There is therefore less incentive than there should be for officers at this level to tackle drug dealing and other drug-related crimes. Drug use and dealing very often go unreported and police officers can choose not to investigate individual instances.

Targeting low-level dealing would probably most effectively meet the government’s objective of improving public perceptions of drug crime. (In general, all that the public will perceive is low-level dealing, as the higher levels remain more carefully hidden.)

However, it is a time-consuming and often unrewarding task and without specific targets there is little incentive to give it any degree of priority