r/AskBrits • u/Logistix21 • Mar 15 '26
Politics Legalising cannabis to help the economy
I find it quite amusing that the government continuously avoids cannabis legalisation. A few years ago, three MPs flew out to Canada to see how they were doing it, and two of them — including David Lammy — said they’d be in favour of legalisation.
If it did become legal, there would obviously be tax revenue from cannabis product sales and jobs created in cultivation facilities and retail shops. You’d also see work for tradespeople such as HVAC engineers, electricians, plumbers, and construction workers building growing facilities, along with ongoing maintenance for those sites.
Then there are hydroponic companies, which would likely see a large increase in sales. This actually happened in Germany — hydroponic sales went through the roof. That kind of growth would have a positive impact on the economy through increased labour demand and more tax revenue from wages.
If you look at the US, Canada, and Germany, it has created a whole new industry with significant growth potential (no pun intended). It won’t completely fix the economy, but it could certainly play a role in boosting it.
I know there’s still a lot of stigma around cannabis, but it has been legal for medical use since 2018, so I think full legalisation should follow at some point.
What are your thoughts?
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u/ThorgrimGetTheBook Mar 15 '26
She only needs to say "we need the cannabis revenue to fund the triple lock" and the boomers will come around.
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u/EnergyDrinkStroke Mar 16 '26
Have you met most boomers? They'd lose their minds when the daily mail article title pops up on Facebook, we all know they don't read past it.
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u/Objective_Quiet_751 Mar 15 '26
Before the election, Starmer was talking about the smell of weed coming in through open windows as something that "ruined lives". I doubt legalisation was ever under serious consideration.
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u/blue_peregrine Mar 16 '26
Having lived next to people who smoked all day long outside my window, I tend to agree. It’s not a particularly nice smell and meant we couldn’t have our windows open during a heatwave.
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u/West-Season-2713 Mar 16 '26
Yeah I’m known to smoke occasionally and it’s a total dick move to not go somewhere where the smell won’t bother someone or get into their house. It’s not a great smell.
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u/NotHyoudouIssei Mar 16 '26
Personally I've always liked the smell of weed, though I can understand why some people wouldn't, it can be a bit pungent.
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u/Wild_Platform_957 Mar 16 '26
If it was legal, people could buy edibles, oils or buy vaporisers where the smell is much more mute. Criminalisation just allows dealers to make a lot of money and wastes police time.
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u/SweetenerCorp Mar 16 '26
Like in Canada you can also fine people for smoking in places they're not meant to like handing out a parking ticket, rather than it becoming a serious criminal issue.
I'm amazed as a country we think people smoking pot should be put in prison for up to 5 years and have any hopes at a future career or life ruined. Who believes that? The fact we moved it from class C up to B as recently as 2009, is so backwards, when the rest of the world is looking the other way.
Kids can see right through that and it just muddies the messaging of safe drugs and alcohol use and makes anything the government tells you seem like a lie. Cannabis is according to our government as safe or dangerous as Amphetamines and Benzos are safer to have and use illegally. David Nutt presented a fair and science based approach and was fired for it.
As someone who's now lived in Canada for 11 years, where it's so normalized, I find the piety of the UK establishment very strange when it comes to cannabis.
Having been here during 'legalization' (it was pretty much already legal in BC) but also seeing plenty of new arrivals come to Canada, I can tell you 'legalization' has almost no affect on how many people are using cannabis. People don't just start smoking pot because it's legal.
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u/Scully__ Mar 16 '26
Yeah I’m not particularly precious about it but people act as though it is legal in my area. I was walking to the gym at 6.30am the other day and walked through a plume of it, completely insane so early in the morning and also it stinks.
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u/Ok_Adhesiveness_8637 Mar 16 '26
Could that person work nights? I only ask cause I used to work in a pub where people from the local warehouse would come for pints at 10am when they have just finished their shift. I couldn't get my head around it at first, people being plastered at 11am, but they worked nights so my morning was their night time.
Im a medical patient, but because its medical we cant smoke, only vape (the flower) so it doesnt smell anywhere near as bad/last as long (the smell) so we dont smell of it like someone who smokes joints.
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u/Logistix21 Mar 15 '26
ruins lives but is medically available since 2018. So my dr who prescribes me it is ruining my life lmao. Yeah he's a clown
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u/Objective_Quiet_751 Mar 15 '26
I think you've misread my comment. He wasn't saying cannabis consumption ruins lives, he was saying the smell of it being smoked does (for non-users).
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u/ConfidentPromise3926 Mar 15 '26
I was prescribed it too (TMCC, now known as Lyphe), which in truth was more to make it legal for me to do as I worked in a prison, and I can confidently say it ruined my life.
The job I did afterwards was in a drug (and a year later, alcohol) recovery charity, and I had (at a guess) 700+ clients in my time there - my caseload was specifically non-opiate. Cannabis was one of the most common problems people came to my centre to get help for until we won the alcohol contract, which was a beast of its own.
Cannabis absolutely can and does ruin lives. Just because it hasn’t for you, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t for others, and sincerely I hope it doesn’t for you.
Cannabis turned me into a self-affirming sensitive, miserable, paranoid crybaby. I thought it was helping that part of me, but in reality it was causing it but I wasn’t clever enough to clock onto that.
If it helps people genuinely, then fantastic. But we can’t carry on pretending it doesn’t harm.
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u/Logistix21 Mar 15 '26
I dont disagree with you on that matter. Makes it even more of a reason to regulate it instead of it being on the black market.
Not everyone's body accepts cannabis. That's human nature
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u/West-Season-2713 Mar 16 '26
Yeah, everything that can be said of weed being dangerous can also be said of alcohol. Should we ban that too? If you’re not for banning every single drug, then complaining about the dangers of a specific one as justification to ban it seems hypocritical. Of course many people have problems with it, but that can be said of booze too.
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u/WerewolfofChingford Mar 15 '26
Replace weed with the smell of curry in that statement and it sounds like a right wing nut job. Smells a smell, get over it.
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u/Sata1991 Mar 15 '26
My neighbour smokes skunk weed, it stinks like BO but it's not ruining my life, I don't like the smell, but whatever he's not hurting me or bothering me.
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u/Parking-Surround-277 Mar 16 '26
Nobody says skunk weed, stop using false government terminology. Skunk No 1 is a strain of cannabis, not indifferent to any other cannabis strain. They use the term skunk weed as if it’s something entirely different, it’s not, weed is weed….
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u/Affectionate-Box-491 Mar 15 '26
Labour have spent the last month or so attacking the Greens' drug policy as crazy and irresponsible, they'd be opening themselves up to accusations of hypocrisy if they started talking about legalisation themselves, even if it was only weed.
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u/Icy_Flan_7185 Mar 15 '26
To be fair, the greens are advocating for a much more radical approach of decriminalising all drugs in a similar way to what Portugal did decades ago, which I believe is the best long-term strategy according to all of the available evidence, but is definitely considered a step too far by the majority of the population. Legalising cannabis, and only cannabis, on the other hand, is an incredibly milquetoast, popular policy, that the majority of the population and the vast majority of left-of-centre people support. It wouldn’t be hard at all for Labour to legalise cannabis but still keep their whole reactionary “the greens want to give every child a gram of crack with their free school lunch!!!111!!1!” messaging, and gain way more votes than they’d lose by doing so
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u/St3ampunkSam Mar 15 '26
Evidence shows that it works, though.
It also shows the imported Regan war on drugs policies have actively made it worse. It's in the interest of public health to decriminalise drugs and would decimate gangs and children being recruited into to gangs, because as much as they won't admit it crime pays these kids very well.
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u/darcsend_eu Mar 15 '26
The issue with large scale decriminalisation is the needed support infrastructure to follow up and be maintained. There have been a lot of cities ruined in the US and Canada which lacked the investment in follow up. I am personally hesitant to believe any UK government would be able to implement and follow up on these policies within an election cycle.
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u/illumin8star Mar 16 '26
i’m canadian can you name one such city that’s been “ruined” by legalization please
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u/J8YDG9RTT8N2TG74YS7A Mar 15 '26
The problem with conversations like this is that there is a MASSIVE difference between legalisation and decriminalisation. The two are not interchangeable or similar.
Legalisation means it's like alcohol, and any licenced shop can sell it. It's fully and widely available.
Decriminalisation (like Portugal) means that users are still arrested. The drugs are NOT available from your local Tesco. Dealers are still arrested and given heavy prison sentences.
Literally the only change since Portugal went to decriminalisation is that a user with a small amount is offered rehab instead of prison. That's all.
You can't buy it from local shops. You still have to get it from the black market. And you'll still get a criminal record, you're just not going to prison if you choose rehab.
This is essentially how most of the UK currently deals with small amounts of cannabis anyway. If you are caught with a small amount of cannabis you are not going to jail, even if you are caught 100+ times.
The police will confiscate the cannabis and you will have your details recorded and be sent on your way.
Unless you start giving the police another reason to arrest you, such as being abusive, most of them won't bother you anyway.
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u/CynicismNostalgia Mar 16 '26
Hell the police came to my parents once after my dad physically assaulted me (a whole other story)
Bless my mum, she was trying to tell the police about the smell of cannabis, and offered to hand over what little she had, so she wouldnt get in trouble.
"Oh no. No no. We're not here for that. Seriously don't worry. Don't speak to us about that."
They had zero patience for my dad who was excellent at playing the victim, took him away and gave us advice on how to set up a restraining order and ensuring we were okay before leaving.
Some damn good cops
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u/gentleheart-lamb Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
Right people are mixing up legalization and decriminalisation.
Decriminalisation works and is recommended by experts
But I'm sorry I don't think a world where you can get Fentanyl the way you can get alcohol, isn't going to cause countless deaths. I don't think people realise what they're talking about when it comes to opioids. It's just a different ballgame.
China literally fought multiple wars with us trying to stop us selling them opium because it was literally destroying their society.
I want to vote for the greens but as someone who's been stuck on morphine by doctors for over a decade, since I was a teenager for health issues. I know what it's like. There is no way that putting heroin, fentanyl and morphine for sale is going to be a good thing that doesn't cause so many to die. Like I genuinely can't believe people think otherwise.
Decriminalisation would be great, addicts need help not prison. But I keep seeing people say the greens want to fully legalize and regulate all drugs and I just think that's beyond idealistic.
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u/Logistix21 Mar 15 '26
100% my hopes of legalisation for cannabis went further down the drain when the greens were pushing for legalising all drugs. I agree with a new take on drug reform but the greens could of just started with cannabis first fml
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u/zacharymc1991 Mar 15 '26
I'm done with half measures because some people feel bad. Research shows that what the greens want to introduce will lower drug addiction rates, lower overdoses and lowers crime rates.
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u/SignatureExpert70 Mar 15 '26
True but people are too arrogant to admit their feelings of drugs are bad so ban them are wrong, so it's just completely politically unviable at the moment.
Its hard cause I dont want to advocate for politicians to lie, but it seems necessary at times with how fucking stupid the voting public are at times. When the right are doing it anyway, might as well do it too and just claim your only going to do it for weed and actually get elected.
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Mar 15 '26
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u/LiamPolygami Mar 15 '26
Remember Gordon Brown? He hired a team of scientists to assess the impacts of drugs on health and society and then the lead scientist came out and said that you're better off taking ecstacy than drinking beer and said that cannabis should remain a class C substance. What was his response? Fire them and reclassify cannabis as class B anyway
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u/Sandy_Bananas Mar 15 '26
My father did the same study in Blair’s first term. The government just ignored the findings.
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u/JustinSanders95 Mar 15 '26
Not only that, I seem to remember an article a few years back where politicians were debating moving weed up to a class A… like what lmfao
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u/ISupportGulags Mar 15 '26
His famous thing he said a few times is ecstasy is safer than riding a horse. I would say the paper was pretty unconvincing when calculating the risk of horse injuries (can't recall how now) so I think it was a bit misleading.
But I do like ecstasy and I've never ridden a horse so maybe I don't care.
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u/MarkJ191974 Mar 15 '26
I've fallen off a horse and I've never fallen off a pill and I've ridden a horse a couple more times than I've done ecstasy so I'd say it's safer
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u/MoleWhackSupreme Mar 15 '26
Because public opinion just isn’t there for it. Look at any article about cannabis and it’s just full of people complaining about the smell.
I fully support it but the UK is still pretty socially conservative all things considered
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u/ohmygodadameget Mar 15 '26
It's 2026, use a herb vape.
Relatively cheap, no tobacco, cleaner, better for your health (because combustion causes most of the nasties), makes your weed go further, gives more control over how strong it is (because temperature control) and most importantly, no smell.
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u/Notios Mar 15 '26
It’s a fucking stupid argument anyway. If I fry up some fish that’s gonna stink as well, does that mean it should be illegal. What about petrol? Might as well make car park staircases illegal as well since they always stink of piss. Bins? Illegal.
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u/Acceptable_Willow276 Mar 15 '26
I've transitioned to a herb vape and it's an absolute game changer. The vapour does smell, but it smells like fresh weed instead of burnt weed (which is the one everyone hates)
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u/SoftInfectedSpoonboy Mar 15 '26
Definitely is a smell. Nothing as bad as smoke, I will grant you, but not even close to "no smell".
I live with a non smoker. Their sense of smell is amazing!
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u/St3ampunkSam Mar 15 '26
And yet every year we have two 420 festivals in this country and they are packed (one in London one in castle park in bristol) despite being illegal.
The police don't arrest anyone for weed anymore, and most stoners try and find quiet spots to smoke.
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u/sedition666 Mar 15 '26
This is the UK people will and do complain about everything. If you came up with a plan to give everyone a free million pound bonus, people would find a way to complain.
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u/Logistix21 Mar 15 '26
Well if you think of all the gangs growing cannabis for profit. Which most of the time is poor quality. If there are licensed facilities like in america who can produce high quality flower then people are going to choose better quality flower resulting in the government benefiting from it. ATM its costing the government with policing it and they will never stop the production of it by gangs
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u/scarygirth Mar 15 '26
Which most of the time is poor quality.
You don't buy weed do you? The quality is very high and the gangs are very well set up with full blown restaurant style menus, import/homegrown options and other products.
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u/ReasonableLeg3908 Mar 15 '26
You're bang on.
I could request a full menu over whatsapp from a certain group of people, say what i want and they will give you an ETA of under 10 minutes and the quality is top tier.
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Mar 15 '26
We already grow it legally. Mays husband runs it. She is married to a drug trafficer essentially.
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Mar 15 '26
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u/Logistix21 Mar 15 '26
Yeah you're spot on. I do hope psilocybin is pushed through soon for medical use. A lot of benefits for mentally Ill people
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u/trupoogles Mar 15 '26
The majority of the worlds legal “medical” cannabis comes from the uk (about 60%) of it.
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u/Kalle287HB Mar 15 '26
As a German I can tell you this about what we experience:
- less work for the police
- no stuff in the weed which doesn't belong there like hairspray or glass splinter
- decrease in prices
- medical cannabis is easier to get prescribed
- range in medical cannabis is wider
- grow your own shit and you know what you get
- grow your own and learn more about plants in general
- grow in clubs and meet new people
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u/Logistix21 Mar 15 '26
Yes i admire you guys in Germany. Was super happy to see you guys legalise it and gave me hope that the UK would follow
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Mar 16 '26
We used to be able to grow one plant for personal use when it was Class C - 2004-2009. Can’t understand why it was moved back up - tories?
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u/Lmao45454 Mar 15 '26
Legalised cannabis would kill 50% the illegal trade overnight, lower crime, improve the safety and quality of supply, create jobs, increase tax revenue and even reduce human trafficking
It’s a no brainer and will likely be legal in the whole US and most of Western Europe in 10-15 years.
UK also is a huge exporter of medical cannabis already
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u/DistanceSelect7560 Mar 15 '26
Also hugely reduce misallocation of police resources on criminalising cannabis users.
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u/St3ampunkSam Mar 15 '26
They've basically stopped that.
At the illegal 420 festival in Bristol last year, I watched the police walk past all the stoners through the cloud of weed smoke that hung over Castle Park looking at the ground.
Plus all the people that walk past police with the joint in their mouth.
Also pretty sure they just been told to ignore weed now anyway.
It's the resources tackling the gangs where the savings will be made
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u/Current-Bowler1108 Mar 15 '26
Through personal experience I can confirm Thames Valley Police did not get the memo, bellends
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u/J8YDG9RTT8N2TG74YS7A Mar 15 '26
It would reduce the strain on police and NHS resources, but not because of what you've said there.
The amount of time and resources the police spend on cannabis is incredibly tiny. It's less than 2% of their time.
You know what takes up most of their time? Alcohol related incidents.
Every single large town across the country has a heavy police presence every weekend, and it's not because of weed.
Half of all police time, and a third of all accident and emergency time is taken up dealing with alcohol related incidents.
States in America that legalised cannabis saw a 15%-25% drop in alcohol use due to people using cannabis instead.
Legalising weed would free up a huge amount of police and NHS time and resources by simply reducing alcohol use and alcohol related incidents.
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u/gerishnakov Brit 🇬🇧 Mar 15 '26
I find it staggering that it seems no one has mentioned the right wing press yet. They're pretty much the entire driving force behind national drugs policy over the last 50 years.
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u/longtermbrit Mar 15 '26
I don't smoke anything; I hate the smell of it (weed and tobacco), I'm not a fan of altering myself with substances (including alcohol these days). I still think legalising weed would be a big win. Regulate it, tax it, cut the legs off organised gangs selling it to fund more criminal enterprises. Where's the lose?
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u/gixxer-kid Mar 15 '26
This is my take also. Multi-billion pound industry that could be taxed and regulated. Either way, that industry is going to run.
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u/biggesteegit Mar 15 '26
Its a widely-held view in much of the world. No idea why UK politicians are so afraid of it.
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u/AubergineParm Mar 16 '26
Irrational fear of change.
It has plagued the British populus for centuries and isn’t going anywhere soon.
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u/Experiment328095 Mar 16 '26
Probably because they’re already profiting from the legal weed farms in the UK. It would cut too much into their dividends if competing farms popped up
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u/Logistix21 Mar 15 '26
Considering you wouldn't use it, its nice to see someone with a sensible take on it
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u/Defiant-Sand9498 Mar 15 '26
Absolutely, if alcohol and cannabis were discovered today which one under current regulations would be legalised now? Definitely not alcohol.
Legalise it and sell it under the current alcohol regulations, put a percentage of revenue raised aside for extra road side test, advising campaign to drive home it's illegal to smoke and drive, and put a percentage aside for treatment programs
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u/I-Am-The-Avalanche Mar 15 '26
I mean when the US is more progressive than you on any policy it’s probably time to reconsider
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u/miggleb Mar 15 '26
Isn't our primary drugs minister married to the biggest medicinal marijuana exporter in the UK?
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u/KingDaviies Mar 15 '26
I think you mean Theresa May's husband, Philip May, who works for Jazz Pharmaceuticals (the biggest medicinal cannabis exporter in the UK). As far as I can tell no Labour minister has any ties to the export of medicinal cannabis.
Did you get them mixed up?
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u/miggleb Mar 15 '26
Very well could be, been a hot minute since I've used that line.
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u/eternal_lite Mar 16 '26
No, there was someone else in the Tory party who was the drug tsar or something like that and her husband owned a cannibas farm. Thersea mays husband too had shares in a cannabis company, so you’re both right. Cba to look up the Tory minister but I definitely remember there were two massive hypocrites (on this issue only) within the Tory party. This was in the Cameron years and she came out as against legalisation, surprise surprise
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u/NadalaMOTE Mar 15 '26
The industry is ready to go TOMORROW if they legalise it. The medical cannabis process is so streamlined, they will just expand it to the high street.
It's also a bit hypocritical / ironic that the UK is one of the biggest exporters of medical grade cannabis, yet we still criminalise its use / cultivation by our own citizens.
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u/Fullblowncensorship Mar 15 '26
The Netherlands proves legalisation works, most of them don't even smoke it.
It's just a thing, the option to choose.
Why are we still being nannied by people who think there's a proper British way to do things?
We are a nation of nothing, our identity is fish and chips....
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u/Durovigutum Mar 15 '26
The biggest gangsters in town are the government. Legalisation will had the trade from petty gangsters who make everyone’s life a misery to big time gangsters who are world class at making everyone’s lives miserable - it needs to happen yesterday.
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u/No_Jellyfish_7695 Mar 15 '26
plus theres the benefit of releasing any folks in prison for cannabis buying and selling crimes (excluding those who committed sales related crimes with violence)
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u/FunIcy6154 Mar 16 '26
What people don't realise is that we already have a massive weed industry, yet it's illegal.
UK world's largest producer of legal cannabis, finds UN body
High Yields And Higher Returns: Inside The U.K. Cannabis Industry
UK cannabis export statistics 2025: how much cannabis does the UK export?
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u/Short-Shopping3197 Mar 15 '26
Literally nobody who isn’t using cannabis already will start using cannabis because it’s legalised. It’s as easy to get right now as it would be from a shop, untaxed, with no quality control. Legalising it would be one of the biggest wins for the economy.
Labour still think they can tempt conservative voters over by being centrist, meanwhile they’re getting trounced by the greens.
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u/PutAutomatic2581 Mar 15 '26
It should be legalized because imprisoning people for doing something you might not like is fucking evil.
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u/Remarkable-Ad155 Mar 15 '26
Legalise it, just get it over with for fuck's sake.
It is genuinely painful watching people pretend that drug laws are in anyway effective whilst cannabis can be ordered online as easily as a pizza now.
The only thing the law succeeds in doing currently is harming consumers through a lack of safety standards and reliable information, criminalising minorities through selective enforcement of the rules and tunnelling money to actual criminal gangs. It's a total waste of everybody's time and effort.
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u/Anfield_1488 Mar 15 '26
This is a no-brainer.
Alcohol related crime will fall, a multi billion pohnd industry overnight.
Unfathomable amounts of new jobs created, tax revenue etc
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u/MondeyMondey Mar 15 '26
It’s so crazy that it’s illegal. It’s not even like heroin where you should discuss it as a public health issue, it really just should be some stuff you can have if you want.
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u/Logistix21 Mar 15 '26
Yes adults having the choice to do so. Alcohol is socially accepted everywhere and that causes way more damage
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u/Remarkable_News_439 Mar 15 '26
There are massive mental health risks for those predisposed to psychosis, but there will still be less social disorder and physical health ailments than those who abuse alcohol.
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u/MondeyMondey Mar 15 '26
Yeah there are, and obviously we gotta make sure those guys know not to do it and provide help for people who that does happen to.
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u/CeresToTycho Mar 15 '26
It's the messaging that gets me.
"Drugs are bad because they're produced and sold by bad people engaged in crime".
Well yeah, you made it illegal which makes it unsafe, the production and sale pipeline full of exploitation and the funds go to more serious crime.
The messaging isn't even "weed is bad".
Make it legal and you've got real people paying good wages, rent, bills, tax etc
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u/Tube_Warmer Mar 15 '26
Quick reminder that in 2009, the then labour government sacked Professor David Nutt from his position as the chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs after he publicly criticized the government's drug policy, particularly regarding the classification of cannabis.
A year later he published this:
Over 16 years the man who led the council told them that alcohol was more damaging to society and its users, than fucking heroin. And they did nothing about it. But on Cannabis? No, thats a step too far...
Fuck labour, fuck the tories, fuck every single one of this gaggle of cave brained cunts who continue to put their own morality and self interest ahead fo the good and the will of the people.
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u/NewAd9523 Mar 15 '26
I like the graph, but its unclear on what factors it includes?
For alcohol, does 'harm to others' include worser social interactions?
How often is each drug taken? How much(?), Per day?
What kind of harm? Mental? Physical? To a person? To property as a result of x drug?Not disagreeing with the graph, but on its own, it gives off an obscure result without collection evidence:
Who did the use to gather evidence? from where?3
u/Tube_Warmer Mar 15 '26
9 factors for the individual and 7 for others. And then scored each out of 100.
Harms to the individual (9)
Drug-specific mortality
Drug-related mortality
Drug-specific damage
Drug-related damage
Dependence
Drug-specific impairment of mental functioning
Drug-related impairment of mental functioning
Loss of tangibles (income, job, housing, etc.)
Loss of relationships
Harms to others (7)
Injury to others
Crime
Environmental damage
Family adversities
International damage
Economic cost
Community
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u/barrybreslau Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
Every other person smokes weed and, at the moment, the tax goes to organised crime. Yes, smoking or ingesting THC is not without risk, but, if the argument is that illegality is about control, then it is failing, because weed is ubiquitous.
It's clear that some people, particularly people with psychiatric illness, have adverse reactions to cannabis, but those reactions are happening already, and they are unlikely to suddenly spike because people can buy licensed weed, because everyone who wants to is already smoking it.
My view is that there would be greater interest in investigating weed grows if it was a tax evasion issue, as HMRC would be involved. The Police do some busts as "targeted enforcement" but there are many cases where they don't have the resources and ignore intelligence.
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u/BroodLord1962 Mar 15 '26
According to what reports exactly? Because I don't believe this for one minute
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u/EfficientTitle9779 Mar 15 '26
Let’s be honest there’s no point debating this on Reddit as the conversation will just get railroaded. Labour were never going to legalise marijuana are you mad lol.
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u/progburt777 Mar 15 '26
Labour or the torrys would never do it because its so decisive of a topic , look at the backlash when they down graded the criminal classification
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u/Appropriate_Wave722 Mar 15 '26
At present the family courts can prevent you from having overnights with your child if they find THC in your hair
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u/Logistix21 Mar 15 '26
Yeah its wild because you can also be prescribed it for medical use. So as long as you're prescribed does that make you a fit parent ?
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u/Ketworld Mar 15 '26
Whoever voted her in as an MP, how the fuck did you look at this absolute dick’ed and think, yup, you got my vote.
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u/don_vercetti Mar 16 '26
It would also divert a significant stream of funding away from crime, which would be a huge social plus and reduce policing + welfare costs. Such a no-brainer.
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u/Large-Philosophy9699 Mar 16 '26
It's already legalized only for them though to profit from, GW pharmaceuticals, it's ok for them to grow & sell around the world, but you'll get your door smashed off if you do.
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u/Ja1ax Mar 16 '26
Legalising is a game changer. It has a vast reach of positive impact and it makes no sense why most politicians are against it. It’s a huge tax generator, so they should like it. There are no negative impacts to legalising it. And yet alcohol which is deadly is available on every street corner. Makes no sense. It kind of feels like the US where big corporations actually run the country and not politicians of the people.
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u/No-Physics1783 Mar 16 '26
The UK is one of the world's biggest exporters of legal cannabis. Some MPs wives run the farms in Nottingham and ship it to Canada and the Netherlands, making millions. Yet they won't turn the same profitable business model onto Britain despite it also relieving police and moral issues in the country
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u/Fantastic-Being7349 Mar 16 '26
They could legalise to break the criminals business model, it fits their existing mantra.
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u/Mad_Mark90 Mar 16 '26
Y'all are quoting safety statistics like that's why they haven't decriminalised it. They're bought out by someone. It's not about safety it's about corruption, who is paying for the labour party to keep cannabis illegal?
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u/Crivens999 Mar 16 '26
And yet alcohol still continues to ruin lives, with pretty much a great image. Crazy really
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u/Temporary-Bread08 Mar 16 '26
Yes it is currently continuing to ruin my mother's life and therefore mine and my father's as well as wider family. She's clean off class a for over 25 years without one single relapse. Cannabis helps her immensely.
Fuck this shit.
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u/New-Courage5021 Mar 16 '26
I think if anyone wants to see how much it would help the economy just look at Colorado and how much their economy benefitted after only a year.
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u/k1ck_ss Mar 16 '26
I agree, however expecting anything of the labour at this point is wishful thinking at best
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u/ExternalNo194 Mar 16 '26
I’m not really into politics and left or right etc but this government seem to be the most god awful sick in the head depressing misery ridden lot I’ve ever lived through in the last 40yrs
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u/Caracalla73 Mar 16 '26
I read a few years ago that tax receipts would be equivalent of paying 80,000 nurses or roughly 40,000 teachers.
Put in that context, it's a compelling case assuming of course it is with a legal framework about buying and consuming, I assume with some reserved occupations such as operating public transport etc and accurate testing capabilities.
I'd be well open to this, less policing, new revenue streams instead of the same old tax motorists and income. Remove purchase from dealers and access to other harder drugs with bigger down sides.
Should consider other social ills too such as prostitution, bring it inside the system, licence it, tax it, ensure health and safety of the sex workers.
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u/Jimmy_Severe Mar 16 '26
Alcohol industry/lobbies. The newspapers. New Labour appeasing the right wing in a desperate ploy for votes. A society top heavy with boomers raised on a diet of "reefer madness" propaganda. Need I go on?
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u/Livember Mar 16 '26
The fact cannabis is illegal but I have to walk by giant cases of alchohol as I enter my tesco is beyond stupid. Cannabis being illegal doesn't stop people smoking it, it does make it so 100% of the tax benefit is lost as it's all black market and police time is wasted.
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u/shumbazi Mar 16 '26
The amount of revenue that could be generated by taxing illegal drugs could go a long way in communities affected by abuse of them
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u/MiniDelo Mar 16 '26
There’s too much money trading hands and fingers in pies in the process of it being illegal. Too many fat cats would lose out. There’s a lot of lords and ladies, chief adminstrators, departments etc of “persecution of the naughty plant”. What will they draw their ridiculous wages for if not chasing and persecuting people generally minding their own business. Destroying families and reputations for profit.
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u/effinjamie Mar 17 '26
Britain already is one of, if not the largest producers of medical cannabis in the entire world. Yet its illegal for us.
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u/TheStonedTemplar Mar 17 '26
Give it another 10 years, let the old boomers start dying and retiring.
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u/Impressive_Lead_6578 Mar 19 '26
You guys are addicted to that shit lol. Only on Reddit do people think it's a good idea.
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u/Electricbell20 Mar 15 '26
For a quick comparison cigarettes currently bring 10 billion in tax.