{"id":644574,"date":"2026-06-18T02:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T02:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/644574\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T02:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T02:56:12","slug":"cannabis-commercialisation-not-decriminalisation-drives-up-usage-study-finds-cannabis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/644574\/","title":{"rendered":"Cannabis commercialisation not decriminalisation drives up usage, study finds | Cannabis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Decriminalising the possession of cannabis or strictly regulating access to the drug do not appear to drive up usage, but when the drug is sold commercially the number of users increases and more mental health problems are seen, a review has found.<\/p>\n

An international team analysed the dramatic shift in policies on cannabis between 2000 and 2025, including how the numbers of people taking the drug, its potency, and rates of psychosis changed after new rules came in.<\/p>\n

In places that opened up commercial markets for cannabis, such as the US and Canada<\/a>, researchers saw more users and increases in drug potency. More people also visited hospital with psychosis and other mental health issues linked to the drug, they found.<\/p>\n

Where cannabis was decriminalised in Europe, Africa, Oceania and Asia, there was little evidence of any change in usage or psychiatric illness. The experience was similar in Uruguay<\/a>, where cannabis has been legalised but is tightly controlled by the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we look globally, there\u2019s been a rapid shift towards more liberal cannabis policies,\u201d said Tom Freeman, professor of psychology at the University of Bath and first author on the review. \u201cThat gives us a chance to evaluate what happened from before to after, in terms of cannabis use, cannabis addiction and psychiatric disorders related to cannabis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freeman said the findings, published in Lancet Psychiatry<\/a>, were \u201cencouraging\u201d for policymakers who were considering decriminalising cannabis or strictly regulating the drug in legal markets. The impact of an open market, where the drug is sold in a similar way to alcohol and tobacco, was very different, however.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still very early days for any of these policy changes when we consider the long history of alcohol and tobacco use, but this is the way it\u2019s unfolding,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen there\u2019s a for-profit industry, particularly for an addictive product, there\u2019s an incentive to sell cheaper products, and high potency products, because they know that the more they sell, the more money they\u2019ll make, and that can increase use,\u201d Freeman added. \u201cWe have a long history of the tobacco and alcohol industries being difficult to regulate and increased sales resulting in greater harms for those who use those products.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the UK, cannabis is a class B drug with possession carrying a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison, an unlimited fine, or both. Last year, a report by the London Drugs Commission, commissioned by the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, argued that the sanctions were unjustified and proposed decriminalising<\/a> possession for recreational use. The report found that black people were five times more likely to be subjected to being stopped and searched on suspicion of drug-related offences than white people.<\/p>\n

Uruguay became the first country to fully legalise cannabis in 2013, but the market is strictly controlled by the state. Adults who register can buy the drug from a pharmacy, through a cannabis social club, or grow it at home. It allows the state to control the size of the market and also the safety of the products.<\/p>\n

Sir Robin Murray, professor of psychiatric research at King\u2019s College London, said it was early days in understanding the full effects of global cannabis policies, but added that there was now a consensus that commercialisation of supply rather than simple legislation for recreational use was \u201cthe critical factor\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, in North America, legalisation has been followed by rampant commercialisation facilitated by advertising from companies which would like to sell as much cannabis as tobacco at its peak,\u201d he said. \u201cIs it possible to legalise without commercialising in western capitalist countries? It should be possible, but so far no country has managed this because of the growing power of the multibillion cannabis industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex Stevens, professor of criminology at the University of Sheffield, said the review was \u201cabsolutely essential\u201d for policymakers who were exploring ways to deal with drug use. \u201cWe\u2019re getting a fairly consistent message from the research that restricted models of regulation and decriminalisation for possession don\u2019t necessarily lead to increases in use,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is what the opponents of these reforms always say: that if you let people use it, then usage will go sky high, but that\u2019s not what we see in any of the countries that have done it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Decriminalising the possession of cannabis or strictly regulating access to the drug do not appear to drive up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-644574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}