Less than 24 hours after the Home Secretary’s announcement to downgrade the possession of cannabis, reporters from the Peterborough Evening Telegraph went out and bought some.

And they found the dealers weren’t running scared, despite the new threat of a 14 year sentence.

The paper carried a picture – covering all of page one – of an “eighth” of cannabis being handed from dealer to buyer.

The Telegraph also tackled the issue with an in-depth focus and discussion, entitled: “So what do we tell the kids?”

Reporter Tom Mack told, in a first person piece, how shocked he was that the first person he approached sold him the drug.

He said: “Driving from the city centre offices of The Evening Telegraph, I felt there was little chance of success. I believed my images of dealers on street corners were nothing more than fantasy, based on fiction and the world according to Hollywood.”

“I had no idea I would be able to approach a total stranger, strike a deal and be back at my desk within just 45 minutes with the cannabis.

“My search started in a convenience store on the east side of Peterborough.

“Inside, I approached a young man I had seen wandering into the shop. He was about 20, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts and had two friends waiting for him outside.

“At first, when I asked him if he knew where I could buy some “puff” a slang term for cannabis he appeared offended. “Are you saying I have the face of a drug dealer?” he replied.

“I backed off nervously and went back to studying the cold drinks, while he picked up a litre of orange juice.

“He had seemed aggressive and I thought I should leave the shop and try elsewhere. But then he came back up to me and admitted he did ‘like to smoke’.”

Tom was taken to a house on the estate where he bought a lump of cannabis resin for £20, with the proise it would get him ‘stoned’.

The Telegraph also carried David Blunkett’s House of Commons speech in full, asking if it was a credible message – and asked its own panel, of Marcus Davies, from the Legalise Cannabis Alliance, Chief Superintendent Mark Hopkins of Peterborough police, and Lisa Mellen, team leader with Bridgegate Drug Advice Agency, to comment on the proposed move.

A phone poll was launched, asking: “Is the Home Secretary right to downgrade the possession of cannabis?” with the results due later today.