Within hours of the London Drug Commission (LDC) recommending the decriminalisation of small amounts of cannabis for personal use, questions about how it could relieve pressure on squeezed policing resources were quickly stubbed out.
Cannabis remains a class B drug, but a report by the LDC — backed by the mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan — has proposed moving it from the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to the newer Psychoactive Substances Act to “make it possible to police the production and supply of cannabis while not penalising its possession”.
Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said that the law was a matter for parliament and “it’s not something we’re calling for”. Drug supply, the force said, “underpins violent gang activity and contributes to the exploitation of vulnerable young people through county lines”.
Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Met
LEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGES
The failure to differentiate between cannabis use and class A drugs that fuel county lines raised eyebrows among youth workers and drug experts.
“The recreational drug market props up county lines — it’s a hidden truth that law enforcement rarely talks about,” a youth worker told The Times. “Say you’ve got six [drug] lines generating £60,000 a month — where’s that money coming from? I hate to break it to you but it’s not from cannabis sales, it’s the market of heroin and crack cocaine that sets up every weekend in towns and cities.
“The violence link to cannabis is a joke,” the worker added. “Kids aren’t stabbing each other over bags of weed.”
The decriminalisation debate has intensified since 2013, when Uruguay became the first country to legalise cannabis for personal use. Canada, Malta, Germany and parts of the US have followed. In the UK, drug policy experts believe a legal market could generate at least £3.5 billion for the Treasury and ease pressure on the police and courts.
The LDC’s report suggests that at least 10 per cent of users risk developing psychiatric, physical and societal difficulties. The increased use of potent cannabis strains also poses an increased risk. However, experts said setting a maximum level of tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive compound that can cause paranoia and anxiety, could reduce the risk of mental health disorders.
• Sadiq Khan calls for cannabis to be decriminalised
André Gomes, the communications lead at Release, the UK’s centre for expertise on drugs and drugs law, said: “Drugs tend to be the easy vehicle for governments to use to crack down on crime, but the UK is increasingly falling behind the rest of the world. The [LDC’s] new perspective being quickly shut down shows an active choice to disregard global evidence about what needs to be done.”
Cannabis use is falling but it remains the most widely used illegal drug in England and Wales. Evidence suggests that the UK’s illegal cannabis market is worth an estimated £2.6 billion a year. Almost three million people aged between 16 and 59 used the drug in the year to March 31, 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics.
David Sidwick, Dorset’s police and crime commissioner, this week called for cannabis to be reclassified as a class A drug. He said: “I have always been very clear about the pernicious impact I believe cannabis and other illegal gateway drugs have on physical and mental health … because of these effects and the impact it presents on wider society.”
The LDC, led by Lord Falconer of Thoroton KC, said “cannabis laws have been used to stop and search black communities disproportionately”. Senior Met officers often declare stop and search as a “vital tool” for seizing weapons and protecting the public, but the force has struggled with this after frontline PCs revealed they “aren’t confident” deploying their powers in case a complaint ruins their career.
The mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, has backed a report recommending the decriminalisation of cannabis
STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA
In February, Scotland Yard relaunched its stop and search policy after Londoners told them to be “less aggressive” in their approach and ensure “they are not bringing bad energy”. Evidence of its impact has not yet been published but the Met conducted 124,249 stop and searches in the year to April 30 — down 6 per cent on the past year. A third (41,014) of stops were for cannabis under section 23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, according to Met data.
Four in ten (16,653) people were black, a third (13,206) were white and 16,174 were aged 18 to 24. Just under 5,000 arrests were made, but figures did not show how many were charged with possession with intent to supply. No further action was taken in 58 per cent of cases.
Commander Paul Brogden, of the Met’s specialist crime unit, said this week: “We recognise that there are challenges and areas of debate, especially within the black community in London. Our priority is to protect people from the very violence that is often driven by the sale of drugs.”
No reference was made to the part of the debate that had upset black Londoners, but an expert on gangs said the unspoken issue was the “daily grooming and exploitation” of young boys coerced into selling class A drugs. “The grooming element is often associated with young women but drug dealing and criminal exploitation can lead to their deaths,” the expert added.
County lines networks have adapted their business models and insiders said fewer young people now “go cunch” — a colloquial term that describes children and vulnerable people transporting drugs from one area to another.
Gang leaders preside over mobile phone lines — or “deal lines” — that blast marketing messages to customers, but have increasingly shifted to “localised models” in which most drug dealing stays within police force areas. “Fewer lines are coming out of big cities but the drugs supplied almost all of the time are crack cocaine and heroin,” a senior policing source said.
The Home Office said it had “no intention” of changing cannabis’s status but Falconer said the “criminal justice system response needs to focus only on the dealers and not the users”.
A Met spokesman said: “There is a clear distinction between the scale and nature of police resources directed at cannabis versus those directed at the supply of class A drugs, the organised criminality behind it and the serious violence it fuels.
“The vast majority of the county lines involve the supply of drugs such as crack cocaine and heroin, but we still see other drugs, such as powder cocaine and cannabis, being distributed, often as a supplementary sideline.
“Cannabis supply is still linked to violence and other offences in communities across London albeit to a lesser degree than class A drugs supply. Accordingly, we are still required to deal with both cannabis supply and possession offences. We do so proportionately and where appropriate — such as with small amounts intended for personal use — using the out-of-court disposals available to officers.”
