We speak to Women Of Weed event panellist Kate Pothalingam, a Liberal Democrat GLA candidate for the London North East constituency
One day you might be able to walk down Morning Lane and buy cannabis from your local shop. Under Lib Dem proposals, as with tobacco, over-18s would be able to buy cannabis from licensed vendors. Health warnings would also be printed on the packaging.
Hackney Liberal Democrats have launched a campaign backing the legalisation of cannabis, in support of the Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate, Siobhan Benita. As part of her campaign, Benita has proposed legalising cannabis by launching a pilot across London, in hopes of curbing the power of drug gangs and tackling violent crime.
Police rethinking approach to cannabis
Politicians have increasingly been vocal on the issue of legalising cannabis. Mayor Sadiq Khan has appealed for a rethink on cannabis laws. Figures like Cressida Dick, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, also appear to be reconsidering the UK’s approach to cannabis use.
Kate Pothalingam, a Liberal Democrat GLA candidate for the London North East constituency, and panellist at the IWD Women of Weed event last week, says: “Our campaign is principally driven by the fact that there is an awful lot of money in the cannabis trade.” She sees legalisation as having great potential to raise tax revenue – over a billion pounds – which could be reinvested into drug education and drug support services. “If it was taxed, we’d implement a sliding scale of tax depending on the strength of the product”.
Regulated cannabis market
She added: “If we legalise cannabis, we’ll have a regulated market and regulate the quality of the product. Currently, it draws young people into gang culture and causes violence and gang crimes. And you don’t know the strength of the cannabis you’re buying”.
Pothalingam says the Lib Dems are “by no means the pioneers of this policy”, citing Canada and 11 US states that have already legalised cannabis. However, she concedes that the party “hasn’t identified one model as being ideal”.
“In Canada,” she continues, “they have set the legal price so high that most people buy it illegally anyway.”
Gentrification
Have gentrification projects in Hackney increased problems with drug use? Pothalingam says that in the “barbecue season, when people are grilling sausages and having a beer”, she has seen an increase in drug dealing activity. “People coming from other areas with money in their pocket, willing to buy drugs”.
However, she added: “Whether I’m walking down a tree-lined street in Barnsbury or climbing down the stairs of a council estate in Hackney – I smell cannabis on all of them”.
