London’s leftist mayor, Sadiq Khan is reportedly planning to effectively decriminalise marijuana for those under the age of 25 in the British capital.
Under leaked plans, young offenders caught with Class B drugs such as cannabis would be offered drug counselling instead of being arrested and would even be driven home by officers to their family homes instead of to the police station.
The scheme is expected to be first introduced this year in three boroughs of South London: Lewisham, Bexley and Greenwich, The Telegraph claims.
While it will remain illegal to possess these drugs, as the mayor does not have the authority to actually change the law, Khan’s office is understood to have reached an agreement with the Metropolitan Police that they will simply turn a blind eye. Under the alleged plan, police won’t prosecute people in the three areas and instead refer them to the new scheme which will be run by youth workers.
The policy is still in its infancy, so at this stage, it’s unclear how Khan will draw a line between drug dealers and drug users, however, it is expected that the programme will only apply to those caught with a “small amount” of cannabis.
The paper also revealed that other Class B drugs, such as ketamine and speed, would likely be included in the decriminalisation programme. Currently, penalties for possession of Class B drugs vary from case to case, but the maximum sentence for possession of Class B drugs is “up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine (or both)”.
In comments made to Sky News, the mayor’s spokesman rejected that Mr Khan is planning to “decriminalise” drugs, saying that the Labour Party mayor “firmly believes that drug use, and its related crimes, are preventable and not inevitable”.
“We know that we’ll never be able to simply arrest our way out of the problem, which is why we continue to work on schemes that provide young people with support and education, rather than simply putting them through the criminal justice system – with the aim of diverting them away from drug use and crime for good,” they added.
Commenting on Khan’s mooted drug strategy, a government source told The Telegraph: “2021 was the worst year for teenage killings in London, so decriminalising a major driver of youth violence probably isn’t the answer.”
Before the London mayoral election last year, Khan said that if he secured a second term, he wished to campaign to decriminalise cannabis in the British capital, despite concerns that marijuana usage could increase the risk of developing mental illnesses, in particular schizophrenia.
The Labour Party-run mayoral office reportedly believes that reducing police focus on drugs would allow offices to spend more time on tackling violent crime.
Since Khan took over as Mayor of London in 2016 violent crime has seen a sharp increase, with over 100 murders occurring during every year of his tenure. Last year, London also saw a record number of youth murders, with 30 under-18s killed in the capital.
Although official statistics for homicides have yet to be released, it is estimated that there were 127 murder and manslaughter cases of all kinds across London in 2021. Of those, 80 were said to have been perpetrated with a knife or sharp instrument, 18 with no weapon, and 12 with firearms.
On top of his poor record of tackling violent crime, the leftist mayor has also heaped praise on rappers that glorify violence, saying in February of 2020 doing a London Assembly budget meeting that he would “rather invest in future Dave’s and Stormzy’s than future victims of crime”.
Both Dave and Stormzy are London ‘grime’ rap artists who at times glorify drug use and violence in their songs. Stormzy sometimes uses the alter ego “Wicked Skengman” – which is London slang for ‘wicked knife man’.
His songs feature lyrics such as “Big 45 might bun out your clart”, which is slang for shooting someone, or more sickeningly assaulting someone in the anus — a tactic used by some London gangs to ensure that their victims will require a colostomy bag.