How Close Is The UK To Legalising Cannabis?

This week the Cannabis Act passed in Canada making it the second country to legalise recreational use of the drug following Uruguay in 2013. “We’ve just witnessed a very historic vote that ends 90 years of prohibition,” Canadian senator Tony Dean told reporters yesterday following the vote.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced the legislation last year and celebrated its passing saying that it had become, "too easy for our kids to get marijuana - and for criminals to reap the profits."

In the UK the debate over legalising the drug has been reignited by the case of Billy Caldwell, the 12-year-old boy who had the cannabis oil he uses to treats his life-threatening epilepsy confiscated at Heathrow Airport earlier this month.

In response to the case, former secretary of state William Hague declared that the war on drug has been 'comprehensively lost'. Writing for the Daily Telegraph Hague said that, "It must now be asked whether Britain should join the many other countries that permit medical-grade marijuana, or indeed join Canada in preparing for a lawful, regulated market in cannabis for recreational use as well."

Change seems to be finally underway with Home Secretary Sajid Javid announcing a government review on the use of medical cannabis, which may pave the way to people being prescribed drugs from the plant.

All of which look to be signs that the governments attitude toward drugs may be changing. But how close are we really to full legalisation, not just for those suffering with ill health but those who want to be able to light up and kick back for fun?

It's not that the benefits to legalisation are not manifold and obvious. One major incentive to regulating cannabis is to crack down on the potent strains in circulation. A study conducted by drug policy think-tank Volteface found that 94 per cent of the cannabis seized by British police in 2016 was high-potency cannabis known as “skunk” - an increase from 85 per cent in 2008, and just 51 per cent in 2005.

Skunk has been proven to increase a person’s risk of developing psychosis and contains high levels of the active ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and lower levels of the Cannabidiol (CBD) which is common in traditional herbal cannabis (CBD is known to lessen the risk of psychosis caused by TCH).

The cannabis on the streets today has little in common with the strains that were being used thirty years ago, and have been heavily linked to mental health issues amongst users. Legalising recreational cannabis and setting up licensed dispensaries, as now operate in California, would enable the government to have at least a significant proportion of control over the cannabis in circulation.

Canada's new law stipulates that all packaging has to list information on the cannabis being sold including the name of the producer, strain of marijuana and TCB and CHB content. The same legislation here would mean giving users more choice and education about what they are smoking.

It would also mean taking money and drugs out of drug dealers (new legislation in Canada states it is still illegal to sell without a licence) and stop pushing soft drug users into the hands of hard drug dealers or wasting police time with largely misdemeanour crimes. All of this is before you even get to the vast sums of money at play. It's estimated there could £3.bn a year to be gained from taxation of marijuana.

So, all things considered, we'll probably be all blazing it up outside John Lewis together by Christmas, right? Well, probably not.

Despite the fact that a recent YouGov poll found 75 per cent of the British public support the use of cannabis for medical grounds, only 43 per cent support it being legalised for recreational use.

"People overwhelmingly support medical cannabis in Britain no matter your political orientation or age group," Steve Moore, director of Volteface, a think tank who come up with alternative drug policies, told Esquire. "However recreational cannabis is probably a very long way off in the UK because the perception of cannabis is very negative here compared to other countries."

"For a start, lots more people smoke it in other countries," he says. "In Canada where it’s just been legalised twice as many people smoke it as in Britain. West coast areas like British Columbia, California and Colorado have a cannabis culture where it’s very normalised. There your classic cannabis user is middle class and older and that doesn’t happen here."

Steve believes part of the reason perception here is so negative is the flooding of the market with the skunk and high potency cannabis. "Cannabis in Britain today tends to almost all be homegrown not imported. It's very high in THC and low in CBD therefore quite potent. Skunk has become synonymous with cannabis in the UK," he says.

In discussing the dominant perception of cannabis he sees in focus groups he explains that the drug is particularly unpopular with women who have had boyfriends or brothers who have become antisocial from the drug. "It's associated with gamers who stay at home," Steve says. "It’s not a social drug like alcohol because people tend to smoke it at home. We're a country hooked on booze and cocaine which has much more of a social and hedonistic culture."

There are also significant class connotations with the drug in the UK, according to the research Volteface has conducted. "People think of it as a very white working class housing estate drug for people who have lost their way in life. It’s not aspirational at all," Steve says. "If you go to the west coast you can see how they’ve tried to brand it as more middle class and female friendly."

There's no political push for legalising cannabis recreationally and until this week Theresa May would not even publicly support legalising it on medical grounds. A fact that has angered some pro-cannabis activists is that the UK is the world's largest producer and exporter of medical cannabis - we're making it, we're just not using it on our own citizens.

May, who vowed to continue fighting the war on drugs as recently as 2017, also passed the psychoactive substance bill while she was Home Secretary after promising to ‘get tough’ on drugs. The ban included anything that might cause a ‘legal high’ and accidentally banned church incense, suggesting a naïve and certainly intolerant view of drugs which is unlikely to have radically changed now she is Prime Minister.

Full legalisation is not a policy which is likely to appeal to traditional Conservative voters. It could be something they adopt in order to win back the youth vote (as they've tried to do with animal welfare and environmental policies after faring so badly with young people at the last election) but seems very unlikely as it would risk alienating their base.

Which leaves the parties vying for power. While Jeremy Corbyn has said wants to decriminalise the drug in the past, the Labour party have confirmed recently they do not want to legalise it. The only party which made a pledge to bring about a fully regulated cannabis market was the Liberal Democrats during the 2017 election. In their manifesto, they stated that sale and production of the drug could raise up to £1bn in taxes and save tens of millions of pounds in ‘wasted’ police hours.

However, as Steve points out, the party later regretted including it in their manifesto saying: "they thought it might attract some young people like it did for Justin Trudeau but it went down really badly on the doorstep when campaigning."

Steve believes that a shift in perception of the drug will eventually happen as in America and Canada though thinks it could take up to ten years. In that time the UK will (maybe) have left the EU, a moment Steve says some are arguing the UK should seize upon to build a larger cannabis export industry.

Were recreational use to be legalised, it would bring to light questions about reviewing the criminal records of people serving jail time for cannabis charges. A 2013 study found that black people were also almost twice as likely to be charged for possession of cannabis in London, making the issue especially politically charged.

We're likely to see movement on the legalisation of medical cannabis very soon as the case of Billy Caldwell has highlighted the need for reforming draconian policies, with the will of public opinion behind it. But as for lighting up and kicking back openly in the streets of Britain - you'd have been

(Esquire)

( smoking something good to see that happening any time soon.

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