Beware the flattery of fame, Commander Paddick

He may believe he has been unfairly treated, yet his treatment was entirely predictable and largely avoidable

There has been much made of the idea that Commander Brian Paddick's "softly, softly" approach to cannabis simply attracted many more drug dealers into Brixton. The truth is that Coldharbour Lane did for a time this summer become densely populated with suspicious-looking people approaching the public randomly.

But they were television crews, not drug-dealers, and the news footage they were breathlessly filming consisted of scenes similar to those that have been occurring routinely in Brixton for all of the 20 years I've known the place.

Twenty years on, thanks in part to Mrs Thatcher's economic revolution, consumer choice has revolutionised the drug scene. There are many more drugs, of many more kinds, many more people taking them, and many more people selling them. In Brixton, Britain's attitudes to drugs can be seen distilled at the greatest possible intensity. The evidence of various drug sub-cultures, some deeply corrosive, others fairly harmless, is all around.

For this reason, it was the most natural thing in the world that this part of London should emerge as the place in Britain to try new approaches to the policing of drugs. A sensible society might have conceded that the war on drugs was not proceeding well, and waited to see what the results of Lambeth's year-long experiment might be.

But we're not a sensible society. Instead we're an entrenched society, hopelessly embroiled in adversarial debate, in thrall to a media we claim to despise and hooked on sensational disclosure about the private lives of people we don't know from Adam. Mr Paddick's Brixton experiment need not have offered buckets of all of these undesirable, but much coveted components, but, as the story developed, it did.

Since much of the British press is nastily reactionary, it doesn't take a genius to work out that a softening in drugs policing introduced by a gay officer would always be under suspicion. Mr Paddick must have known that his every move would be subject to scrutiny from that moment on.

But somehow he failed to understand the danger. Instead of following his own advice and taking the softly softly approach, the Commander started debating on a website mainly subscribed to by people who live in Brixton because they value the bohemian liberality of the area. In other words, the sort of people that Mr Paddick's enemies in high places live in fear of their children ever meeting, let alone becoming.

On the website, the Commander was eager to ingratiate himself with his mainly anonymous interlocutors and keen to prove to them that he really was who he said he was. A short time after he had he managed to establish his identity beyond doubt, a story about Commander Paddick's debates had been submitted to The Big Issue, and from there to All Media Outlets.

From that point, it was all over.

First, the whole debate was reduced to one personality – Mr Paddick himself. Days of petty jibes about Paddick's sexuality culminated in a vicious kiss-and-tell from the Commander's former lover, James Renolleau. Mr Paddick found himself accused by his former partner of five years of allowing Mr Renolleau to smoke cannabis in their home, smoking it himself on 100 occasions, and – just for good measure – of having sex in public. Mr Paddick denied all accusations except the first one

Second, because of its total identification with this single person, the debate was fatally compromised. At first it had been presented as a pragmatic move by a police force under pressure. Now it was being seen as an attempt by a loony anarchist liberal faggot, who'd somehow managed to parley political correctness into political power, to make Britain into a nirvana for mucky drug addicts with morals that made sewer rats look like seraphim.

The Commander was slid sideways from his job, pending an inquiry into Mr Renolleau's allegations, while the "debate" about his innovation continued. But because Mr Paddick had been exposed as being a member of the "left-wing liberal élite" rather than as an "honest copper", a whole other area of contention was introduced into the mix.

Solid, hard-working people from Lambeth, who were involved in their communities and in youth groups, started to appear on the television saying that the Brixton cannabis policy was corrupting schoolchildren and making the drugs problem much worse.

Their argument is that the middle classes want drugs to be treated liberally purely because they do not want their own enjoyment to be undermined, and do not understand the sort of impact drugs have on poorer communities. (This is broadly true, but it does not mean that a different approach would not bring improvement.)

Their points are emotive, and reactionary, far more motivated by class resentments than by common sense. They see drugs as something that are around for the delectation of the middle classes, which trickle down to the vulnerable. Instead, there is no trickledown, just massive availability, and the least scrupulous dealers targeting the most addictable customers.

Even though they are in the centre of a situation that continues to deteriorate, they do not see any virtue in a different approach to the one that has failed so badly for so long. Instead of taking the opportunity to discuss alternative policies, children were interviewed on television, confirming that they were "confused" about what the Brixton experiment meant.

Although children going on television and confirming that they were "confused" about who their local MP was would hardly suggest that a local MP was therefore undesirable, their arguments won over the local MP. Labour's Kate Hoey, who does not live in the area, supported this position, even though it was based on nothing besides anecdote.

In August the experiment was dropped and it was announced that a compromise system would be launched nationwide. If you are caught three times in possession of cannabis, then you are arrested. Which must clear things up nicely for the confused children.

And the Commander? The inquiry may have exonerated him of wrongdoing, but he has not been reinstated as head of the police in Lambeth. He says that he is consulting with employment lawyers, and will not settle for anything other than having his old job back. This information has been imparted in the now traditional way – via the website.

Which seems to me to be fairly reckless, unless one is actually keen to court publicity. One newspaper talked yesterday of "book and television deals" having been made. I very much hope that thoughts of selling his own story are very far from the Commander's mind. He may believe that he has been unfairly treated, yet his unfair treatment was entirely predictable and largely avoidable.

Meanwhile, on the website where he made his extraordinary contacts, Mr Paddick has moved through the months from being a distrusted copper who couldn't possibly be up to much good to being a folk hero, passionately supported, constantly flattered. I'm afraid that I can't help thinking that Mr Paddick has had a taste of controversial adulation and now is reluctant to let it go. It seems obvious to me that if he wishes to stay in the police force, then he has to. I hope that he does.

d.orr@independent.co.uk