Police must not turn blind eye to cannabis use

CANNABIS ruins lives. This is not opinion, this is hard, scientific fact. Yet it has become unfashionable to say this in public for fear of being branded out-oftouch or a killjoy.

But there’s no joy in watching, as I have, someone descend into madness because of skunk (a highly potent form of cannabis). There’s no joy for their families.

And the problem is only going to get worse. Research this week showed that nearly all of the cannabis on Britain’s streets is super-strength skunk — which is dreadful news, since the strength of cannabis is closely related to the risks it poses to mental health.

Particularly frustrating are the smug, ageing, liberal hippies who lived through the Sixties and Seventies and claim that, because they’re still here, it must be fine — failing to realise that not only did plenty of people not make it through unscathed, but also that the cannabis today is almost entirely different from what it was 15 years ago, let alone 50.

Yet, as the dangers this drug poses to mental health increase, the police are taking an increasingly relaxed view of it. It is now normal to see it being smoked openly on the streets, because users know that the law is never going to be enforced.

This enrages me when I’ve spent hours of my life trying to pick up the pieces of lives ruined by cannabis.

I know that policing is incredibly tough and, with limited resources, decisions about which crimes to prioritise have to be made.

But turning a blind eye has effectively decriminalised cannabis on the streets.

The police should be enforcing the law, not making it. If there are to be changes to the law, it must be done properly, in Parliament, with experts from both sides putting their case and the evidence.

Decriminalising is the worst possible option. Because even if we were to make it legal, the type of cannabis being sold should be monitored, with the level of potency kept in check. This would be better than allowing this drift.

I’m not saying that legalising cannabis is the answer, just that this current fudge — where it remains illegal and the police look away — helps no one.