In London, 2021 saw more teenagers being stabbed to death or shot than ever.
Two of the total of 30 were killed last Thursday night — a talented 15-year-old musician in South London and a boy just one year older in Boris Johnson’s Uxbridge constituency.
It’s an appalling toll, one that shames Britain and brings untold grief to families.
While we might never be able to pinpoint the causes behind such tragic deaths, it is a known fact that cannabis is to blame in large numbers of them.
Sadiq Khan wants to stop the prosecution of youths caught using cannabis.
Many of the children killed in these incidents are part of drug gangs. Others are innocents who were misidentified or are just plain wrong. However, the true killer is the rapidly growing drugs industry.
Yet the response of the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has not been to crack down on drugs and protect the citizens in his charge, but to do the opposite — and start to decriminalise these substances.
Delusional
A new program will instruct police to not arrest anyone under the age of 21 who is found with cannabis in Lewisham, Bexley, and Greenwich.
It is also understood that the amnesty may extend to all class B drugs, including ketamine and dangerous amphetamines like ‘speed’.
Khan’s thoughts are beyond my comprehension. It is a shock to me.
Perhaps he imagines he can break London’s endless cycle of crime he seems unable to get a grip on by simply decriminalising the peddling of drugs — because if it’s no longer illegal, the pushers by definition will not be criminals.
However, this is clearly a delusion. As trade grows, criminal gangs are likely to see their turnover rise. That will lead to more crime and not less.
One of the most organized networks in Britain is the County Lines Gangs. Children are used to carry the drug out to the provincial areas.
Khan’s policy will only encourage and strengthen them. Being the head of Centre for Social Justice, (CSJ), it is not my intention to advocate for hardline or bring back-flogging punishment.
For a very long time, we have maintained that heavy handed sentencing for drug crimes is an impractical approach to solving the problem.
For young offenders, like those on the fringe of gangs, the best answer is to encourage them into better lives — through rehabilitation, education and family support.
There is no doubt that those who have a full-time job are more likely to live a fulfilled life.
But it is impossible to steer people on to that right path if the alternative is being openly promoted as legal and attractive by London’s mayor and its police — the very people who should be enforcing the law.
Twenty Twenty, a Midlands charity, was my 12 year-old charity. I understand how harmful cannabis can be. We did all we could to help young, disadvantaged people from the most deprived areas of Derby, Leicester, and Loughborough.
The job was not difficult at all. However, when the children turned up with their stoned bodies it became impossible.
A new program will instruct police to not arrest any young person caught with marijuana (stock photo).
A report in the statistical journal Significance in 2013 listed symptoms of cannabis psychosis: ‘Hallucinations, difficulty thinking, a reduced ability to solve problems, apathy and a distorted sense of reality.’
Evidence also points to a link between the drug and an increased risk of infertility and heart attacks.
This is exactly the same as what we witnessed, seeing the immense damage it could cause, not only in disrupting school daily life but also in long-term brain damage.
I visited the inner cities estates, and discussed individual issues with families, especially mothers.
They were filled with despair and frustrated. Many told me that, if they ever caught their children with drugs, they would ‘go ballistic’.
What good was it if the police turned a blindeye? Many families expressed the desire for more police stops and searches on the streets. They were seeing their children dying. It was better to have teens search for weapons and knives than to make them suffer the hassle of searching.
Mr Khan’s big idea runs directly counter to what those families wanted and needed.
It will amount to no more than a wishy-washy, middle class pipe-dream imposed on communities that often feel powerless to protect their own children — and desperately desire more help from the police, not less.
The threat of criminal penalties is a powerful deterrent against drug abuse. If people fear the chance of arrest, some will, of course, ignore it — but many will think twice.
Addictive
According to a 2018 survey conducted by the CSJ, cannabis will be legalized in Britain if it is not.
They don’t currently use it, and the chief deterrent is the fact that it is illegal. The addictive potential of cannabis is a subject to debate.
Our data suggests about one in ten users become hooked, but that is a cautious estimate — a survey by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found one in five teenagers who smoked the drug casually for three years developed an addiction.
Young adults who have been caught using Class B drug would be offered counselling or speeding classes as a pilot program. . Pictured: In April, thousands of marijuana fans flocked to Hyde Park to openly smoke cannabis as they celebrated ‘420 day’
Even though the projections are lower, it means that decriminalization would lead to around 100,000 more addicts. It will also increase our already stretched healthcare system.
The only people who would benefit from Khan’s plan are the gangs. The plan is devastating for families, the gangs are detrimental to young people’s health, as well as their chances of success, and society pays the price.
It is hard enough for youths with limited job prospects and no money as it is: they see a chance to earn more cash than they could ever imagine, in a way that won’t affect their benefits, and they do not understand or care how dangerous it could be.
Dramatic
But if you believe that if the police catch you, you will have a criminal record — and you could even go to prison — perhaps some will think it’s not worth it. The power of that argument is wiped out by the mayor’s plan.
This experiment has been tried in other countries and it has had its repercussions.
In a public clean-up campaign in 2020, Amsterdam’s coffee shops — famed for decades for trading in cannabis and a popular attraction for tourists — were barred from selling to non-residents.
Public safety suffered a severe impact. The shops had started drawing undesirable visitors to the city — what a Dutch government report called ‘a motley crew of drugs criminals, a ring of hustlers and parasites, middle-men and extortionists’.
Khan’s plans risk attracting exactly that kind of drug tourist to London.
This seems like an acceptable risk. But he has not spent the years I have meeting children and young adults in addiction clinics and pupil referral units, or in police and prison cells — their lives destroyed by drugs.
Those are those who have been blessed enough to live. To take a policy that promotes the use of drugs is to be reckless.
And when faced with the reality of those damning teenage murder statistics — the reality of lives cut short and families ripped apart — is that really too hard to understand?