Coffee House Shots: should cannabis be decriminalised?
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The Spectator
4.4 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 31 May 2025
⏱️ 21 minutes
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Summary
London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan has called for possession of small amounts of cannabis to be decriminalised following a report by the London Drugs Commission. The report has made 42 recommendations, which include removing natural cannabis from the Misuse of Drugs Act.
Former cabinet minister, now Labour peer, Charlie Falconer and Tory MP Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst join Lucy Dunn to discuss whether now is the time to decriminalise cannabis. For Lord Falconer, who chaired the Commission, the present law doesn’t work and he explains the principles behind the review; Neil, however, believes that the proposals send the wrong message that cannabis is harmless. He argues that a balance needs to be found between robust enforcement and compassion for families and friends also affected by the behaviour of drug users. They both agree on the diagnosis, but how do you combat the issue?
Produced by Patrick Gibbons.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | As a coffee out shots listener, you will be all too familiar with the headlines that have dominated the news cycle in the past month. |
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| 0:33.4 | today to schedule a free no-oblig obligation call to discuss your situation. And remember, |
| 0:39.9 | investment involves risk. Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse Shots. I'm Lissy Dunn and for this |
| 0:49.7 | edition of Saturday Shots, I'm joined by Conservative MP and Doctor and Barrister Neil Shashy |
| 0:54.8 | Hurst and Labour peer Charlie Faulkner. This week, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has backed calls |
| 1:00.4 | for the decriminalisation of small quantities of cannabis, following the publication of a |
| 1:04.6 | report on Wednesday by the Independent London Drugs Commission. Charlie, you were the chair |
| 1:09.9 | of this commission. Can you talk us through |
| 1:12.1 | the recommendations the report made and also explain what exactly decriminalisation means? |
| 1:17.9 | Yeah. The commission makes 42 recommendations. Very many of them about, for example, how people |
| 1:23.9 | get better care when they suffer from the bad consequences of cannabis, because although |
| 1:28.6 | it's quite a small percentage, quite a larger number of people suffer quite severe psychiatric |
| 1:34.6 | consequences of taking cannabis. And it makes a number of recommendations about how you deal with |
| 1:40.1 | the health consequences. It makes a number of recommendations about how you deal with the |
| 1:44.2 | education consequences. But there is a central criminal law issue in relation to it, which is to say |
| 1:51.4 | that the control of cannabis should be taken out of the misuse of drugs act, where it's both a |
| 1:57.8 | crime to deal in cannabis and it's a crime to possess cannabis. |
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