Why won’t Britain decriminalise cannabis?

Read time: 5 mins

In brief…

• A new report has recommended declassifying cannabis as a class C drug, in order to free up more police time to focus on serious crimes and to alleviate tensions between police and ethnic communities, who are more likely to be targeted by police searches.
• Neil Basu, former Assistant Commissioner with the MET police, describes the enforcement of current cannabis laws as having a “traumatic” effect on communities.
• The News Agents say that while there are evident benefits with decriminalising cannabis, tabloid influence and political hesitancy means little is likely to change.

What’s the story?

A whiff of weed is usually all it takes for a police officer to conduct a 'stop and search' on someone in London.

In 2023 there were nearly 24,000 criminal charges against people for carrying cannabis.

And those incidents are most often carried out on young black men, according to Lord Falconer, who has conducted a new report into the legal status of cannabis.

Currently a Class C drug, possessing cannabis can result in a two-year prison sentence and/or an unlimited fine, while anyone growing or selling can face up to 14-years behind bars.

The new report has recommended that cannabis, in small quantities and when possessed for personal use, be reclassified and dealt with under the Psychoactive Substances Act instead of the Misuse of Drugs Act. Its findings have been supported by London mayor Sadiq Khan.

The findings also include removing the suspicion of possessing cannabis from the reasons for initiating a stop and search.

But anti-drug organisations have rejected the report's findings, saying changing the legal status of cannabis would suggest the drug was "less harmful", and stating that the drugs trade was steeped in violence and crime.

The Home Office, which would make any change in classification, has said it has no intention of changing the classification of cannabis.

The UK ‘not getting it right’ with its drug laws

For Neil Basu, former Assistant Commissioner with London's Metropolitan Police, the UK "lost the war on drugs a long time ago."

During his career with the police he worked extensively with criminal gangs dealing drugs, and has seen first hand the harm these gangs do to local communities through the violence it drives.

But that violence, he tells The News Agents, was mostly driven by harder, class A drugs and addictions to substances such as heroin and crack cocaine.

He says the main benefit decriminalising cannabis would have is on ethnic minority groups in the UK.

"One of the things the report was saying is about the tension it causes because it's often used as a way of criminalising ethnic minority communities," Basu says.

"It's seen as though it's more prevalent in those communities, and it's used as a precursor to searching somebody.

"It causes a traumatic amount of tension for what is – let's be honest – a relatively petty crime."

He says in most instances it is up to the discretion of individual officers as to whether they stop and search someone they believe is carrying cannabis, but says the tensions between police and communities comes from these searches, not the prevalence of cannabis use.

He adds that while he's not calling for changes in any laws surrounding drug classification or decriminalisation in the UK, he does believe change is needed.

"If you look at Britain now, the use of heroin and cocaine is rising every year. We are probably the highest users in Europe," he says.

"We're not doing something right here by being frozen on this issue, we should have a much more intellectual debate."

He says politicians will always want to appear to be strong on law and order, and so are unwilling to be seen to concede anything when it comes to criminal activity.

Any change that is introduced, he adds, will be welcomed and followed by British police.

"If politicians and society decide to change the law, I don't think police officers will lose a great deal of sleep over it."

What's The News Agents' take?

Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall believe the UK is lagging behind much of the world, including many parts of the US and Europe, where serious debates have been had, and a huge number of states and countries have decriminalised, or even legalised, cannabis.

"In parts of America, the cannabis industry is now on Main Street," says Jon, with 30 states now legally selling the drug.

In New York alone, the industry is worth an estimated $1 billion a year.

It is being sold and packaged like tobacco used to be. It is an organised business now, and that means you're not going to have the same pushers trying to flog you a quarter of an ounce of whatever and then try to sell you something else.

"This is a discrete business that has grown up, and doesn't seem to have led to the collapse of American society."

He says that some parts of the US – namely San Francisco and Oregon, where many other drugs have been decriminalised, may have gone too far, but the ultimate result is fewer people ending up with criminal records they didn't need to have.

But similar serious debates are unlikely to happen here, Lewis Goodall adds, blaming politicians' hesitancy, and the influence of our press in covering the situation.

"The power of the tabloid press, and their framing of this, remains extremely potent, and politicians wanting to appear tough on crime and to be articulated that way through those newspapers," Lewis Goodall says. "There is so little space in those newspapers for any real alternative or any real debate."

Britain, he says, and its population, love living by the rules.

"I also think Britain is quite an authoritarian country," Lewis says.

"We often think of ourselves as this liberal, freedom-loving country and to some extent there are elements of that, but if you look at the polling on any measure, British people love banning stuff."

He says there is limited political space to make any real changes, largely due to older, more socially conservative voters who are also more "socially authoritarian".

With the Home Office already saying it has no plans to change the classification of cannabis in the UK, despite the findings of the report, and a firm anti-drugs stance from the Conservatives, there seems little chance anything will shift – despite evidence of success elsewhere.

"Keir Starmer is a former public prosecutor and he, more than anyone, understands the limits on courts and the police," Lewis adds.

"Deep down he knows that a more involved debate would be preferable, but he's never going to touch it."

Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents.