Sadiq Khan's plan to decriminalise cannabis is dangerously divisive
Mainly because I didn't know the police were arresting people for it in the first place.
It certainly doesn't smell like it. These days, practically all our towns and cities – including the one run by Mr Khan – stink of weed. Which suggests that a very large number of people now feel able to smoke it with absolutely no fear of getting arrested. Whether this is because the police can no longer be bothered to enforce the law, or they're too busy carrying out dawn raids on the bookshelves of Spectator readers, I don't know. But either way, it hardly seems worth clamouring for decriminalisation, when in effect we've already got it.
Even so, Mr Khan has backed calls to change the law. And these calls seem to have something to do with race.
According to an independent commission, set up by the Mayor, the policing of cannabis use is shamefully unjust to people who aren't white. In a new report, the commission says: 'The law with respect to cannabis possession is experienced disproportionately by those from ethnic minority (excluding white minority) groups, particularly London's black communities. While more likely to be stopped and searched by police on suspicion of cannabis possession than white people, black Londoners are no more likely to be found carrying the drug.'
If so, that plainly is unfair. But it's not an argument for decriminalisation. It's an argument for stopping and searching greater numbers of white people. Which, of course, would be completely fine. Go right ahead. Even if today's over-anxious police chiefs would probably misunderstand such an edict, and tell their officers: 'When investigating crime, we must never treat any community with more suspicion than any other. Which is why, this afternoon, I'm sending you all to a WI jumble sale, to search little old ladies for machetes.'
None the less, the report maintains that the way forward is to decriminalise possession. At the same time, though, it says producing and dealing should remain illegal. Which is odd, because it implies that the blame for the trade lies solely with the people doing the latter. But if it weren't for all the people wishing to possess the drug, no one would produce or deal it. Ultimately, therefore, it's their fault.
Anyway, if possession does get decriminalised, you can bet there'll soon be calls to loosen the law further. Which would be even more unwise. Just look at what's happened to New York, which in 2021 decided not only that people should be allowed to smoke cannabis, but that shops should be granted licences to sell it. Has this put criminals out of business, while raising lots of lovely extra cash through tax?
Funnily enough, no. Illegal vendors simply undercut the legal ones. Kathy Hochul, who is New York's governor (and a Democrat, rather than some stereotypically stuffy Republican), has called it 'a disaster'. Even The New Yorker, proud tribune of liberal America, ran a dismayed article asking: 'What happened?'
All the same, the Mayor of London insists that his commission's report makes a 'compelling' case. I don't think it does. And I especially think we could have done without the irrelevant wittering about ethnicity. We've got quite enough 'community tensions' in this country as it is. So we certainly don't want people thinking: 'What? They want to allow possession of a dangerous drug, just because they think it will improve 'police relations' with 'black communities'? That sounds awfully like special treatment. Mind you, I suppose they need to free up the cells, to make more space for middle-aged women who post problematic opinions on the internet.'
This, in short, is why Mr Khan's plan for cannabis isn't just naive. It's dangerously divisive.
I note, incidentally, that the Mayor has just proposed a 20 per cent rise in London's congestion charge. But don't worry. I've prepared a report arguing that the charge is unjust, because it's experienced disproportionately by the motoring community, while the cycling and walking communities get off scot-free. So the whole thing should be scrapped.
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