Jessiedog said:
But they do have the absolute discretion as to whether to caution/charge, or simply turn a blind eye and walk away, I believe.
Is that so d-b?
All police officers do have an absolute discretion to decide whether or not to arrest, etc. in a particular case. Unfortuately they also have a sworn duty to apply the law (which can be (and increasingly is being) enforced by the use of the common law offence of malfeasance in public office).
Whilst you, I and many others believe that cannabis should be decriminalised, many, many others do not. That is why it remains illegal and even minor steps in the direction of decriminalisation attract howls of protest (somewhat hypocritically, especially from the media who have ... er ... never used any proscribed substance at all, ever, no, not us guv!
)
There is no way that the police could organisationally declare that they would not enforce the law (or even do so by the back door by doing much more than their latest "Don't bother arresting / charging unless there are aggravating circumstances" bit) without being censored. The amount of time spent on cannabis (other than large scale dealing / importation) is pretty low now anyway.
At a lower level there is no way an individual officer could ALWAYS exercise discretion in the direction of taking no further action without attracting censor from senior officers or, in cases where another member of the public had complained (and there are a surprising number of them) and then goes on to complain about the police's lack of action.
I personally think the most likely route to success is (i)
sensible campaigning for decriminalisation (i.e. not just saying "It's wrong, it should be changed" but providing arguments); (ii) campaigners seeking to work with the (increasing number) of police officers who favour decriminalisation to provide a joint front and (iii) conducting or encouraging research to prove one way or another the down-sides which are thrown up by the "keep illegal" side. I also do not think that it could be done unilaterally by the UK - because of ease of movement through Europe we would just risk an influx of users from across Europe which, unless we had a plan, would be likely to prove ammunition for the "keep illegal"s. I think Europe wide is the smallest scale likely to stand any chance of acceptance.
Unfortunately, because so little definitive research is available at present, much of the argument (on both sides) is based on entrenched moral positions and unproven "facts". As research is carried out, both sides must be prepared for some wins and some losses (e.g. the recent study which found MORE health risk links than had previously been thought at the time of down-grading).
