How do you plan to enforce drug laws in a way that reduces harm for Londoners?

Drugs can ravage communities and their supply chains support organised crime and serious violence. My number one priority is the safety of Londoners and that means tackling the harms drugs cause. The MPS is committed to suppressing violence and targeting individuals linked to drug-related violence. I am also determined to end exploitation of young people by organised criminals involved in drugs, and I have invested £5.7 million in a three-year Rescue and Response programme to target county lines. The MPS is working closely with Rescue and Response through Operation Orochi.

There is a growing demand for a debate on our drugs laws and in my manifesto, I said I would establish a London Drugs Commission of independent experts from the fields of law, public health, criminal justice, and community relations, to examine the effectiveness of those laws with a particular focus on cannabis. The Commission will consider ways to improve the current legal framework on the use of cannabis as well as the criminal justice and public health responses to drugs use. What the Commission will not do is look at the classification of Class A drugs, which I am very clear must remain illegal. Work is underway to set up this Commission.

The Prime Minister himself has acknowledged in the Government’s recent Drugs Strategy that the old way of doing things is not working. My London Health Inequalities Strategy has already taken steps towards a different approach, seeking to reduce the use of illicit drugs and reduce health harms through high-quality drug treatment and recovery. The enforcement of drug laws and the wider criminal justice system must look to support this approach, and I will continue to work closely with health, criminal justice and local partners to improve pathways into treatment from the criminal justice system.

Drugs are driving violence, crime and antisocial behaviour in our communities and now is the time for an evidence-based review of how to reduce the harms that drugs like cannabis cause. I was pleased to see the Government’s new Drugs Strategy acknowledge the need for robust evidence to inform a national debate on how best to tackle addiction and provide effective treatment and recovery systems across the criminal justice and public health sectors. I am doing my part to help provide this evidence in London.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. It is very good to hear you say that the old ways of dealing with these issues are not working and also recognising the good stuff; the public health-based approach to tackling drugs that was buried in that recent Government Strategy.

I have seen reports in the media recently that needed to be clarified by your office about cannabis diversion trials where 18- to 24-year-olds found in possession of a small amount of cannabis will be given advice on drug harms, and will be taken back to their homes instead of going into police custody or receiving a criminal record. This kind of trial is not about ideology or politics. It is practical and evidence-led, and it is common sense. We heard in the October [2021] Health Committee meeting not only that diversion schemes are within your power as Mayor to do but also that health interventions such as these are often more effective than punishment and criminalisation.

Do you know when these diversion trials are going to start and what more information can you provide on them?

Unfortunately, Chair, I cannot give you a date for if they will start. No proposal has come to me yet. What we do know is there are some police forces around the country - Thames Valley, Durham, West Midlands - that are doing these pilots and these trials. It is on a cross-party basis. Some of those Police and Crime Commissioners are Conservative. It is in accordance with, as you said, the Government’s recent Drugs Strategy.

A proposal will come to me at some stage. I will look at the proposal. I do not want to pre-empt what I may decide.

OK. I will encourage you massively to look at it constructively. Londoners are getting slightly mixed signals on drugs policing. On the one hand we have the possibility of a diversion trial. On the other hand, we have recently seen macho crackdown policing with police videos on Twitter showing police going around Shoreditch and stopping and swabbing people for drugs when they were going into clubs. That then had to have a clarification issued afterwards.

I do not want to go into the details of that right now because all these issues could be covered by your London Drugs Commission. You said you would launch it in your manifesto last spring, but since then, even in the draft Police and Crime Plan, there is no further detail about the drugs commission. When are you going to publish details about the London Drugs Commission and, in particular, the terms of reference?

You will be aware a manifesto is written for an entire term. Nobody expects all of it to be delivered in the first six months and, as you will appreciate, we have been a bit distracted with the pandemic. I will be disappointed if I cannot give you more news about the Drugs Commission over the next couple of months.

Two months? Thank you very much, Mr Mayor. Thank you, Chair.