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This was a pretty insightful experience so I thought I'd post it up while it's fresh in my mind.

Me and a friend were in residential area outside smoking, and a female police officer rolled up out of nowhere and asked what we were smoking. My friend stays completely silent and just looks at her, I do the same for around 10 seconds then said "it's just tobacco", (which may have not been the best way to handle it).

She said "it certainly doesn't smell or look like it". I could tell from her tone she wasn't aggressive or unreasonable, so I started trying to establish a connection with her. She continued with "do you have any idea what this can do to your brain?", so we had a short discussion about it's dangers. She was making the point that it's effects over long term are not well researched and she's seen people's lives ruined, and I responded that they're simply outliers she sees in her experience that are also present in the general population, and weed is unlikely to be a major factor. 

It's important that I wasn't trying to be argumentative, my tonality was communicating "I understand the seriousness of this situation, but I want to hear what you personally have to say and share my experiences with you".

She ended up saying "I'm not going to call another officer because you seem to understand the situation, and I'm only going to take your names because we need them as minimum. But they won't be on permanent record". This was pretty reasonable, as I've read that the first caution is usually unofficial, local and disappears after a couple of years. We gave our names and she confiscated our monster autumn cigarette. 

We talked a little about how someone's choice to influence their consciousness is beyond the rights of the police or government to control, and that it could be monitored and understood far better if it were legal. She argued that it's just safer not to when it can result in a permanent job record or arrest, "even if you are going to smoke, I'm rather you did it at home than outside". She said we could go, we said "thanks for being understanding" and left on friendly terms. 

I've been way more loving with people recently, trying to connect and get completely past my own self-interest. This seems like a good example of how it wins people over. She was definitely an open minded and good natured police officer though, kinda restored my faith in them a bit. She did as little as possible in her role and seemed genuinely interested in our wellbeing, rather than blindly enforcing the law.