Police officers say cannabis is effectively ‘decriminalised’ in the UK

Police officers say cannabis is effectively ‘decriminalised’ in the UK



by RandomUsername1604

37 comments

  1. Good! It’s not a real crime like murder or whatever, mind your business!

  2. Based on the guy who walks up and down my street with the stinkyest weed he can find I agree

  3. I’d still get in a shittone of trouble for growing a few plants though. Best give £180 every month or two to my local criminals instead

  4. Thing is *effectively* decriminalising by not going after consumers is kind of the worst of both worlds. The real problem is and has always been the organised crime groups growing and distributing. Legalisation takes the power and the profit away from them. This doesn’t.

    Plus selective enforcement leads to discriminatory enforcement.

  5. I’m not a fan of this halfway house approach when it comes to the criminalisation of things. It’s either something we care enough about for the law to be there and Police Officers enforce it or it’s not and subsequently shouldn’t be criminalised and funding organised crime. I’m all for a pragmatic age limit given the adverse effects it’s shown to have in juvenile heavy smokers, but I think it’s time we cut out the dodgy middle men and women and make the state some money with taxation.

  6. As a legal medical cannabis patient in the uk we really should look to making it fully legal and taxing the balls off it. We would fill that 20 mil black hole in no time. All we are doing by not doing it is losing money until the rest of the world legalises around us. Sadly I doubt our government will do this anytime soon as Stamer is a banana.

  7. Yep but the people that supply it get harsher sentencing than people with thousands of indecent images of children on their hard drives. The only current way to get it without criminal supply is by having or blagging a health issue AND then having enough money to pay over the odds for the private prescription. As far as I’m concerned, decriminalisation means nothing without legalisation, otherwise you’re just paving the way for illegal distribution to flourish even further, which is not a good thing for drug purity, criminal activity and subsequently a slope into harder drugs.

  8. Then go the whole hog and legalise it properly. Anyone who wants weed can get it so legalise the supply, take it out of the hands of criminals, make it a legitimate business, tax it and regulate the market.

  9. It would be better to decriminalise it proper, regulate it and take the gang element out of it. I know plenty of people who prefer this to a drink, coincidentally a lot more fun to hang out with too!

  11. Legalise it, regulate it, sell it through licensed vendors, tax it specifically to fund the NHS.

  12. Had a chat with an on-duty copper this Saturday in a pub, and my loudmouth mate somehow got us onto the topic of bud, and the cop said he doesn’t bat an eye at someone bunning a spliff if they’re walking down the road. Said it’s not hurting anyone but themselves and that it’s not worth the paperwork.

    As an occasional user, it was nice to hear this. Maybe we can have a little more common sense legislation soon so I don’t have to give my money to criminals.

  14. Isn’t this sort of what happened in Canada, Police just kind of gave up so they had to legalise?

  15. Really dont understand why they dont just legalise and tax it. Gov is always crying about how they have no money

  16. Question for people here: is the smell of cannabis different to different people, like coriander tastes like soap to some people?

    Because to me it is the most cloying, nauseating smell that I cannot bear for more than a few seconds, but given how many people smoke it it must not bother them.

  17. 90,000 cannabis prescriptions per month in the U.K. multiple people with legal medical cannabis arrested and making lots of complaints and suing for disability discrimination. Probably adds up to not being worth the effort.

  18. Why not just legalise it and tax the shit out of it – ironically marijuana might save the NHS

  19. Let’s just legalise it, come on it’s everywhere and I would rather the police deal with serious crime than a bit of weed

    It’s not my cup of tea, but if it’s legalised and regulated, you take control of it out of criminals and raise some much needed funds for the exchequer as well as ensuring it’s not coated in all sorts of chemical nasties

  20. It’s extremely easy to buy even if you don’t have contact there are people just walking in the street handing out “business” cards. cops don’t care and they shouldn’t so how about we get on with this properly legalize and stop funding wannabe gangsters? would generate some tax revenue as well

  21. I’m white British and got searched at green park station. I had a big coat on I guess.

  22. Police have seen me smoke a joint in a park twice and they never bothered me. They had far more important things to do the deal with some dickhead in a hoodie

  23. Good. So let’s make it official and tax/regulate it. We can use the billions of pounds of revenus per year to fund rehab facilities for hard drugs. All the while taking billions of pounds out of organised crime.

    Win/win right? Right…?

  24. Well, duh. I got back to Huddersfield in mid-October after six months away and pretty much the first thing I noticed was the pervading air of jazz cabbage.

    Time to legalise, regulate and tax it, like booze and fags (cigarettes for any colonials watching). As far as weed goes, any “war on drugs” was lost years ago. Might as well get some money for the NHS out of it.

    Then they can go after the remaining criminal dealers for non-payment of tax, which is after all how they got Al Capone. Maybe keep the most heinous skunk criminalised, the stuff that really fucks you up. But if you just want a gentle loosener to take the edge off, buy it legally at your local dealer, pay tax on it and blaze away, my friend.

    You watch vape shops disappear overnight and reopen in the morning as legal weed dealers if this happens 😂

  25. Effectively decriminalised in the same way as speeding, petty theft and snatch theft are “effectively decriminalised”.

    I don’t understand what the point of the law is if it’s not enforced.

    My vehicle was recently vandalised 2 weeks ago – the most I could get from the police was a WhatsApp message that said “a number of reports of vandalism have been reported in this cul-de-sac, we have no evidence therefore we have closed the case – please provide this number to your insurers”

    Some person in this cul-de-sac doesn’t like people who don’t live there parking there despite it being legal, and he has taken to vandalising the cars of people he sees park their cars and walk away from them wearing a uniform. *He has got exactly what he wants* because despite causing over £10k of damage in numerous cases of vandalism the police would rather you didn’t park in front of his house to “antagonise him” rather than take any action to investigate and stop him damaging the cars of nurses and posties.

  26. It should be no different than tomatoes. You can buy them legally (and pay tax, which has brought billions to the US economy) or grow your own plants. This would decimate the gang market in a matter of months

  27. The amount of people that stink of weed on busses in public is astonishing

  28. Police officer here – Can someone tell that to my boss who wants me to do about 3 hours of work to rationalise why it is not in the public interest to prosecute a 21yo with a clean record who had a single joint on a night out

  29. Then it should be legalised so that it can be taxed and the govt gets that money instead of criminal gangs.

  30. This fails to mention that there are regularly busts of cannabis farms across the UK, usually involving slave labour brough in from places like Vietnam. The police and UK government are targetting the criminal gangs, though as plenty of people have already pointed out they are ignoring those with small amounts in their possession.

  31. Its time to just fucking legalise weed. Its a joke that its still illegal considering how prolific and widespread accepted its use it. Take the money out of the hands of criminals, put it in the pockets of people who care about giving good clean product to people and tax it and let a industry (that already exists anyway) be regulated better and just all around sensible decisions then ban spice ffs.

  32. It’s the worst approach. Government makes nothing on it, weed growing business is flourishing and the end consumer overpays for what is most likely bad quality product.

  33. This really is the worst of both worlds. You allow the criminal element to thrive whilst not reaping the tax benefits. A sane government would look at the demand for cannabis, the massive hole in the budget, the currently overstrained police and prison service, and their current target to get people off tobacco and think “maybe legalisation isn’t such a bad idea” but no, this is the UK. 

  34. Legalise, regulate and tax it. Billions in tax revenue going to gangs and criminal enterprise.

  35. They try to legalise suicide before cannabis,the worlds gone mad

  36. I’m a law-abiding citizen who partakes in criminal activity every day.
    Hurry up and legalise it.
    I’d happily pay tax on it so I can smoke freely.

  37. My best mate used to be a copper and if he caught anyone with a small amount of weed, he threw it away and told them not to do it again. Said it wasn’t worth the time to do anything else and he wouldn’t get in trouble for doing that as long as he did it quietly.

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