Eradication or dangerous displacement? The future of cannabis in the age of legalisation

I have been fascinated by recent piecemeal international developments in relation to the consumption (and inevitably supply) of cannabis products like CBD extracts.

This move is in my estimation one of the most significant in terms of drug policy since the introduction of the Misuse of Drugs Act in 1971.

During the festive period Israel approved legislation allowing the export of ‘medicinal’ cannabis, joining the Netherlands and Canada in a trade expected to raise $33 billion for the Israeli export company over the next five years.

The acceptability of consumption is spreading across states and territories at a fascinating rate, with our own acceptance of ‘medicinal research’ recently being approved by the Home Secretary.

This move should not be underestimated in any way, and is in my estimation one of the most significant in terms of drug policy since the introduction of the Misuse of Drugs Act in 1971.

This change appears to be very gradual, and to be quite frank, chaotic. My fascination has led to me making initial enquiries with peers in US law enforcement on what I thought might be inevitable in their illegal drugs market, displacement.

Hard lessons

My hunch was right, and in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I learned that although some illegal dealers did legitimise, they have been bought out or out manoeuvred by traditional businesses moving into the trade.

As the changes have been state by state, what has also happened is that legally grown marijuana is being shipped to states where it remains illegal. The United States have created a new illegal internal cannabis market that didn’t exist prior to deregulation.

The United States appears to have forgotten the very hard lessons that flowed from prohibition. During the period of the Volstead Act the sale and consumption of alcohol was illegal.

Although this was implemented with the best of intentions, what really happened was that largely disorganised groups of criminals saw an opportunity, and jumped on it. The likes of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano got very rich, and very organised, meeting the new illegal market requirements prohibition had created.

Historical parallels

What though is of particular interest in terms of the cannabis situation is not the analogy to prohibition, but instead the historical parallels that accompanied the gradual repeal of the legislation, and the impact on the then established criminal enterprises.

Many see prohibition as being the catalyst that gave rise to serious organised crime in the United States and with its cessation the organisations, in a manner similar to legitimate business when markets change, sought to continue to exist through movement into other markets.

It is not without some justification to look at the networks that were established and ready to be utilised as the forerunner of modern drug networks. Smugglers smuggle illegal goods. The commodities may change, but the methodology doesn’t.

So, across the West what has the general prohibition of cannabis supply and consumption created over the last few decades? It has seen the birth of a vast international network of suppliers from shippers, industrial scale cultivators to street level dealers. Can we really be surprised if these often ingenious illegal entrepreneurs see their market disappearing that they look to move their focus elsewhere?

Skill set 

History shows that very few illicit entrepreneurs have been able to move successfully with their market into the ‘everyday’ sphere, and as the US experience shows this is proving to be the case with cannabis.

The skill set and general approach of the legitimate corporate world of big business has its sometimes questionable practices, but there are far removed from the unregulated often violent and unwritten rules of reputation and trust that govern drug supply.

I have spent a large part of my service investigating drugs offences. As a Detective Sergeant I spent months piecing together a circumstantial case against Vietnamese origin cannabis cultivators who had a network of growing sites, some industrial in size, across Edinburgh and the Lothians.

Often in large rented homes these sites were death traps, with their jury rigged electrical supplies and often unattended crops. The fire risks were huge.

I managed to track down the man at the head of this operation in London, and netted him in a sting regarding the return of a lost mobile phone with the assistance of British Transport Police.

The scale of their endeavour was breathtaking with a likely value in the millions. However, when a senior Procurator Fiscal looked at the case, and weighed my evidence against his illegal status in the UK coupled to the possibility of deportation to Hungary where he had a residence permit against Vietnam where he could face the death penalty my prisoner was promptly on a plane.

Migration of commodities

What I learned from this (other than the difficulty of getting a circumstantial case prosecuted) was the complete disregard for the safety of others this network had; coupled to their ability to link individuals across continents.

I may have seen one individual depart our shores but his ilk are legion, and take away their revenue source and they will inevitably use their acquired skill set for other purposes (most likely illegal, and with the potential to be even more dangerous).

The easy profits that arise from drug supply, coupled with its current lack of tax and regulation, make it a sensible choice for some with an entrepreneurial bent. The traders in cannabis with their established routes will likely commodity-hop should deregulation progress.

The Mexican criminal nightmare that continues to unfold through its geographic position as the cross roads for South to North America has its roots in crime groups that were initially involved in cannabis trafficking moving into cocaine, causing the present misery and mayhem that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

This was a migration of commodity through choice and opportunity for a group of suppliers. Imagine the scale and impact of such an imposed move over the next decade if the piecemeal deregulation continues in its unmanaged current manner.

Sailing with the tide

So, what to do? I’m not a soft touch. There is no bleeding heart within my chest for criminals, where I bemoan their lack of life chances and societal pressures to sell drugs. Individuals made choices to commit crime, decisions that have led them to their position today.

However, just as the Mexican dealers saw a change in regional circumstances as an opportunity to switch commodity I see the current cannabis situation as an opportunity to change lives.

You would have to be blind to not see that internationally the pendulum is swinging away from the rhetoric of the ‘war on drugs’ to one of ‘treatment’.

I have my own (contrary) opinions on the use of any analogy to disease and generally infantilising the role of human agency. However, I also think that not attempting to sail with the tide (if you can accept the general direction) rather than against it would be foolish in the extreme.

Currently the UK focus is almost exclusively on users. The Scottish Government’s well publicised desire (being resisted by the Home Office) to establish ‘shooting galleries’ as a response to the unprecedented rise in drugs deaths is perhaps the most high profile change in this arena.

Although this proposed initiative relates to heroin, it should be seen as an emerging drugs debate that if it widens (as I believe it inevitably will) a return to consideration of the restrictive medicinal use of cannabis is highly likely.

Future of dealers

When this occurs I strongly believe that to avoid the potential of a re-run of the retreat of prohibition, or the emergent situation in the USA, the future of dealers is considered.

Not because I have any sympathy for their future plight (and having dealt with too many corpses of their creation to write of I can assure you my sympathy level is non-existent) but because I want to avoid the ranks of suppliers of harder commodities seeing their numbers swelled.

Were such to occur, beyond the increase in availability of hard drugs, the likely violence that would accompany a break down in a radical shift in criminal markets would be truly devastating.

It is very unlikely this would be restricted to the illegal merchants, as the deaths of innocents in Mexico resulting from commodity shifts is testament to.

I can’t imagine many multinationals rushing to employ the cannabis dealers of my own experience. However, any plan that involves looking at ways to bringing them into the legal environment rather than pretending they don’t exist, and their continued exclusion will not have long term consequences if we deregulate, is foolhardy in the extreme.

I’m not asking you to shed any tears for them if their markets do evaporate with profits dissipating, but I am asking you to consider the wave of misery we might ride if we don’t look to navigate them away from illegality and a tsunami of further criminality they could easily become part of.