It is lunchtime in the inner London suburb of Brixton and there seem to be more reporters loitering on street corners than drug dealers. On the day that cannabis is downgraded from a Class B to the much less serious Class C drug, much attention is focused on the home of the so-called Lambeth Experiment, where cannabis possession has been tolerated to allow police to concentrate on more serious substances.
But it takes more than the media spotlight to stop some dealers plying their trade.
"Skunk, man, skunk." A young black man, maybe 18 years' old, maybe younger, sporting gold jewellery and an orange string vest approaches just 100 yards from Brixton tube station.
Two more offer cannabis over the next 10 minutes, in full view of the surrounding hairdressing salons and record shops. Unfazed by the presence of four uniformed police officers at the top of the road, the first is a slouching teenager in a white shirt and baggy jeans. The second, muttering "skunk, hash", wears a black bomber jacket and a pink baseball cap. Around the corner, the rundown square outside the Ritzy Cinema in central Brixton is normally swarming with dealers.
Today, however, it is surrounded by television satellite vans and news crews interviewing locals for their reaction.
The opinions of the traders who conduct their daily business next to where the dealers go about their shadier occupation vary widely - but are never less than passionate.
Esme Thaw (49) who runs Esme's Organic, a fruit and vegetable shop in Brixton Market Row, just off Coldharbour Lane, said she opposed legalisation.
"All it will do is bring much more hard drugs into the area," she said.
"Brixton will just turn into a place for drug dealers to hang out. They already walk past here all the time, selling their drugs, avoiding the police. Any mother would cry to see Brixton at night with all these young men dealing drugs."
Local beat police agree saying the policy, introduced in Brixton on an experimental basis but now to be copied across the UK, has not worked.
One constable yesterday, who asked not to be named, claimed children would eventually be harmed by the experiment. Speaking outside a Bixton KFC restaurant that is a regular hang-out for dealers, he said: "The brutal frankness is that it is going to be really hard to deal with. If cannabis is Class C, there is no power of arrest, it is only a summons."
"If we are not arresting people, it also means we don't have the fingerprints and photographs that are useful for intelligence work. And the dealers are still open for business," the constable added.
"They are always here, dealing cannabis. Crack and heroin dealers work from the market. If you come off a Tube in the morning, they are all still lying around sleeping off the effects of last night. Then they get up and start dealing again."
He added: "The biggest problem from our point of view is the kids. We see a lot of 14 or 15-year-olds smoking pot and before we could arrest them, then get them to speak to a drugs referral worker. Now we can't make them do that.
"The impact on their education must be quite severe if they are smoking before they get to school and then having a puff at lunchtime. There are enough problems here and this is just adding to the equation. What that will do remains to be seen further down the line, maybe in 20 years. It's not going to solve the problem, it's going to make it worse."
But a Brixton cannabis campaigner, Mr Tim Summers who is also chairman of the Lambeth Green Party, said the change in the law would benefit the community.
"It's an important halfway house towards the legalisation of cannabis," he said.
"It will be a huge relief to the police, whose time will be focused away from relatively harmless cannabis towards preventing violence and robbery."