OPINION: A fog of cannabis smoke hangs over Manhattan and drug deals are conducted in broad daylight

Cannabis fans gathered in New York’s Washington Square park (Image: Getty)

Disaster awaits if Britain’s drugs laws are liberalised – as Sadiq Khan has suggested today. Our towns and cities must not be allowed to go the way of New York.

A Centre for Social Justice research team visited the Big Apple last year. There are many sights you want to see when you visit this great city – but a crack deal happening in broad daylight is not one of them.

It wasn’t remarkable to see a drug deal on a hot summer’s afternoon in the South Bronx. After all, there were addicts sprawled across the pavement. But it was remarkable to witness it from the back of a cop car on a “ride along” with the New York Police Department. The cops saw it too, shrugged, and said there was not much they could do about it.

Unless money changes hands in front of them, they no longer intervene.

In March 2021 New York City legalised the personal use of cannabis and the side-effects have been stark and terrible. There is huge confusion around what is legal among both police and citizens. A thick fog of smoke now hangs over Manhattan Island. It has not eliminated the illicit market as hoped.

People still prefer their old dealers, who promise to-the-door delivery of much stronger stuff all while undercutting the legal market.

The promised economic benefits have largely failed to materialise in the various states that have gone down this path and in almost all jurisdictions that have liberalised their drug laws we now see increasing long-term harm and drug related deaths.

This liberalisation approach sends a clear message that some drug-taking is harmless, despite a wealth of studies showing strong links between cannabis and mental health problems, psychosis, and schizophrenia, particularly in young men.

Moreover, the London Drugs Commission itself accepts that cannabis is addictive. In fact, one in 10 users develop a problem and, in the UK, it continues to be the predominant substance for which young people seek addiction treatment (87%).

It is also wrong-headed to push for liberalisation because of concerns about stop and search and the criminal justice system. In CSJ polling, two-thirds of UK police said that cannabis was effectively decriminalised.

The question should not be whether our system needs loosening up but whether we are doing enough to clamp down on illegal drug use.

The idea that London should follow New York’s terrible example and liberalise our drug laws is for the birds.