How flood of super-strength cannabis is hitting Britain streets as its links to terrifying crime wave are revealed
More cannabis than any other drug was detected coming into the country by Border Force last year — with the black market in the illegal substance estimated to be worth £2.6billion.
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Border officials seized 85 tonnes of herbal marijuana — up 73 per cent on the previous year — and around 480,000 plants and 416 tonnes of cannabis resin, up 183 per cent on 2023 figures.
But despite the massive seizures, illegal drugs are still making their way on to the streets.
Now we can reveal a new report has found a direct link between cannabis use and an 'increased risk of perpetration of physical violence, including aggravated assault, sexual aggression, fighting and robbery'.
Criminology expert Dr Simon Harding, who helped compile the University of West London report, told the Sun on Sunday: 'The links between violence and cannabis are going under the radar.
'When there are calls for the decriminalisation or legalisation of cannabis, some are thinking of the cannabis of 30 or 40 years ago, which caused fits of giggles.
Sword attack
'But what we're dealing with now is more like a Frankenstein genetically modified version of cannabis, with very high THC levels, which makes people very paranoid.'
Our revelations come after Sir Andy Marsh, head of the College of Policing, demanded earlier this month that officers crack down on cannabis use.
He said the smell of the plant-based drug, which is also known as marijuana or weed, made him 'feel unsafe' and 'is a sign of crime and disorder'.
Dr Harding, who is also a regular expert witness at major drug trials, said the new strong cannabis being produced is leading to cases of psychosis.
He cited the trial of Marcus Monzo, 37, who last month was found guilty of the murder of 14-year-old Daniel Anjorin in Hainault, Essex, while in a state of cannabis-induced psychosis.
Smugglers hiding cannabis in luggage at record rates - but are barely trying to hide it
Dr Harding said: 'We only have to point to this sword attack.
'Psychosis is not going to happen to everybody, but if you are prone to that and there may be underlying factors, it can be pretty serious stuff and the psychiatric facilities in the UK are full of people suffering from cannabis psychosis.'
The influx of cannabis reaching our shores is, in part, fuelled by other countries legalising its use.
Of the 173 cannabis smuggling cases already dealt with by our courts this year, the majority came from Thailand.
Cannabis was legalised there three years ago, but has become so rife and problematic that last month the government there imposed new rules to try to tackle the issue.
Drug lords in Canada, where cannabis is legal, and the US, where some states have followed suit, are also major exporters.
Last year there were 75 arrests related to cannabis originating from Canada, and 47 from the US, according to the National Crime Agency.
Dr Harding says the marketing of different drug strains from abroad is increasingly sophisticated. Users are being offered an 'a la carte menu' with up to 50 choices.
He said: 'The menus are available with different prices and I see it in every drug case I work on. People import it from parts of America and Thailand where it has been decriminalised.
'When other parts of the world decriminalise, it has a knock-on effect in other places.'
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show the proportion of robberies taking place while offenders are under the influence of drugs was at 34 per cent in 2024 — up from 25 per cent in 2014.
There has also been a worrying rise in children using THC or synthetic cannabis in vapes, with a number of schools issuing warnings to parents.
Dr Harding says his report, which was funded by the London Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime, found the use of cannabis among youngsters is a terrifying 'gateway to other crime and to violence'.
Youths preyed upon
He said: 'This is something that goes under most people's radar. It was a big finding in my report.'
It is also one of the major ways that youths are preyed upon.
He explained: 'The biggest way to recruit for county lines gangs is to get a boy into debt.
'The dealer sells them a little bit of weed on tick for a few weeks. The kids think they have made a friend and they get weed for free.
'By the end of the month the boy has maybe smoked £50 of cannabis, then that dealer comes back and says the debt is £300 and if they don't pay they will be in trouble.
'They have to work it off — and that means shifting or transporting drugs for the dealers.'
But earlier this month, London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan called for the possession of 'small quantities of natural cannabis' to be decriminalised.
He said it would address concerns that UK drug laws were harming relations between the police and ethnic communities.
But in New York, where marijuana was legalised in March 2021, State Senator Mario Mattera warned such a move would be a disaster for our country.
He told the Sun on Sunday: 'All you do is smell cannabis on the streets here now. It's terrible and it's out of control.
'We have created a monster, and more people are on drugs.
'The UK needs to look at the US states where the black market is running rampant.
'Look at the crime. Is that what you want?
'What has happened here should be a warning.'
'WEED AT 13 RUINED MY LIFE'
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A FORMER addict blames smoking cannabis as a teenager for his life of crime.
Paul Hannaford, now 55, used to fund his £500-a-day heroin and crack habit through shoplifting and drug dealing.
He had been stabbed seven times and served 15 prison sentences before the age of 36.
But Paul was a bright child with a talent for football growing up in Romford, East London.
It all changed after he was introduced to 'weed' at 13.
Within six months, he was smoking it every day.
He told The Sun on Sunday: 'If I hadn't tried cannabis, I wouldn't have committed crimes.
'I started with weed, but it made me lazy and affected my mental health. I got chucked out of three schools in one year.
'In every city I go to these days, addiction is getting worse and a lot of it starts off with cannabis.
'Nobody's first drug is crack cocaine or heroin. Weed was the gateway drug.'
Now clean for 18 years, Paul gives talks in schools and prisons about the dangers of drugs.
He said: 'If fewer people smoked cannabis there would be less crime and fewer mental health issues.'
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He saw a lot of grim scenes in 20 years of active service all over the world, yet this one remains stuck in his mind more than 40 years later. 'It was a nightmare inside there,' recalls a soldier whom we will call Andrew. 'There was the husband on the kitchen floor with blood spurting out of an arterial wound. The children were screaming and their mother was in the bedroom with at least six bullets in her.' Fortunately, she was still alive – just. It was January 1981 on a snowy Northern Irish dawn at the bottom of a dead-end track in rural County Tyrone. Andrew was in charge of a three-man military observation team who had only just disarmed the gunmen responsible for this carnage. It was now very clearly a life-or-death situation. Andrew had to summon immediate medical aid, without which the parents of those screaming children would soon be dead. 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Years later, in a 2002 interview with the Mail's Geoffrey Levy, she attributed the couple's survival to a passing patrol of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. Today, however, the Mail can reveal what really happened that horrific morning. For the men who saved Bernadette and her husband that day were from the one Army unit which Irish republicans hated even more than the Paras. They were from the Special Air Service. And now the man in charge of that operation – 'Andrew' – has decided to speak out. He has done so with heavy heart as he has spent more than 40 years keeping his memories to himself, according to the regimental code of honour. But the current Left-wing rewriting of the history of the 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland, repainting the Special Forces as villains and besmirching the reputation of 'the Regiment', has goaded this taciturn 70-year-old soldier beyond endurance. 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She also gave a crystal decanter to the military surgeon whose brilliant handiwork in hospital had saved both her and her husband (even though the doctor was a Para). One can but wonder what Bernadette would say if she knew what really happened that day. The Mail has approached her for comment. In such horrific circumstances, she can be forgiven for not knowing who was who. She showed commendable fortitude that day simply by keeping herself alive – and even cracking a joke. Having become disillusioned with politics and politicians, she would go on to devote her life to social projects in South Tyrone, as she still does. Despite her lifelong condemnation of the British state, this tenacious activist would never hesitate to attack Sinn Fein, the IRA and the Irish government, too, for letting down their own people. The horrors of that day left their mark on all the family, including Bernadette's daughter, Roisin, who later spent some time in jail, while pregnant, fighting extradition to Germany following a 1996 IRA mortar attack on a British Army base (repeated extradition attempts by the Germans were ultimately denied by a British judge). The attack on the McAliskeys also led to savage reprisals by the IRA. Days later, an eight-man unit murdered 86-year-old First World War hero and retired politician Sir Norman Stronge, 86, along with his only son, James, in the family home, Tynan Abbey. The murderers then torched the place to the ground. But the aftermath could have been far worse had Andrew and his team not done what they did that January day in County Tyrone. While he is fiercely proud of the SAS, he plays down his own role. 'We just did our best in the circumstances. And it didn't matter which side the attackers were on. They were just terrorists as far as I was concerned. 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EXCLUSIVE My father was defrauded out of £64k by The Salt Path author Raynor Winn, it destroyed him and he never fully recovered from the heartbreaking loss
The family of the businessman who Salt Path writer Raynor Winn allegedly stole £64,000 from have reacted furiously to her claim that it was just a mistake. Scandal-hit Winn has admitted she has 'deep regret' over mistakes made that led to allegations of the embezzlement from Martin Hemmings' business and her arrest. Mr Hemmings died before details of the missing money ever became public - and today friends of his widow said that the episode had 'destroyed him' while his daughter claimed he felt 'ripped off' and 'let down' by the best-selling author. Winn claimed she was working during a 'pressured time' when errors were being made across Mr Hemmings' estate agency business. She has denied allegations the financial dispute with ex-boss Mr Hemmings, who has since died, had any relation to the story told in The Salt Path. It follows days of backlash against Winn's 2018 memoir - which has been accused of not being as 'unflinchingly honest' as initially billed. Speaking from her remote Welsh cottage, Mr Hemmings' daughter Debbie said: 'He felt he was ripped off by her, which he was. 'My mum is still angry and frustrated by it as my dad was upset about it. 'He felt really let down by it all. 'But I don't feel angry any more as I have parked it. 'But I'm not sure my mum has.' A close friend of her mother Ros Hemmings told MailOnline that she and her late husband were 'saddened and very frustrated' that Winn - real name Sally Walker - had escaped any punishment for her alleged theft. 'On the other hand, at least they got the money back, said the friend. 'If things had gone differently, and Walker had not been able to come up with the money then she may have been prosecuted, probably would not have gone to jail and ended up doing community service. 'Then she'd have been repaying their money at some paltry rate such as £5 a week for the rest of her life. 'So although it wasn't a perfect solution, it was probably better than the alternative.' 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Mr Hemmings is not Cooper. Mrs Hemmings is not in the book, nor is she a relative of someone who is. 'I worked for Martin Hemmings in the years before the economic crash of 2008. For me it was a pressured time. 'It was also a time when mistakes were being made in the business. Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry.' The author also said she had been left 'devastated' by accusations her husband's illness was fabricated. The Salt Path tells the story of how Moth was diagnosed with the terminal condition corticobasal degeneration (CBD), just after they had been made homeless. Questions have also been raised about Moth's debilitating illness - a rare neurological condition in the same family as Parkinson's disease, which is central to the book. 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Released in 2018, The Salt Path details the Winns' decision to embark on the South West Coast Path when they lose their home after investing a 'substantial sum' into a friend's business which ultimately failed. In the book, Winn writes: 'We lost. Lost the case. Lost the house.' The memoir then describes their subsequent walk to salvation, wild camping en route and living on around £40 per week, and is described as a 'life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world.' It prompted two sequels and the film adaptation, which was released in May, starring The X Files' Anderson and Isaacs, who recently starred in HBO's The White Lotus. The Winns posed for photographs alongside the actors on the red carpet in London at the film's premiere.
