Government urged to reform drug strategy and legalise cannabis

A new report claims that the government needs to reform its current drug strategy and legalise the use of cannabis in the UK.

The report, titled The Tide Effect: How the World is Changing its Mind on Cannabis Legislation, by the Adam Smith Institute, a free-market think tank, calls the British policy on cannabis a ‘messy patchwork’ of legislation that is only enforced intermittently by regional police, and which is an embarrassment. The report states that the government needs to understand that legalising cannabis, currently categorised as a Class B drug, provides the only workable solution to address crime and addiction problems in the UK. The report continues that the current drug strategy “has failed in its core aims to prevent people from using drugs, manufacturing drugs, and to put a stop to the crime, corruption and death that is taking place on an industrial scale around the world”.

The report has the backing of several MPs, including Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister. Mr Clegg said that British politicians need to review what the rest of the world is doing about cannabis decriminalisation – that prohibition of the drug is being overturned by popular opinion and is being replaced by socially responsible regulation.

Cannabis was decriminalised in the Netherlands in 1976 and in Portugal in 2001. Germany is close to decriminalising cannabis as a medicinal treatment, while Canada is leading the way for it to be fully regulated and legalised.