Why ARE our streets thick with the stench of cannabis?

The reek blights towns and cities across Scotland — because drug users no longer fear the law. And, warn experts, the softly-softly approach is being extended to harder drugs...

IT’S a busy day and restaurateur Marco Giannasi is waiting tables at his thriving restaurant in the South Side of Glasgow. Crowds are making their way past his business, Battlefield Rest, en route to Queen’s Park to take advantage of the sunny weather.

He’s setting out cutlery for al fresco diners when he becomes aware of a distinctive, sickly sweet aroma – the unmistakable smell of cannabis.

Some of those passing by on their way to the park are openly smoking the drug and will continue when they’re settled on their picnic rugs – with no apparent hesitation about lighting up in a public place.

Whether they know – or care – that cannabis is a controlled Class B drug which can land those in possession with up to five years in prison is unclear but Mr Giannasi is in no doubt the problem is getting worse.

‘It is a very sweet smell, you know it straight away, and it’s deeply unpleasant – it’s not good for customers, smelling that lingering aroma when they’re eating, and it’s probably not very healthy for them,’ he says.

A restaurateur for 28 years, Mr Giannasi says nearby Linn Park, where he walks with his wife, is ‘absolutely stinking’ and the stench of cannabis fumes became much more noticeable during lockdown periods, when more of us were going out for walks.

Earlier this year, a member of the Scottish Police Authority told senior officers at a public board meeting of a similar experience to Mr Giannasi’s.

Paul Edie, who is also chairman of the Care Inspectorate, said: ‘I’m noticing personally over the last two years, every time I go out for a walk, I smell cannabis in the street in a way I’ve never done before.

‘And it’s not just in Edinburgh – if I go to Glasgow, for example, I’ve noticed that as well.’ Mr Edie asked if lockdown had led to a growth in cannabis misuse as sales of tobacco have risen sharply, which may suggest it is being used to smoke with the drug.

Deputy Chief Constable Malcolm Graham said the evidence was ‘anecdotal’ but he would look into it.

Mr Graham’s perhaps rather dismissive response was telling, as it should come as no surprise to him that years of soft-touch justice have led to contempt for the law so brazen that the air in some areas is thick with cannabis smoke.

In 2016, police began issuing Recorded Police Warnings (RPWs) to people found with small amounts of the drug, meaning they would escape court appearances and be spared a full criminal record. Now the scope of RPWs has widened so that, shockingly, they can be handed out even for possession of heroin and cocaine, assuming the quantities involved don’t imply an intent to sell – continuing a trend that critics say is tantamount to decriminalisation of drugs by the back door.

Ministers are keen to stress these decisions are for police and prosecutors but they strongly back the use of ‘direct measures’ such as RPWs, designed to ‘divert’ offenders from the courts.

A vivid illustration of the effects of these policy changes came in 2019 at a pro-cannabis rally in Glasgow attended by more than 1,500 people, which saw dozens openly smoke the drug in front of police.

Instead of arresting them, officers handed out warning letters to those gathered on Glasgow Green.

That move was attacked by some politicians and campaigners who called it a ‘meaningless slap on the wrist’.

Meanwhile, overall drug deaths have soared to the highest in Europe, driven largely by abuse of heroin, but some studies strongly suggest cannabis is a ‘gateway’ drug for Class A substances.

Some 5,013 RPWs were issued for ‘misuse of drugs’, chiefly cannabis although no official breakdown is provided, between April and December 2020, the most recent Police Scotland data available.

This pre-dated Crown Office permission for RPWs to be given out for Class A drug possession.

Between 2017 and 2020, 16,707 RPWs were handed out for drugs misuse under the same category.

Scottish Government figures show that in 2019-20 only 8.3kg (18lb) of cannabis resin was seized by police from people who were in possession of small amounts, as opposed to selling it, down from 29.5kg (65lb) the previous year.

Despite the fall in seizures, the Mail found widespread concern among shop owners and staff over the prevalence of open-air cannabis smoking.

They are worried that it may be harming their businesses, and adding to the problems of run-down town and city centres struggling to get back to normal after the ravages of the pandemic.

One worker at a Newsbox convenience store outside Central Station in Glasgow, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Mail: ‘Sometimes the smell can be coming into the shop. It is usually a lot worse on the weekends.’

Shop worker Dani Mush, who works in a newsagent’s in the city’s Union Street, believes that the use of cannabis on the streets has risen.

He said: ‘I think it has got worse – when they smoke they are standing outside but the smell comes with them as they come into the shop.

‘To be honest, the amount of people who smoke [cannabis] coming into the shop is more than the amount of people who don’t smoke it, so they don’t even realise the smell.

‘There are definitely more people smoking it now than before.’ Another store owner based in the Trongate area of the city centre said: ‘I smoke cigarettes and when I go for a smoke outside people pass by smoking [cannabis] or who have smoked it, and then you get hit with the smell of it.’

Ruth Clelland of Henderson’s Art Shop in the centre of Edinburgh said: ‘It is a very pungent smell, it does put customers off if you have the door open.

‘I have never had to call the police about it though but it does smell and the scent gets around you. It isn’t nice.’

A student in the Central Belt also told the Mail that his peers are becoming ‘increasingly liberal’ in their use of the drug.

The student, who wished to remain anonymous, said: ‘Among the student population at my university, people seem to be increasingly liberal with their usage of cannabis.

‘It is not uncommon to see students smoking in public places.’

The persistent reek of cannabis is unlikely to persuade shoppers who changed their habits during lockdown and opted for online purchases to venture back into town and city centres.

Scottish Tory community safety spokesman Russell Findlay said the ‘de facto decriminalisation of cannabis’ was to blame for larger numbers defying the law by smoking outside – with little or no fear of being stopped.

He said: ‘If SNP ministers stepped out of their limos they would soon discover the widespread pungent stench of cannabis on Scotland’s streets.

‘Little wonder it is so prevalent, with the lowest number of police officers since 2009 and the de facto decriminalisation of cannabis and harder drugs giving a green light to users and dealers.’

Rank-and-file police officers say policing has shifted towards a public health approach and cannabis appears not to be a priority for the top brass – but in any event the force lacks the manpower to tackle people found smoking cannabis in the street, beyond a possible verbal warning.

Calum Steele, general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, said: ‘I agree with Paul Edie – you can’t walk any street

It’s a very sweet smell and it’s deeply unpleasant

‘Fiscal would not care about someone with small amount’

in Scotland without a whiff of cannabis.

‘Whether it’s a societal shift or a growing tolerance, I’m not sure – there may be simply more willingness to do it outside.

‘If people are asking why can’t police just arrest them, I would say, “What police?”

‘The reality is that the police service is becoming a reactive response service rather than one that is able to provide community reassurance through physical presence.’

Former Glasgow Chief Superintendent Tom Buchan said in the 1980s up to 26 officers would be available for beat duty in the city centre whereas now it would be closer to ‘half a dozen’ on an average weekday.

He said: ‘The service is on its knees. I don’t think an officer nowadays who saw someone smoking cannabis in the street would just do nothing – they would probably say to them,

“Watch what you’re doing”, just to let them know they had been spotted.

‘You would know that the fiscal wouldn’t care about someone with a small amount of cannabis – it wouldn’t be worth processing.’ For its part, the Crown Office says RPWs are a ‘tool for officers to use in appropriate circumstances and are not mandatory’.

A spokesman said: ‘Police officers always retain the ability to report appropriate cases to the procurator fiscal for consideration of prosecution.

‘The Lord Advocate’s guidelines to police officers make clear that a warning would not be appropriate where there is information to suggest that the offence is part of a wider pattern of criminal conduct.’

A Scottish Government spokesman, asked about Mr Edie’s observations, said only that it was an ‘operational policing matter for the Chief Constable’. Despite expert warnings about the disastrous effects that consuming cannabis can have on young minds, this is a drug that, while illegal, is relatively easy to buy.

Some 9.7 per cent of adults in Scotland reported having taken cannabis in the previous year in a Scottish Government survey in 2018-19, up from 7.4 per cent the previous year.

Teenage boys in Scotland are among the most regular cannabis smokers in Europe.

Sir Robin Murray, professor of psychiatric research at King’s College London, has warned there is ‘quite a lot of evidence that starting to use cannabis in one’s adolescence increases the risk of psychosis’, and it has been linked to several notorious murders.

He said: ‘In the 1960s, your average cannabis had about 2 or 3 per cent THC [a harmful psychoactive ingredient, Tetrahydrocannabinol] in it, which is the active ingredient, but nowadays the average THC content of cannabis is about 14 to 16 per cent.’ And the risks are clear – if you smoke skunk or highpotency cannabis, you are ‘five times more likely to suffer psychosis’, Sir Robin warned.

He said: ‘Psychosis is higher in young people because it is a young person’s illness. The violence associated with cannabis is a bizarre kind of violence.

‘It’s when people do bizarre things like chopping the head off their victims or senseless killings.’

Figures reveal the number of cannabis users being hospitalised because of psychiatric issues has climbed by 74 per cent since 2016 when police began warning those caught with the drug for their own use, from 1,191 to 2,067 last year.

‘We’ve allowed drug use to f lourish in our city centres’

In 2019, United Nations consultant Dr Ian Oliver, a former chief constable, warned that Scotland’s soft-touch drug policy may be fuelling addiction.

Dr Neil McKeganey, director of the Centre for Substance Use Research, said there was no doubt about the ‘increasing visibility of drug use’ across Scotland.

He said: ‘Drug enforcement is important – not because it solves the problem of drug use and drugusers but because it suppresses what would otherwise be a rampant economy [the drugs trade].

‘By softening our approach to illegal drugs, we’ve allowed drug use to flourish in our city centres and increasingly in our rural villages to the point where the visible signs of that use are there for everybody to detect – everybody, that is, apart from the police.’

Dr McKeganey said there was no ‘absolute’ evidence about the dangers of breathing in someone else’s cannabis fumes.

But he said: ‘As we increasingly detect the smell of recent drug use in the air we breathe, there will be those who begin to wonder if we are not all becoming exposed to the second-hand cannabis smoke and whether that carries a harm in the same way that we know occurs with cigarette smoke.’

He added: ‘What is absolutely certain is the increasing visibility of drug use in areas across Scotland.’

For now, the fug of cannabis smoke lingers in our high streets – and all the signs are the stench will only intensify as police, prosecutors and their political masters continue to turn a blind eye.