I think Neel has it right.

I have a feeling that there are still criminal elements in the Dutch supply chain, if only to get the stuff into the country, but you can grow cannabis in the UK (and it is being grown, under Home Office licences, and only varieties with very very low levels of the actual drug), and we could kill off the criminality involved. As a farmer, I'd certainly look at it as a legal crop.

Provide a legal supply chain, not too heavily taxed (it rather spoils the idea if we have tax levels, as with tobacco, high enough to make smuggling worthwhile), and you eliminate the idea of cannabis as a gateway drug.

I think the politicians are scared of going that far -- it would be a pretty major admission that the whole model for drug control was unworkable.


Instead,