Join the Club

Get the best of Editoria delivered to your inbox weekly

What are the UK political parties’ stances on cannabis ahead of the general election?

As the 2024 UK General Election approaches, cannabis policy is largely ignored by mainstream parties.

Despite public support for legalisation, most maintain prohibition or offer vague reforms. This article summarises their positions, highlighting the gap between public opinion and political action.

In May, Rishi Sunak announced the 2024 UK General Election. Since then, televised debates have featured party leaders, with the public reacting through memes. However, cannabis policy has seen little discussion.

Here’s a summary of each party’s stance:

Conservatives:

  • No mention of cannabis in their manifesto.
  • Continue to oppose cannabis legalisation, citing health risks.

Labour:

  • Labour is not considering decriminalising cannabis.
  • Manifesto focuses on tackling antisocial behaviour and problematic drug use.

Liberal Democrats:

  • Propose legalising cannabis with strict regulations.
  • Critics argue this approach continues aspects of prohibition.

Green Party:

  • Support decriminalisation and harm reduction.
  • Manifesto suggests both decriminalisation and legalisation, leading to mixed messages.

Reform UK:

  • Oppose cannabis legalisation, citing harm.
  • Advocate for strict policing and harsher penalties.

Scottish National Party (SNP):

  • Support decriminalisation of personal drug use and public health approaches.
  • Manifesto does not explicitly mention cannabis.

Plaid Cymru:

  • Support decriminalisation and drug consumption rooms.
  • Manifesto focuses on tackling organised crime rather than individual users.

Cannabis hasn’t been a major election issue, but electoral reform and proportional representation are gaining attention. Voters who prioritise cannabis policy may find limited options among mainstream parties.

Back in May, the 2024 UK General Election was announced by a drenched and disheartened Rishi Sunak. The impromptu proclamation was drowned out by protesters blasting the 1997 Labour election anthem ‘Things can only get better’ outside the gates of Number 10.

While many things have got better in the UK since the one-hit-wonder dance/electronic duo D:ream first topped the charts in the 1990s, one of the most intractable and frustrating characteristics of successive governments is its continuous ignorant and antiquated approach to cannabis consumers and our country’s legacy cannabis culture.

Since the election declaration, many televised debates have featured mainstream political parties’ leaders and deputy leaders. The public, rather than just apathetically ignoring these debates, as in previous election cycles, responded with a barrage of memes dismantling Conservative leader Rishi Sunaki for saying that he had to go without Sky TV as a child, Labour leader Keir Starmer for repeatedly listing what jobs various members of his immediate family do, and Nigel Farage for more things than we can fit on a postage stamp (Putin, Brexit etc).

In the 6 weeks following the dissolution of Parliament, we have seen the usual mud-slinging, party political posturing and fraudulent manipulation of statistics to distort the electorate’s perception of reality. However, one thing we haven’t heard that much about during this election cycle are the mainstream party’s stances on cannabis.

With a 2023 YouGov poll finding that the majority of UK residents now support ‘legalising cannabis’ and the head of the National Police Chief Counsel calling on Chief Constables to make fewer arrests to help the crumbling criminal justice system, what are the mainstream political parties’ position on ending the immoral criminalisation of individuals for cannabis-related offences?

The Conservatives

The Conservatives are the incumbent party and have been in power in the UK for the last 14 years. Over this period, the Tories have become more right-wing and authoritative ramping up the ‘war on drugs’ and an increase in prejudicial state-sanctioned attacks on individuals committing cannabis-related and drug-related offences.

The Tories presided over the 2016 Psychoactive Substances Act, the decimating of the UK’s emerging CBD market, the fortifying of GW Pharmaceuticals cartel, and have overseen the creation of the ‘medical cannabis industrial complex’ to plunder the legacy cannabis culture and profiteer from the perpetuation of prohibition and the financial exploitation of vulnerable patients.

In the 2024 Conservative manifesto, there is no mention of ‘cannabis’ and only one mention of ‘drugs’ referring to a pledge to “deliver our ten-year drugs plan to cut crime and help people rebuild their lives away from crime.”Hilarious, when you consider that thanks to the Tories fraud is now the most common crime in the UK costing the UK economy £137 billion annually – dodgy PPE contracts anyone?

During their tenure every petition and plea to the government to end the antiquated prohibition of cannabis and criminalisation of its consumers was met with the response “There is clear scientific and medical evidence that cannabis is a harmful drug which can damage people’s mental and physical health, and harms individuals and communities. We have no plans to change the law.”

Given their lack of engagement on the topic and the absence of any progressive policies in their manifesto, we are confident in stating that the Tory party support the continuation of cannabis prohibition.

Interestingly, recent Statista polling found that just 50% of Tory voters support the status quo with 24% backing decriminalisation and 20% wanting to see cannabis legalised.

Our Rating:

0 out of 5 stars

Read the Conservative Party 2024 manifesto here

Labour

The official opposition party are the ‘bookies’ favourite to win the General Election and form the next government, with many pollsters predicting the party will secure one of its largest majorities ever, regardless of Keir Starmer’s lack of charisma or the party’s gradual lurch to the right.

Labour, the party responsible for the whole Class B/Class C debacle in the early 2000s, has altered its stance on cannabis over the years, fluctuating from disinterested prohibitionists to parroting the Conservative’s line that“we need to sort out ‘medical’ cannabis before we consider ‘legalising’ ‘recreational’ cannabis.”

The current opposition party’s stance is rather oppositional to its voter’s stance on cannabis as data from Statista shows that just 26% of Labour voters want to see the continued criminalisation of cannabis-related offences. The same dataset shows that 25% of Labour supporters back decriminalisation, while a further 43% support the legalisation of cannabis in the UK.

In their 2024 Manifesto Labour lambasted the Tories for breaking down community policing over their 14-year tenure – while failing to grasp that community policing has been collapsing since the commencement of the modern war on drugs back in the 1970s.

Labour announced in their manifesto that they will be creating new ‘respect orders’ to crack down on antisocial behaviour like ‘public drug use’ again failing to understand that there are 40,000 (and growing) private for-profit prescription patients that have lawful discretion under their license to possess and consume (by vape only) cannabis in public under the Equality Act 2010 – a big L for Labour there.

In their manifesto Labour highlight the pandemic of problematic drug consumption engulfing the country’s prison system, however, again they fail to identify that the problem is intimately entangled with their prohibitionist approach to drugs. The continued criminalisation of cannabis and drug-related offences will inevitably mean that non-violent drug consumers will end up in prison for altering their consciousness without the expressed permission of the state.

Unless the prohibition of cannabis is ended, to protect the basic human rights of cannabis consumers and to end the criminalisation of cannabis-related offences, the party will never be able to achieve its pledge to tackle recidivism and the crisis in our prisons will continue to spread like wildfire.

The current party leader and ‘Knight of the realm’ Keir Starmer is a former Director of Public Prosecutions whose role made him responsible for ‘the conduct of all criminal prosecutions instituted by the police by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has harshened his stance on cannabis since taking on the role.

In 2020, the Labour leader said that he “wouldn’t immediately decriminalise cannabis’ but he has supported and believes in schemes that help avoid prosecution” – the checkpoint diversion schemes championed by the late Ron Hogg. However, something changed by 2022, when during an awkwardradio call-in on LBC the Labour leader said:

I don’t think we should change the law. Am I in favour of more health responses? Yes, I am. Am I in favour of anything that helps people with addiction? Yes, I am” and “I don’t think the answer is simply to decriminalise and say that ‘drugs are no longer unlawful.’ I’m sorry but I disagree with it.”

The wannabe Prime Minister ramped up this rhetoric at Port Vale FC last year saying that “his government would never dismiss crime as low-level” and that the “smell of cannabis creeping in windows is ruining lives.” A recent ITV interview ended with Keir Starmer responding to the question ‘What is your stance on cannabis, would you ever consider decriminalisation?’ stating “We’re not considering decriminalisation of cannabis or any drugs its really important that we keep the drugs laws as they are at the moment, so no plans their at all”

Our Rating:

0 out of 5 stars

Read the Labour Party 2024 manifesto here

Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems)

The launch of the Liberal Democrat manifesto in early June was followed by a Boris-esque blitzkrieg of extreme media stunts performed by the party leader Ed Davies. Quite apt really, given their manifesto is all spectacle and no substance.

The party, arguably responsible for destroying the future aspirations and dreams of successive generations of young people by supporting Cameron and Osbourne’s austerity policies, traditionally suffered the third party’s status. However, with the Tories in free fall and much of the youth disenfranchised with the big three parties’ approach to issues they care about, it’s all to play for.

In their 2024 manifesto, the Lib Dems pledge to “protect young people” by“combating the harms caused by drugs”“tackling criminal gangs” and “taking Skunk off the streets” by ‘legalising’ cannabis through licensed retailers with “strict limits on potency and THC content.”

Wow, where do we begin with this policy? Firstly the prohibition of cannabis and other drugs and the consequences of being caught breaking a drug-related offence far outweigh the potential harms of substances when consumed consciously and carefully.

Secondly, if we ended the criminalisation of drug-related offences there would be no more ‘criminal gangs’ just businessmen and entrepreneurs.

Last but not least, placing arbitrary limits on products and artificial consumer restrictions is a continuation of prohibition, not its conclusion. This policy fails to understand cannabis and cannabis culture and to respect and honour the basic human rights and wants of cannabis consumers.

Unfortunately, an elementary error in elocution also fails to understand how ‘legalisation’ works in practice. In the various US states that have ‘legalised’ cannabis the average THC percentage in products has skyrocketed, even after accounting for the emergent phenomenon of ‘lab shopping’.

The commodification of cannabis under late-stage capitalism has created an industry that produces products that can in excess of 30% THC, a great leap from weed classified as ‘skunk’ by Professor David Nutt – at just 14 % THC.

It does seem like the Lib Dems are either completely incompetent and do not know what they are saying or it could be that they have settled on a stance of ‘legalisation’ to continue limiting and criminalising the legacy cannabis culture while creating a classist avenue of profitability for venture capital – I believe its the latter.

While previously pledging to decriminalise all personal cannabis-related offences, the party are now backing the continuation of individual criminalisation through cannabis-related offences under prohibition 2.0 by supporting corporate legalisation.

So it looks like once again the party that betrayed the youth by increasing tuition fees are again choosing to sell off their futures to the highest bidder.

Liberal Democrats voters are almost trisected into three equal groups when it comes to the latest Statista poll 30%want to continue criminalisation, 34% want to decriminalise and 30% would like to see cannabis legalised in the UK.

Our Rating:

1 out of 5 stars

Read the Lib Dems Party 2024 manifesto here

Green Party

Since its formation in 1990, the Green Party have supported the decriminalisation of personal cannabis-related offences. The Greens have previously pledged to make ‘stop and searches’ the exception not the rule and to ‘deprioritise’ their use based on the smell of cannabis.

Historically the Green Party have supported social and reformative justice, backing decriminalisation models such as Cannabis Social Clubs, cultivation collectives, and home growing. However, if recent comments made by one of the party’s co-leaders are to be understood, they’re potentially flirting with the concept of corporate ‘legalisation’.

In 2017, the Green Party’s policy stated that “Cannabis would be removed from the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. The possession, trade and cultivation of cannabis would be immediately decriminalised, roughly following the Dutch model.”

In their 2019 Manifesto, the Green Party once again pledged to repeal the Misuse of Drugs Act of 1971 and the Psychoactive Substances Act of 2016 and Pardon and expunge the criminal records of all individuals previously convicted for possession and small-scale supply of drugs.

However, their 2024 party manifesto states that “neither prohibition nor the policing of low-level drug offences, especially cannabis possession, have reduced use and consequently have had no impact on the size of the criminal market or the profits made by organised crime.” going on to say that“Elected Greens will therefore push to decriminalise personal possession of drugs, diverting people from the criminal justice system towards support with addiction, housing and employment, from health workers focused on drug harm reduction”.

In a recent interview posted to the party’s drug policy group Twitter page the Co-leader Carla Denyer said: “The war on drugs has failed, taking a punitive approach and think that is going to actually solve the problems, which let’s face it are mostly problems of public health, criminalising people for possession is not the way forward. So the Green Party would take an approach of legalising and regulating to make sure that people’s health is looked after because ultimately that’s what matters”

These two things are contradictory, their manifesto states that the party supports decriminalisation yet the party’s co-leader’s comment suggests that they’re pro-legalisation. So has the party changed its stance or have the Greens messed up their ‘comms’ in this election?

The historic stance the party has taken in support of ending the criminalisation of drug-related offences leads us to believe, regardless of the current contradictions in the way the party is communicating its policies, that they still want to see the cessation of drug prohibition and the criminalisation of consumers.

Rating:

3 out of 5 stars

Read the Green Party 2024 manifesto here

Reform UK

The UK’s newest ‘mainstream party’ (registered as a private company) were initially formed in 2018 as the right-wing populist euro-sceptic ‘Brexit Party. After the withdrawal of the UK from the EU in 2020, the party rebranded as Reform UK in 2021.

Despite earlier ruling out becoming the party’s leader, the company’s majority shareholder and rather polarising politician, Nigel Farage announced he would become leader, taking the helm from Richard Tice, and seeking candidacy to become MP for Clacton-on-sea on June 4th.

While many disenfranchised and righteously angry cannabis consumers in the UK may misguidedly find themselves attracted to some of the party’s other policies, there are many others which would be dangerous and detrimental to their daily lives.

In an ITV interview Farage responded to the question “Would you legalise cannabis?” by saying that he has changed his mind on drug law reform stating that he’d previously “supported the idea of a Royal Commission to see whether we should decriminalise cannabis” continuing to say that “and yet I look at America and states where we have decriminalised cannabis, or drugs that are even stronger, and it hasn’t really made much difference.” “And to be honest with you, the law’s the law, it’s not being enforced anyway. All I would say is cannabis does more long-term harm than most people realise.”

During the campaign Reform UK’s leader pledged to take a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to policing and a review into police leadership to replace individuals whose policies do not align with the party’s with a strong preference’ to supersede them with ‘military veterans’ – further militarising the UK police in direct contravention to the Peelian Principles.

In their 2024 ‘contract’ Reform UK pledges to increase police numbers by 40,000, create 10,000 new prison places, ‘vastly expand’ the use of non-intelligence-led stop-and-searches, and the introduction of mandatory life sentences for drug dealers.

Their contact also calls for ‘high-intensity training camps for young offenders’ many of which would likely be petty drug-related offences such as possession – it is unclear at this point whether the party is calling for mandatory life sentences for juveniles.

Reform UK either do not understand the problems of prohibition or simply does not care to. It is most likely the latter given another proposal included in their contract, the new drug-related offence of ‘substantial possession’ which would lead to hefty fines and further stratification of the drug-consuming population along socioeconomic and class lines.  

Reform is seeking to be the official opposition in the next Parliament (2029) so it’s not likely these policies will come into effect anytime soon, however, they provide good insight into how they would govern given the opportunity.

Rating:

-5 out of 5 stars

Read the Reform UK Party Contract here

Scottish National Party (SNP)

The Scottish National Party have been the dominant political force in Scottish politics since the devolution of the legislature in 2007. However, drug policy wasn’t devolved from Parliament to Holyrood, nor is there any intention by Westminster to give the Scottish Parliament control over such polices.

In the 2010s, Scotland became the drug poisoning death capital of Europe, with the death rate being over 2.5 times that of the rest of Great Britain. In recent years the figures have plateaued and began to come down thanks to a more socialist approach and an injection of £250 million to tackle the roots of the crisis caused by decades of industrial, economic, and societal deprivation.

In their 2024 manifesto, the SNP pledged to take a public health approach to drug policy and tackle the drug death pandemic by “taking a radical public health approach; decriminalising drugs for personal use and introducing a framework to allow Supervised Drug Consumption Facilities.”

Despite there being no mention of cannabis in their manifesto, could the above language imply that the SNP would be open to allowing decriminalisation initiatives such as cannabis social clubs, private members’ lounges, and harm reduction centres?

The Scottish government have consistently said that they would be more progressive on cannabis and drug policy if the powers were devolved to Holyrood, so we think that the SNP are pro-decriminalising cannabis-related offences in Scotland.

Rating:

3 out 5 stars

Read the SNP Party 2024 manifesto here

Plaid Cymru

The left-wing nationalist party Plaid Cymru (Welsh for ‘The Party of Wales’) are one of the country’s oldest political parties, celebrating its centenary next year, have been a proponent of the decriminalising of cannabis-related and all drug-related offences for many years.

Party leader Rhun Ap Iorwerth responded to a question during an ITV News interview about whether cannabis should be decriminalised saying “Yes – I think we need a rethink with how we deal with drugs across the board.”

Despite having plenty of time following this interview there seems to be no mention of cannabis at all in their 2024 manifesto, instead, the party states that they would ‘focus on targeting supply lines and dealers in the organised drug trade rather than individual users, if those people are causing no wider harm’.

In their manifesto, Plaid Cymru stated they would introduce drug consumption rooms across Wales to ‘facilitate a more humane and sustainable approach to addiction issues.’ The party believes that introducing a policy of ‘soft drugs’ decriminalisation, would respect individual choices, and help police better target resources towards organised crime groups ‘who profit from misery.’

‘Soft drug decriminalisation’ – we’re guessing this means taking a similar approach as the Dutch arbitrarily dividing drugs into two categories ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ where each substance would fall is not made clear by their policies.

The language used in their manifesto does seem to allow for the operation of decriminalisation models such as cannabis social clubs and cultivation collectives – it just depends on the interpretation of the words ‘organised criminal groups.’

In the Plaid Cymru Police and Crime Commissioner manifesto, the party called for the full devolution of criminal justice powers and drugs policy to the Senedd Cymru and for the UK Home Office to ‘cleanse the criminal records of those cautioned or convicted of drug possession where there are no aggravating factors.’

Our Rating:

4 out of 5 stars

Read the Plaid Cymru 2024 manifesto here

So that’s the mainstream parties’ stance on cannabis ahead of the 2024 UK general election. We hope that this information helps you in the process of deciding who to vote for, if voting on the basis of cannabos. But if none of the parties did it for you, spoiling your ballot is also a valid form of political protest and a great way to exercise your frustration at the state of electoral politics in the UK.

Ultimately, cannabis hasn’t been an important talking point in this election cycle due to many factors we haven’t discussed here. But we are seeing discussions on the urgent need for electoral reform and the introduction of proportional representation, something that Legacy Culture can get behind.

Until we achieve a fairer electoral system that better represents the diverse wants and needs of the nation’s population, we support the ‘tactical voting out of the Tories’.

Join the Club

Like this story? You’ll love our monthly newsletter.

Simpa

Simpa

Simpa is a British independent journalist, drug law reform activist, and human rights campaigner whose work has appeared on the BBC World Service, BBC Radio Newcastle, The Victoria Derbyshire show, The Times, Vice Media, The Chronicle, Daily Mail, Weed World Magazine, Leafie and many more. Simpa is based in the north east of England where he runs Durham City Cannabis Club, a local non-profit cannabis club dedicated to promoting the social, cultural, and medicinal benefits of cannabis. He also hosts The Simpa Life Podcast, a weekly podcast focused on producing raw and authentic conversations with esteemed guests. Simpa enjoys exploring nature, wild camping, reading, and learning new things.

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may also like