Scotland Yard spends more than a million pounds a year locking up recreational cannabis users, a former Cabinet minister said today.
Met Police spent £3.1 million holding people in cells for possession or intent to supply the class B drug over a three-year period.
Lib-Dem Sir Edward Davey said the Home Office should order police to prioritise tackling drug barons and stop pursuing “casual users”.
A series of Freedom of Information requests revealed it costs £450 to hold a suspect for 12 hours in a cell.
Sir Edward, who is pushing to decriminalise the Class B drug, said: “Police officers are being cut, violent crime is spiralling and we’re spending millions locking people up overnight in police cells for cannabis possession.
This is a damning indictment of the Government’s expensive and failing approach.
Elsewhere in the world, evidence is mounting that the best way to hit the real drug villains is to put them out of business with a legal, regulated market where you can properly protect young people and public health.”
Figures released by the Met to the Lib Dems show that 6,924 people spent up to 12 hours in custody solely for cannabis offences between 2013 and 2016.
The Met said it only arrests people on their third offence and pointed out that criminal networks use cannabis sales to fund more serious crimes.
A Home Office spokesman said: “This Government has no plans to decriminalise cannabis.
There is a substantial body of scientific and medical evidence to show that cannabis is a harmful drug and can damage people’s mental and physical health, and harms individuals and communities.”
