With Britain weeks away from a new Prime Minister, former UK parliamentary adviser James Matthewson argues that the incoming leader, widely expected to be Labour’s Andy Burnham, has a rare chance to be bold: end the war on weed and pour the proceeds into teen mental health.
The grass isn’t always greener on the other side, but when it comes to the options available to Britain’s next Prime Minister, there could be a real pot of gold hiding in plain sight.
For American readers, a bit of context. Britain is on the verge of a change at the top, with Labour’s Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, widely tipped as the frontrunner to be the next Prime Minister. He has built a reputation as a plain-talking figure who likes to position himself to the left of his party’s establishment. And far too few voices in mainstream British politics have made the argument I’m about to make, so I think it’s high time a Labour government finally hashed it out.
For a long time, the idea of drug policy reform has belonged to the fringes of our politics, with parties like the Greens or the Liberal Democrats leading the calls and shaping the conversation. But times have changed, and one of the biggest issues facing any prospective leader of our country right now is that many apathetic voters have simply lost faith in the ability of their politicians to change things. Changes do not always need to be drastic or highly visible. Some areas of policy require governments to wield their power like a scalpel, shaping the edges of laws and reforms with fine precision. But when facing a country that has seen few progressive shakeups at the heart of government, signalling your desire to shape the world we live in, and to catch up with the shifting tides of time, is crucial.
Born in 1994, I came up when drug education was a big deal in schools, and anyone around my age will tell you the same thing. Whether it was the theatre-in-education actors who came into school or the uninterested teacher handed extra responsibilities, what we were taught about cannabis was largely laughed out of the classroom before we even started high school. The reality stood in such blatant contrast to even the most progressive version of the message, the notion that weed was a gateway drug that would have you taking Class A’s by the time you were 17.
The real issue that many my age found out in due course was that the people in charge of that messaging did not truly understand what they were talking about. I may have spent years of my wayward youth as a stoner, but in truth the bong-hitting, Dorito-munching teenager in my past is not the person I am advocating for when it comes to reforming Britain’s drug policy.
Cannabis has changed. The older generations who smoked recreationally, or even very recreationally, had been consuming an entirely different substance from the one we were beginning to. Skunk and high-potency strains were just becoming popular as I was in my era of smoking every day, and in my experience the difference was stark. After several experiences with it, I became more selective, and eventually I quit altogether. I haven’t smoked in years, but I smell on the street what we all do, something closer to cat urine than the earthy, tempting plant I had enjoyed in my youth.
I watched what I believe that stuff did to friends of mine, and by the time the messaging and information began to slowly change, it felt too late. This nasty, almost synthetic-seeming weed was everywhere in the UK. That was very different from the situation in North America, where, as the decriminalization and then legalisation movement spread across the hyper-capitalist United States and into Canada, the quality of the cannabis increased and the revenue generated skyrocketed. Comments from American friends visiting the UK always remind me of this difference. They don’t even recognise the smell the rest of us have to tolerate at bus stops, out of car windows and on our high streets.
A good friend of mine, the social media creator and trade union organiser Craig Stewart, known as @thatguycraig on Instagram, was in Chicago earlier this month for the international trade union conference known as Labor Notes. While there he texted me, “this is incredible, they’ve even got weed unions,” along with a photo of a union rep from California wearing a t-shirt from his local branch of the cannabis growers’ union. Imagine what such an industry, grown from scratch here in the UK, could look like, especially if developed under a progressive government. Trade unions could be central to the vision of such a new sector, and the economic benefit alone has already turned the heads of even Conservative Members of Parliament and British business leaders.
The 2025 report from the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, titled “High Returns,” found that legalising and regulating cannabis for non-medical adult use could generate over 15,000 new jobs and up to £1.5 billion in annual net benefits to the Treasury through tax revenue and savings across the criminal justice system. Specifically: projected tax revenues of £1.1 billion, the creation of 15,525 new jobs, and criminal justice savings of £284 million. The context of the illegal market is just as compelling. The estimated value of the UK’s recreational cannabis trade is around £2 billion annually, all of which currently flows to unregulated producers, suppliers and organised crime groups. The social impact is felt in every corner of our country, because where there is demand, there is supply.
The economic case is, of course, tempting to avowed capitalists, which should make it no surprise that Americans have led the way on legalisation in the West. But for left-wingers in Britain, there is even more to be done to make cannabis legalisation a policy that can kill two problem birds with one stone.
In 2025, a record 850,000 children accessed NHS mental health support. Yet around 385,000 children are still waiting. Children with mental health difficulties are three times more likely to miss significant amounts of school. At the end of July 2025, over half a million referrals to children’s mental health services were still waiting to start treatment, with half of those young people having waited over a year. In March 2026, only 1 in 9 under-18s with a suspected diagnosis had had a first appointment within the recommended 13 weeks, according to research from the University of Manchester.
Getting ahead of young people’s mental health challenges requires ambitious policy-making, the same sort that would create a brand new stream of tax revenue from a legalised and regulated cannabis industry. Ring-fencing that income for young people’s mental health services could let a Burnham government do something truly radical: commit to providing UK teenagers with a guaranteed amount of counselling and therapy contact hours before they leave high school. It’s that kind of combined policy power that I believe could let Burnham signal clearly what his vision for the country’s future is, while tackling multiple issues in one action.
Obviously this is without any of the in-depth fiscal analysis that must come before any further policy development, but the ideas alone should be recognised for their merits. Burnham needs to show he is serious about change. The inevitable attacks from right-wingers in the media and the political sphere will call him “Pot Head Andy,” but if he were to approach this with confidence and secure the buy-in of the labour and trade union movement, his government could finally take pride in progressive change-making.
Pre-empting concerns about anti-social behaviour, and tackling the existing irritant of public weed-smoking, the government could simultaneously introduce a fine on smoking any cannabis products in public spaces. That fine could feed the same ring-fenced budget, either symbolically or literally.
Bringing the UK up to date with the rest of the world, and using the power of public office to refocus efforts on future generations’ mental health, is a net positive that I believe would benefit both the country and a brand new Burnham-led government. Polling suggests the public is closer to this than Westminster assumes; YouGov’s 2026 survey lays out where British opinion actually sits.
Andy Burnham has a once-in-a-generation chance to do something truly high-minded. I just hope he has the confidence to roll with it.
James Matthewson is a UK broadcaster, writer and former political adviser in the UK Parliament.
This is a guest opinion piece from an external, unpaid contributor. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not represent the reporting or editorial positions of High Times.
