A London commission calls for decriminalising cannabis possession

On 28 May 2025, the London Drugs Commission published recommendations for changing the legal and public-health response to cannabis. Its report proposed decriminalising personal possession of natural cannabis while keeping supply illegal. Mayor Sadiq Khan backed consideration of its findings.

This was a report and a proposal. Publication did not change national law or establish a legal cannabis market in London.

A commission’s evidence

The City Hall account describes written and oral evidence from more than two hundred experts and academics. Lord Falconer chaired the commission, supported by deputies, an expert group and university researchers.

Its questions included the effects of cannabis and the effects of policing it. Those are related but distinct: a substance can cause harms without every available criminal penalty being an appropriate response. The commission assessed both sides rather than equating a call for reform with a claim that cannabis was harmless.

The proposed legal route

In The Cannabis Conundrum, the commission proposed removing natural cannabis from the Misuse of Drugs Act framework so that it would fall under the Psychoactive Substances Act. The intention was to change the treatment of personal possession while retaining offences connected with supply.

That proposed mechanism differed from licensing shops or establishing a regulated commercial supply chain. Decriminalisation of a consumer’s possession and legalisation of a market are not interchangeable descriptions of the recommendation.

Policing, care and education

The commission found that the existing classification and possession penalties were disproportionate. It also identified unequal effects of policing on ethnic communities and the consequences for relationships with the police.

Alongside legal reform, its recommendations addressed services for problematic use and the quality of education. Those measures were part of the proposal, not incidental qualifications attached to a single demand for weaker punishment. The report retained concern about cannabis-related health problems and the need for support.

A national decision, not a mayoral exemption

The publication announcement presented forty-two recommendations for debate and action. Neither the commission nor the mayor could enact the proposed national statutory changes simply by endorsing the report.

The event belongs in Britain’s history as an intervention in the policy debate. It supplied an argued alternative to existing possession law, without itself changing what an individual could lawfully possess or what a business could sell.^[1][2][3]