THE Sixties may have been a decade of liberation but this did not really apply to drugs until the very end.

I was never offered any drugs as a teenager and I am pretty sure none of my friends took anything even though we lived in the heart of London.

The first time I ever knew the unmistakable sweet, sickly smell of cannabis was when I was writing a story about mobile parties in Notting Hill held by fun-loving West Indians.

And when I arrived in Brighton, it was headline news in The Argus if a man was fined £25 for possessing what was then quaintly described as Indian hemp.

What innocent days they were regarding drugs, and how things have changed. There was some drug taking half a century or more ago and I remember, as a delivery boy for a pharmacy, taking the heroin substitute methadone to a novelist.

But it was limited and I have read there were only about 2,000 drug addicts in the whole country. Now there are many times that number in Brighton alone.

Brighton’s enviable reputation as a tolerant, weird, fun-loving city comes at a price and part of that price is widespread drug abuse. It is the drugs death capital of Britain with an average of one fatality each week.

The last time I heard an estimate for the amount spent each week on illegal drugs the figure was £1 million and I have little doubt it is higher today.

How much does it matter?

Many people have tried cannabis and enjoyed feeling spaced out, which does not mean they wish to take the drug on a long-term basis.

But there is mounting evidence that long-term use of cannabis does cause lasting harm. Certainly, I know several users who are completely unable to work.

Most psychiatrists are strongly against its use and point out that modern cannabis is far stronger than its Sixties counterpart.

Then there is the link to crime.

Heroin and cocaine do not come cheaply. Many addicts find they have to resort to crime to keep up their supply.

When my mother was almost 80, she was followed down the steps of her home at Seven Dials in Brighton by a man who asked her for money.

He demanded her handbag when inside the flat and even though she gave it to him he pushed her roughly to the ground, breaking several of her ribs.

Within a few days this man was caught and jailed for a similar offence and when I last heard of him, half his nose had rotted away through repeated drugs use.

Ever since the use of illegal drugs became a problem, the policy in Brighton and Britain has been to go for addicts as well as their suppliers in the hope this acts as a deterrent.

But it has not solved the problem and there have been calls from social liberals over the years for drug use to be decriminalised.

The latest of these proposals has come from Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Pavilion, who suggested Brighton could take the lead nationally.

As it was not surprising that she held those views, they might have passed with little comment but for the fact she had an unexpected ally.

Chief Superintendent Graham Bartlett, head of Brighton Police, expressed a personal view in saying the suppliers and growers of drugs should be jailed but the people who used them should be treated.

He believes addicts would be more likely to seek treatment if they knew they would not have a criminal record.

This has been tried at various times in other countries and Portugal is the latest to claim it has produced encouraging results.

I have always been against decriminalisation on the grounds that it encourages more people to take drugs and makes it more socially acceptable.

Figures showing a decline in drugs use have to be measured in the knowledge that taking them is no longer an offence.

But I am persuaded by what Graham Bartlett says because he and his officers, unlike Caroline Lucas and me, have to deal firsthand with drug users and see the problems they create.

I have heard similar views in the past from other high ranking police officers who were not known for being softies.

So Brighton could lead the way, as it has done so many times before, in a bold experiment backed by its police chief and at least one of its MPs.

I don’t think it will work and the figures will need careful evaluation. But as the present policy has failed and far too many lives are being blighted it's worth trying.