MIKE BARTON,

Durham’s Chief Constable, claims to be distressed that parents at a primary school in his area have been smoking marijuana at the school gates. He declares: ‘If I had been stood next to someone who was smoking cannabis at the school gate, they would have been nicked – pure and simple – and any of my officers would have done the same.’

Would they? I somehow doubt it. Most police officers look the other way these days, when they see dope being smoked. They don’t want to spend hours of their day processing paperwork for an offence the courts ignore. And if they had been arrested, what would have happened to them? I asked the Durham force for last year’s figures. During 2017, there were 129 arrests for simple possession of cannabis in Durham Constabulary area. Of those, a mere 28 were actually charged with possession (which generally results in a small fine).

A further 34 received a ‘cannabis warning’, which means they were completely let off. Another 11 were ‘cautioned’. Eight were told they faced ‘No Further Action’, 12 were released on bail, 33 were released without bail and three cases are still pending.

I should imagine that hundreds, more likely thousands, of cannabis offences went unnoticed, undeterred and undetected. It is, in all but name, a decriminalised drug now, which is why parents smoke it outside schools. Actually, let’s be fair to Mr Barton. Despite his noisy, soft-on-drugs self-publicity, I doubt if his force is significantly feebler on this issue than any other.