforcement leads to discriminatory enforcement.

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u/RandomUsername1604 29d ago

Yeah there was a report showing that the police still like to use 'smell of cannabis' to stop and search young black and asian males disproportionately, so I guess its only effectively decriminalised when the cops can't be arsed with the paperwork.

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u/After-Anybody9576 29d 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 29d 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/After-Anybody9576 29d 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 29d 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 29d 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 29d 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 29d 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 29d 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 28d 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