4. Chilling out on cannabis

Starmer’s instinct is to run a mile—but not because he believes that the last halfcentury of criminalisation has “worked.” The civil liberties lawyer is well aware that it has done nothing to stop marijuana moving from the bohemian fringe to the social mainstream, while at the same time disproportionately criminalising marginalised groups. But a fixation on a certain type of cartoon reactionary voter precludes admitting this out loud: instead, Labour runs attack ads painting the reformist Lib Dems as “soft on drugs.”

But are the dismal domestic politics here sustainable in the face of racing global change? Around a dozen EU states, including Spain and Portugal, have formally or effectively decriminalised, while 19 American states from Colorado to California have outright legalised. Sometimes it has been botched— California’s black market remains vast— but in Canada the government is now able to collect meaningful revenue, worth almost half the tax on tobacco, according to the author of one Deloitte analysis.

But what should really shift Starmer is plans for “regulated sale” in the German coalition agreement of the ubercautious Olaf Scholz. The chancellor’s SPD was less keen than his Green and libertarian FDP partners, hence the reform comes with a four-year review clause to assess the public health risks. A pragmatic and measured step: how could any selfrespecting “moderate” disagree?