A Bradford MP has clashed with the county's police chief after he called for Britain's drugs laws to be relaxed.

Marsha Singh supported a controversial report pressing for ecstasy to be reclassified as a 'softer' drug and then urged the Government to legalise cannabis.

The Bradford West MP argued that rather than targeting clubbers and joint-smokers, resources would be better spent tackling hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

And Mr Singh admitted he knew people who smoked cannabis and insisted: "They are not criminals."

But Graham Moore, West Yorkshire Police's Chief Constable, defended existing legislation, arguing that experimenting with cannabis could lead users on to harder drugs.

Mr Singh sits on the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee which recommended that ecstasy be downgraded from Class A to Class B - a call rebuffed by the Home Secretary David Blunkett.

But Mr Singh said the report did not go far enough and said people should be free to smoke cannabis legally. Cannabis smoking was part of 'social reality' and caused less deaths than tobacco and alcohol, he added. Mr Singh said: "It is widely used by many normal, law-abiding and respectable people. To treat them as criminals is a mistake and a bad use of police resources."

Mr Singh added: "I know people who smoke cannabis and they are respectable people, not criminals."

He conceded that 'all drugs are dangerous' and said that, as a Class B drug, ecstasy dealers could still be jailed for 14 years and users for five. But he called it a 'social drug for young people' and said there was no evidence people carried on using it in later life.

"The police spend £500 million a year on policing drug activity," he said.

"This money would be best spent on tackling heroin addiction which causes a large amount of crime in Bradford."

Mr Singh called addicts to be given treatment in jail and added: "If all drugs are in the same category, it becomes hard to get the message over about the most serious drugs."

However, in a recent interview with the Telegraph & Argus, Mr Moore said: "In my view, the law regarding drugs are right as they stand. I believe that cannabis is a precursor to other, harder drugs and it should not be legalised."

And he added: "It does irritate me how the drug-taking has been glamorised. We've already had heroin chic and now we hear of celebrities taking cocaine at glitzy parties."

He added: "West Yorkshire Police view is that there is no such thing as a safe drug whether it is hard or soft and we pursue the possession and dealing of drugs as a criminal matter."