Posing with ‘Mustafa Spliff ’– crime tsar in cannabis storm
He heads force that lets growers off with caution
A CRIME tsar who stopped prosecuting small- scale cannabis growers has been accused of ‘abusing his position’ after pictures emerged of him with prolegalisation campaigners.
Ron Hogg, the police and crime commissioner for County Durham, sparked a furious backlash as he last night admitted letting off cannabis users with a warning or caution, ‘almost one a day’.
The 63-year-old announced on Tuesday that his force was ‘not prioritising people who have a small number of cannabis plants for their own use’ and they would ‘most likely’ receive a caution.
Mr Hogg, the former deputy chief constable of Durham Police, says he believes small-scale users should be offered help to recover, and he supports legalisation of the drug for medical purposes.
Last night, it emerged he had invited pro-cannabis campaigners, including ‘Ziggy Mustafa Spliff ’, for a ‘ symposium’ in November which ‘increased the pressure on the Government to review UK drug policy’.
Mr Hogg posed for photos with activists including Michael ‘Fudge’ Boyack, of Tyne and Wear Cannabis Club, John Holliday, founder of Teesside Cannabis Club, and Greg De Hoedt, from Brighton, president of UK Cannabis Social Clubs.
Mr Holliday, 30, who calls himself ‘Ziggy Mustafa Spliff’ online, has posted the image as his profile picture on Facebook.
He believes the campaigners’ arguments persuaded the police chief to relax enforcement.
The father of three, who first used cannabis at 15 to alleviate pain from a ‘stomach condition’, added: ‘ We 100 per cent persuaded him. It was an evidencebased policy decision … He is one of the most sensible, forwardthinking individuals.’
But Mr Hogg said last night: ‘Those guys came along to the debate. Have they had an influence on me? Not really. My policy has been formulated over an awfully long time.’
Mr Holliday said he was first contacted by Mr Hogg’s office early in 2014 seeking a summer meeting before the symposium.
‘At the first meeting, he seemed really pleased to be getting together,’ Mr Holliday said. ‘What we need is for local authorities to work with groups like ourselves.’
The campaigner – whose organ- isation encourages ‘a grow-yourown approach’ to cannabis – said Mr Hogg told him he had ‘never touched’ the drug but was convinced use should be a ‘personal issue’ rather than a crime.
But furious MPs hit out at the police chief, accusing him of overstepping his powers. Philip Davies, a Tory member of the Justice Select Committee, said: ‘It’s an abuse of his position … If Mr Hogg wants to change the law, he needs to get elected to Parliament. I’m not sure how many of the people who voted for him also voted for him to decide which laws apply and which don’t.’
Fellow Tory MP Andrew Percy, a former teacher, added: ‘I know people … who have severe mental health issues from a history of using cannabis. It’s not Mr Hogg’s job to change the law. We’ve got to start debunking the liberal elite view that cannabis is some sort of benign drug. As a teacher, I saw very much how cannabis was a gateway to other, harder drugs.’
Also at Mr Hogg’s symposium was Durham’s Chief Constable Mike Barton, who has argued for decriminalisation, saying in 2013 ‘outright prohibition just hands revenue streams to villains’.
Other attendees were representatives of drugs support charities and a research nurse, Rob Van Der Waal of South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, who believes heroin addicts should receive ‘supervised’ doses of the drug.
Mr Hogg added: ‘When I say I don’t want to see small-time personal users prosecuted, it’s because I don’t think it’s the best way of tackling harm, nor the best use of the scant resources of the police or the courts.
‘Over the past 12 months Durham Constabulary has issued 343 cannabis warnings to users, one almost every day … I’m sure the public would expect the police to treat serious and organised crime gangs engaged in mass production more severely.’ Dr Max Pemberton and
WHAT I am about to say seems to be increasing unfashionable in this country. Indeed, despite the law being on my side, news yesterday suggests that even the police don’t seem to care any more about cannabis possession.
Durham Police has decided it will no longer prosecute those smoking the drug and those growing it ‘for their own use’. Instead, officers will issue a warning or a caution — just as when they found an enormous cannabis plant growing in a polytunnel — effectively decriminalising the drug.
Yet when it comes to cannabis, I am resolute in my position: it’s dangerous and should remain illegal. This isn’t borne out of some reactionary, fuddyduddy stance. It’s based on clear evidence that cannabis ruins lives.
I have spent the majority of my career as a doctor working in mental health and, what’s more, I have spent many of those years working in drug addiction. I know only too well the problems associated with cannabis.
But it is not fashionable to say this in public, and instead all right-thinking people now feel the only response is take a laissez- faire attitude to drugs — especially cannabis use — for fear of being branded out-of-touch or a killjoy.
But there is no joy in watching, as I have, someone descend into madness because of skunk, the more potent form of the drug which now dominates the market. There is no joy in watching their lives implode while their family sob and plead with you to do something.
So it enrages me that while I have spent countless hours trying to pick up the pieces of lives ruined by cannabis, the police can effectively wash their hands of the problem.
Worrying
Now, I’m not saying that existing laws on drug use are necessarily perfect. I know law- enforcement agencies feel they are fighting a losing battle.
But it is wholly wrong that police officers are deciding, rather than enforcing, drug policy. If there are to be changes to the legislation governing cannabis use then it must be done properly, in Parliament, with experts from both sides of the debate putting forward evidence.
It is profoundly worrying that random police forces feel at liberty to decide unilaterally whether or not to enforce the law of the land.
A dangerous signal is also sent to criminals — and that’s what cannabis growers are — that the law is there to be broken and the worst you can expect is a slap on the wrist.
And what about the parents gallantly trying to steer their children away from cannabis? How can they enforce this while police are seen to be effectively throwing their hands up and, with a shrug and a smirk, saying they don’t care?
What has been set up is a potsmokers’ postcode lottery. It undermines the rule of law and the fundamental principle of legislation in this country — that it applies to all, equally.
Particularly frustrating are the smug, ageing, liberal hippies who lived through the Sixties and Seventies and say that, as they’re still here, it must be fine.
They look back on their youth spent smoking spliffs with a misplaced nostalgia. They entirely fail to realise that, not only did plenty of people not make it through that time unscathed, but owing to the emergence of super- strong skunk, the cannabis on the streets now is almost entirely different to what it was even 15, let alone 30, years ago.
The THC content — an active compound in cannabis — is about three times higher compared to what it was in the stuff smoked years ago. Some ‘super-skunk’ contains 20 times more of the compound compared to standard cannabis.
Selective breeding of cannabis plants has meant that THC and other psychoactive substances — chemicals that act on the brain to give the ‘high’ — have a much stronger effect.
Wards are littered with examples of lives wrecked, sometimes for a short time, sometimes permanently. Over the years that I have been a doctor I have seen dozens of people who have become psychotic using cannabis, and their number has increased recently, due to more potent cannabis.
The libertarian in me thinks people should be free to make their own choices. And then I remember my patients.
I will never forget when I had to tell the parents of one young man he would have to be detained under the Mental Health Act — sectioned — and brought to hospital by police.
I’d just left the darkness of his bedroom, where I could see a figure crouching by the bed. There was a sudden scream and something came hurtling out of the gloom and smashed against the wall behind me.
Desperate
His parents said things had begun to change after their son took his GCSE exams. When his father caught him smoking cannabis, he threatened to move out. Then he began using skunk, and barely emerged from his room.
Desperate, they had called their GP, who brought in the mental health team. This young man went on to develop schizophrenia, has never worked, and will be on anti-psychotics for the rest of his life.
The reality is people aren’t making informed decisions about the risks because few ever witness the true horrors of what this drug can do; the way it can fracture someone’s mind, strip someone of a future and devastate a family.
The lives it ruins aren’t on display for everyone to see: they’re locked away in mental hospitals, or shut away in their rooms while their parents wring their hands and watch their child slip away from them, morphing into someone they don’t recognise.
Campaigners for the legalisation of cannabis erroneously claim that there are few health problems associated with its use, that tobacco or alcohol is far more dangerous.
There is no doubt that these substances are drugs that can also wreck lives. But that doesn’t mean that we should give in and simply roll over and allow young, impressionable children to become stoners.
Campaigners also pounce on individual studies that support their stance, failing to accept the prevailing evidence that shows there are clear links between cannabis use and mental health problems.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists is definite on the matter: current research shows that regular use of the drug doubles the risk of experiencing a psychotic episode or developing schizophrenia.
What’s more, those with a genetic propensity are signifi- cantly more likely to develop mental health problems the younger they are when they first use the drug. So it’s even more important that the law is there and enforced to protect vulnerable youngsters.
Even more worrying is that the risk of developing a psychotic illness depends on the dose of the drug.
The milder type of cannabis — often termed ‘herbal cannabis’ because it resembles dried herbs — which contains fewer mind- altering chemicals, is increasingly hard to find.
This means more and more youngsters are being exposed to the strongest forms of cannabis from an early age.
Depression
As well as the long association with psychotic illnesses, emerging evidence suggests cannabis is linked to other mental health problems.
A seven- year study in Australia found teenagers who used cannabis were five times more likely to develop depression or anxiety in later life. Cannabis users are significantly more likely to drop out of school and less likely to complete their degree.
Studies have also linked heavy cannabis use to lower income, greater dependence on the State, unemployment, criminal behaviour and reduced life satisfaction.
It’s also addictive — three out of four long-term users report cravings — and is closely associated with suicide.
There is no doubt that this drug ruins lives. Doctors know this, the research supports this and the law reflects this. So why do the police think it’s OK to turn a blind eye?