Mr. Alan Todd:

I could refer to my previous answer and tell the Deputy that it is a political choice and it might be best left in that place. This argument has raged back and forth and American states are decriminalising and taxing some drugs. My background is as a pharmacist. I know some of the very powerful drugs are available on prescription, how they are regulated and managed and so on. I can see the arguments but I also know that some of the low level drugs become gateways for hard drug users and that has a huge impact on society. UK policing has gone through the effective decriminalisation of cannabis under a previous Home Secretary, which was reversed. That was done at the time apparently to free police resources to deal with more serious matters than cannabis possession. It was reversed because of medical evidence about the long-term psychological and health impacts and the gateway to harder drugs. There are people who know much more about that and are in a better place to make that decision and I will respectfully keep to my enforcement and partnership approach and try to stay out of the argument.