No one believes the number of people smoking cannabis has dropped.

And yet there has been a big decline in the number of people convicted of possessing cannabis in Sussex during the past five years.

Police deny they have changed their attitude to cannabis users but there's little doubt they don't view arresting people for possession of the drug as a priority.

Instead, officers are concentrating on people using more dangerous drugs such as heroin and cocaine, which can cause addicts to commit crimes to fund their habit.

Home Secretary David Blunkett plans to relax the law so people can no longer be arrested for possessing small amounts of cannabis for their own use.

The Government is right to do this at a time when the number of people using this recreational drug runs into millions. It runs the risk of ridicule otherwise.

But it's also right not to decriminalise cannabis, as some people are suggesting.

Although cannabis does not have anything like the same effect as hard drugs, plenty of experts think it can cause long-term problems and smokers also risk cancer.

Most people smoking joints never go any further but there's little doubt cannabis leads a minority on to hard drugs.

Police officers say they have never met a heroin addict who did not use cannabis.

The signal to cannabis users is that they can keep puffing in private but they shouldn't make a public spectacle of themselves.