Cannabis and the legality surrounding it, whether it’s downright outlawed or tolerated by the police, has been long debated.
Such as the case of Home Secretary Suella Braverman. She indicated that she wants to make it a Class A drug, which would put weed right up there on the naughty list with heroin and cocaine.
As of now, it is still a Class B drug, but if you are caught with it in your possession, you can be looking at a sentence of five years or less. Thankfully, this is slightly lower than if you were to be found with Class A drugs, which can get you locked up for seven years.
Why she wanted to make it a Class A drug?
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To put it simply, if you increase the likelihood of being banged up for a longer period, it might deter someone from smoking weed for fear of long prison sentences.
Also known as the ‘gateway drug’, cannabis is generally thought of as the starting point to a really nasty drug habit, and this idea is also backed by some senior police commissioners.
However, others in law enforcement reckon this would be a bad idea, with a former undercover cop saying getting tougher on weed would be 'utterly catastrophic'.
There are also plenty of people who think that the UK should be moving away from giving cannabis a bad name, and to change the laws by getting cannabis decriminalised.
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For example, London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, is looking into decriminalising Class B drugs like cannabis, but this is just a ‘look’ and not necessarily anything substantial to change.
Decriminalisation might not be taking off across the UK just yet, but there is one place in the UK where the police take a different tack when it comes to weed, and you'll probably never guess where it is.
That's alright, we're going to tell you anyway - it's Durham.
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It all started back in 2015, when then-Durham police crime commissioner, Ron Hogg, decided the police should take a new approach and no longer actively pursue weed smokers or small-scale growers.
He wanted officers to focus their efforts on more serious crimes, noting that the police would be better off going after dealers than users - which is fair enough.
Now, that’s not to say you can move to Durham and start your own cannabis farm or stroll around the city centre smoking a joint without getting into trouble.
It’s still as illegal in Durham as it is in the rest of the UK, and blatantly breaking the law in front of the police is never a good idea.
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Also, people still get arrested for weed related offences, as Chronicle Live reported that police busted someone for growing 200 cannabis plants back in July.
However, The Times visited Durham in 2018 to see how the changes were going and found some very chilled out people saying the 'police aren't bothered at all', as they prefer to have a quiet word with weed smokers rather than reaching for the handcuffs right away.
That's not to say they were letting people get away with everything, as an attempt to hold a 700-strong weed event did get closed.
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So, they’re not actively supporting the use of weed, but they aren’t holding it right up on the priority list.
A spokesperson from Durham Constabulary kept stressing they still punish people for cannabis-related offences, but their focus is on the gangs who supply the drugs rather than the users who buy them.
They said: "Cannabis is an illegal drug and anyone caught smoking it in public in County Durham and Darlington can expect to face arrest by our officers.
"However, our attention is focussed less on low level users and more on disrupting the activities of those Organised Criminal Gangs which profit from the supply of drugs and those dealers who harm our communities."
Featured Image Credit: Credit: Ian Dagnall / Ianni Dimitrov Pictures / Alamy Stock Photo