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As part of his 2021 re-election campaign, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced that he would look again at possibly legalising cannabis in the capital for adult recreational use.
Almost a year to the day, he’s making good on that promise, announcing the creation of an independent drugs commission to weigh up the pros and cons of legalisation, then take those findings to government. The London Drugs Commission will be chaired by Lord Charlie Falconer QC, the former lord chancellor and justice secretary.
In a statement, City Hall restated that the commission would only look at the possibility of decriminalising cannabis, not any other drug: ‘Sadiq is establishing a London Drugs Commission of independent experts and leading figures from the fields of criminal justice, public health, politics, community relations and academia to examine the effectiveness of our drugs laws, with a particular focus on cannabis. The Commission will not consider Class A drugs.’
As part of that examination, Sadiq Khan has visited LA, a city which decriminalised cannabis back in 2016, and made the sale of the drug for recreational use legal in 2018. Stats quoted by the Mayor’s Office show that cannabis arrests in California dropped by 56 percent after it became legal to use, possess and grow it in 2016. A total of 6,065 cannabis arrests took place in 2017, compared to 13,810 arrests in 2016. Felony arrests for cannabis fell by 74 percent to 2,086 in 2017 from 7,949 in 2016.
When the proposal was raised last year, the timing seemed significant. The legalise-cannabis debate has blazed back and forth for decades, and it was a provocative gesture to raise it again just as London reopened after lockdown for the summer. But perhaps that was Sadiq’s point. Maybe it was the perfect time to think again about cannabis as distinct from other drugs. We brought you story after story about alcohol delivery, takeaway pints, bottled cocktails and the red-letter day of pubs reopening, without really considering the downsides of alcohol abuse. Plus, decriminalisation could potentially bring a lot of tax revenue into the city. On the other hand, concerns have been raised about the continuing fragility of people’s mental health after the pandemic (and now the cost-of-living crisis), so some Londoners might feel that they’re already paranoid and anxious enough.
How it would work in practice if London made it legal to puff away in public is anyone’s guess. Maybe some sort of UHEZ (Ultra High Emission Zone), within which you can get off your face to your heart’s content, but if you stray outside it you have to pay £12.50. Anyway: not our problem.
Want a park to get baked in this summer? Try these.
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