How legalising cannabis in London would crush violence and the illegal drugs trade

Finally, the debate on drugs is picking up speed. The Commons Health Select Committee has urged the government to adopt a radical change in drugs policy and on Friday the current Mayor made it known that he was open to a rethink on cannabis laws.

The timing of Sadiq Khan's change of heart is interesting. It comes just a few months out from the London mayoral election after a whole term ignoring this issue and failing to get to grips with the spiralling knife crime crisis, which is so closely linked to the drugs trade. I welcome all moves towards a new approach but we need more urgency and the time for talking is over. As I have long advocated, we must act to legalise cannabis now.

I believe London should lead the way in piloting new approaches. I have long argued for the decriminalisation and legalisation of cannabis in London, as well as support for people addicted to other substances.

Substance addiction is a major driver of homelessness across the capital. Tragically, the biggest increase in homeless deaths last year was related to drugs and addiction, including heroin and cocaine. But the hopeful and important point to remember is that policies that include treatment services, harm-reduction interventions, better education and social support are far more likely to have a positive impact and actually help addicts than criminalising them ever will.

There are other compelling arguments why London should lead the way on drugs reform; one is money. Canada legalised recreational cannabis in 2018. Ottawa, its capital city of a million people, estimates that it raised the equivalent of £60m from taxing cannabis sales in its first year. Assuming a similar tax and level of cannabis usage for London’s eight million people, legalising cannabis in the capital would raise over half a billion pounds a year. That’s the cost of 10,000 police officers, or a third of the Metropolitan police force.

At the moment, money from the drugs trade doesn’t, of course, fund public services. But vast sums of money do line the pockets of illegal drug lords. As a member of the all party Youth Violence Commission, I've seen how the evidence linking knife crime to organised drug gangs is overwhelming. Gangs protect their highly profitable illegal trade with extreme violence and are all too willing to exploit vulnerable young people. A police operation against gangs in 2018 resulted in the seizure of 140 weapons including guns, swords, machetes and knives.

Establishing a legal and regulated market for cannabis – one of my proposals for London – would remove power from these gangs and make our capital safer for everyone. At the same time, we could free up police time and the criminal justice system from the burden of dealing with possession of cannabis offences. We would also reduce the damage to people’s lives from cannabis convictions. Possessing cannabis carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, an unlimited fine or both. Just receiving a caution gives you a criminal record and so can wreck your career prospects. In 2017 there were 6,500 cautions for cannabis possession in the UK.

A properly regulated market could also control the quality and strength of cannabis available. It would mean that users do not need to buy from dealers who may also offer them dangerous class A drugs, high strength cannabis (known as skunk) or substances that are mixed with harmful additions. New evidence from the US shows that teenagers actually use less cannabis in states where it has been legalised.

The public understand these arguments, which is why a recent poll of Londoners showed that 63 per cent back legalisation of cannabis for recreational use. Politicians inevitably get asked if they have ever taken illegal drugs. I can honestly say I haven’t, which makes me quite a rare politician, it seems. But what I do know about drugs is that as mayor, I would push to legalise cannabis, to disempower illegal drugs gangs, to make the capital safer for young people and to use a tax on cannabis to transform London.

Siobhan Benita is Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London