Category: De facto decriminalisation

Dorset PCC Sidwick tells MPs not to decriminalise cannabis

Dorset Echo | 22nd June 2022

“There’s two issues here one, would it make life any easier from the point of view of the crime aspect? No. Unequivocally.

“So it won’t change a thing, it will just make it worse.

“If we are looking at it from a public health perspective, look, this has been tried.

“Portugal had a 30-fold increase in its psychosis hospitalisations between 2010 and 2015.

“Scotland itself mentioned a 74 per cent increase in the same thing it was reported in the papers in January.

“Professors of psychiatry are calling for cannabis to be a class A drug again.

“The US we know that every four minutes somebody is hospitalised for psychosis from cannabis.”

https://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/20225325.dorset-pcc-sidwick-tells-mps-not-decriminalise-cannabis/

‘Killer caught brazenly smoking cannabis in front of police is spared prison’

Greenock Telegraph | 14th April, 2020 |

A CONVICTED killer caught brazenly smoking cannabis in front of police in the street has been spared prison because it was his first offence in five months since his release from his last jail term.

Stephen Shields — who was most recently locked up for a vicious head-kicking assault on a woman — was puffing on a joint in Port Glasgow’s Oronsay Avenue, when patrol officers spotted him.

Shields, 38, stubbed it out on the ground and then obstructed officers from carrying out a drug search by placing a piece of cannabis resin in his mouth and swallowing it.

He was previously sentenced to six years imprisonment for carrying out a fatal stabbing in the Port’s Rona Avenue in 2003.

Prosecutor Frankie Morgan said of Shields’ latest offences, committed on January 23: “This was 10.30am when police on patrol observed the accused at the locus, which is a residential area.

“Officers saw him smoking what appeared to be a reefer and there was a smell of cannabis.

“The accused was detained for a search.

“He was asked to put the joint out.

“He bent over and stubbed it on the ground and handed it to an officer.

“As he did so, he removed an item from his pocket, placed it in his mouth and swallowed it.

“The accused stated, ‘It was just a bit for a joint — I should have given it to you’.”

Shields pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis resin and to intentionally obstructing three police officers.

His not guilty plea to a charge of struggling violently with the PCs was accepted.

Shields, formally of Port Glasgow but now residing in Inverkip Street, Greenock, was also jailed in 2011 for a brutal baseball attack on a man.

He served his latest sentence last year after being found guilty of savagely punching and booting a woman in the Port’s Pladda Avenue.

Shields punched her on the head, caused her to fall to the ground, sat on top of her, seized her throat, repeatedly punched her on the body and kicked her on the head, all to her injury.

In 2003 he stabbed William Lyall, who was dating his sister at the time, twice — severing one of his arteries and causing him to bleed to death.

Sheriff Lindsay Kooner noted that there has been ‘nothing since his release from custody last August’.

The sheriff fined Shields a total of £385 for the cannabis offences.

https://www.greenocktelegraph.co.uk/news/18372684.killer-caught-brazenly-smoking-cannabis-front-police-spared-prison/

Punishments that don’t deter, part 94

Remember these pitiful punishments, all from south London in March this year, next time somebody tells you there is a ‘war’ on drugs in Britain:

Jamal Musse, 22, of Clay Avenue in Mitcham, was ordered to pay £265 and to forfeit his drugs after he was found with cannabis on Clapham Road on February 23 and for refusing a breathalyser test at Woodgreen Police Station.

Kirk Anthony Reid, 21, of Kimberley Road in Lambeth, was ordered to pay £90 and had to forfeit drugs after he was found with cannabis on Alphabet Mews on February 23.

Joseph Sseruwo, 25, of Peabody Avenue in Pimlico , was ordered to pay £90 and to forfeit drugs after he was found with herbal cannabis on Clapham Road on February 23.

Kadeem Omar Vidal, 24, of Prague Place in Clapham, was ordered to pay £365 and to forfeit drugs after he was found with 633mg of cannabis and six grams of crack on Prague Place on February 24.

Dwayne Russell, 17, Laburnam Road in Mitcham, was ordered to pay £160 and to forfeit drugs after he was found with cannabis on February 23 at the Old Bailey.

Federico Euston Smith, 30, of Oak Avenue in Croydon, was ordered to pay £165 and had to forfeit herbal cannabis he was found with on Lodge Lane in New Addington on February 20 at 3.35pm.

Jaiden Rashaan James, 19, of Selhurst New Road in South Norwood , was ordered to pay £214.99 and forfeit cannabis he was found with on St James New Road on February 21.

Mustafa Aziz, 22, of Donnybrook Road in Streatham, was ordered to pay £315 and to forfeit cannabis and cocaine discovered on him on Tanworth Road in Croydon on February 22 after failing to stop his car when asked to by police on Roman Way.

Winston Weir, 45, of Charlotte Despard Avenue in Wandsworth , was ordered to pay £105, given a year-long conditional discharge and made to forfeit his cannabis after he was found with it in Croydon on February 24.

Emma Jane Miskin, 41, of Edgeworth Road in Eltham, was ordered to pay £470 and made to forfeit her drugs after she was found with a small block of cannabis resin and MDMA at her home on October 10 2018.

Jahnine Chambers, 20, from Greenwich, was given a year-long conditional discharge, ordered to pay £20 and to forfeit her drugs after she was found with one joint of cannabis on a pathway near Slade Green Road on February 2.

https://www.mylondon.news/news/south-london-news/croydon-sutton-wandsworth-bromley-bexley-16066201