The head of Avon and Somerset Police's drug strategy has admitted that targeting private substance users is no longer a priority for the force.
Chief Inspector Mark Runacres also stated in an interview with the Western Daily Press that hundreds more people caught with class A drugs will be allowed to swap prison for an education workshop under a controversial scheme being rolled out by a West Country police force.
He announced that the Drugs Education Programme was being expanded from Bristol after 1,495 drug users had opted for the day-long sessions since the project’s introduction three years ago.
Only three of those had been caught re-offending.
The move has been welcomed by drug support charities including Addaction North Somerset.
Ch Insp Runacres said the scheme had already gone into North Somerset and, by July, would be in effect across the whole force area with workshops in Weston-super-Mare, Yeovil, Bath and Bridgwater.
The smell of cannabis is not enough for a police officer to search a suspected culprit, said Ch Insp Mark Runacres, who admits the “sensible thing” in some circumstances is to let the situation be.
The College of Policing provides guidance to forces which states the smell alone does not provide grounds to search a member of the public.
Only when it is having a negative impact on the surroundings or the officer can visibly see the drug being smoked should the officer intervene, said Ch Insp Runacres, lead of the force’s drug strategy.
He said: “I would expect an officer to show interest in intervening but it would always depend on what their other commitments are and the circumstances in how realistic it would be to identify the person and deliver an intervention.
“If it is something which would bring you into conflict with a large group of people, then proportionally that is not something I would suggest is a sensible thing to do.”
He added: “It would not be a high-end sanction, so how much commitment and resources do we want to put into achieving when other things are happening.”
Those caught in possession of cannabis for personal use face a community resolution or a conditional caution.
