IS not the recent umpteenth revival of debate over the legalisation of cannabis a somewhat academic sideshow, when here in East Lancashire we now have official sanction for the possession and use of illegal drugs that can kill?

For what else does it amount to when the police say no action will be taken over club-goers found with "small amounts" of drugs by bouncers searching them at nightclub doorways?

And this scheme - dubbed an 'amnesty' by police - is backed by no less than former Home Secretary, Blackburn MP Jack Straw.

All that will happen is that those in possession will be refused entry, the drugs confiscated and put in special safes at clubs which will be regularly emptied by the police.

But just what is the rationale for this initiative - already tried in Burnley and Preston and now being adopted in Blackburn and described by Mr Straw as "very imaginative"?

For, say what you like, it entails a blind eye being turned by the police to the breaking of the law. How can our erstwhile 'tough-on-crime' Home Secretary condone that?

And, let's not be sidetracked by the everybody's-doing-it sort of argument that the cannabis users put forward to maintain that the law is so unpoliceable that it might as well be ditched. It only takes one Ecstasy tablet to kill some luckless kid - and who would consider it good or imaginative to make it any easier for that to happen? You know what's at the root of all this though, don't you? - that it's just too much trouble for the police to bother nowadays. I mean, all that report writing in every case of someone caught with a few illicit pills that millions of kids of swallowing every weekend. Why bother - especially when if they do end up in court, the magistrates will let them off with a conditional discharge?

No, far better, to let the club bouncers do the pantomime coppering while the cops cop out.

A marvellous outlook, is it not? - summed up by the manager of the Blackburn charity, Lifeline, that works with drugs users: "It means that people can have an enjoyable and safe night out without the risk of being criminalised," he said.

Safe? Has this crackpot not seen the shocking pictures of Ecstasy-taking teenagers whose enjoyable night out ended with them on their deathbeds?

No risk of being criminalised? Well, carry on, kids, with police consent...everybody's doing it. Let's not be old-fashioned. And only 100 kids have died.

I'm sure East Lancashire parents are all for it as well.

And, incidentally, Madam Chief Constable, precisely which drugs and in how 'small' an amount are the ones being ignored by you and your officers? Should we be told?