Finally making good on his proposal nearly a year ago, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s reclassification of marijuana as a class B drug is so obtuse and such poor public policy that the police are refusing their newly-given power:

Nearly six out of 10 cases of cannabis possession used to be dealt with by arrest and formal caution before it was downgraded. But police chiefs are not expected to return to such a practice, blamed for wasting thousands of officers' hours that could be spent on other crime-fighting duties. The Association of Chief Police Officers told the Guardian: "The key will be the discretion for officers to strike the right balance. We do not want to criminalise young people who are experimenting."

When police go so far as to reject an increase in their power, especially when it comes to drugs, it should be clear that your policies are laughable. Adding to his obtuseness, PM Brown rejected the recommendation of his own panel of 23 highly-qualified drug policy experts when they ruled harsher reclassification was the wrong thing to do. It’s doubtful, but hopefully the combination of objections by UK law enforcement and drug policy experts will finally make him realize, and admit, that the policy is flawed. Making this reclassification even more ridiculous, the government is having major problems keeping drugs out of the hands of prisoners:

DRUGS worth more than £100million are being traded in prisons every year, it was revealed yesterday. The claim was made by a former drugs treatment chief who said half of all prisoners are addicts. As much as 44lb (20kg) of narcotics, mainly heroin, were smuggled into jails every week said the former official, Hussain Djemil.

It seems there should be more pressing concerns for British drug policy officials. If they can’t keep hard drugs out of the prisons (which come complete with strip and body cavity searches, drug dogs, prison guards, constant surveillance, etc.), what’s the point of increasing sentences for a soft drug like marijuana? Of the millions of cannabis users, some of those who will be caught will go to jail for even longer where they will be exposed to a 100 million dollar industry that will provide them cheaper drugs! Once again, how and why is reclassification going to be an effective deterrent? Police refusing to adhere to the reclassification policy is a wonderful sign. It sets a good precedent of dissonance toward misinformed or abusive authority that is rarely seen directed toward elected officials over drug policy matters. If more police chiefs would follow this example, drug prohibition would be in greater jeopardy. Hopefully this will lead to more reasonable people standing up in civil disobedience against drug policies that they know to be immoral and ineffective.