Day 36 · Proposal 35 · Part XXI · Policy 39
35
Legalise and Regulate Recreational Cannabis
Adult-only access. Regulated products. Public-health safeguards. A taxed legal market.
Open for scrutiny — Manifesto 1.1
Proposal 35 would legalise recreational cannabis for adults within a strictly regulated market covering cultivation, production, testing, packaging, retail, advertising, taxation and enforcement. Unlicensed production and sale would remain illegal, while public-health safeguards and dedicated tax revenues would help protect consumers and reduce organised criminal control.
Published Manifesto 1.1 policy. The sections below set out the proposal as published. Questions and challenges are open questions, not settled answers.
1. The core idea
Manifesto 1.1 proposes legalising recreational cannabis for adults and moving an established consumer market from illicit supply into a strictly regulated legal system.
Government would regulate cultivation, wholesale supply, manufacturing, product standards, testing, packaging, labelling, retail, advertising, age restrictions, potency, licensing, taxation, health warnings and enforcement.
Production and sale outside the regulated system would remain illegal. Driving while impaired would remain a serious offence.
Core commitment
Regulate an existing market. Protect consumers. Undermine organised crime.
2. What the legal framework would cover
- Cultivation and supply: License cultivation, wholesale supply and manufacturing with traceable legal ownership.
- Testing and standards: Set product, contamination, strength, testing and minimum quality requirements.
- Packaging and labelling: Require clear contents, potency, health warnings, responsible packaging and batch information.
- Adult-only retail: Restrict legal sales to adults through licensed retailers with verified age controls.
- Advertising control: Tightly restrict promotion, targeting, branding and claims that could encourage harmful use.
- Licensing and enforcement: Inspect operators, publish standards and apply penalties, suspension or closure when requirements are breached.
3. A three-level taxation system
The master manifesto proposes taxation at three points in the legal supply chain. The exact rates are not specified and must be modelled together rather than treated as three automatically cumulative burdens.
- 01Wholesale: Tax at wholesale level, with clear rules covering valuation, reporting and transfers between licensed businesses.
- 02Producer: Tax suppliers or producers, potentially reflecting volume, product category or potency.
- 03Retail: Tax the final consumer sale while keeping legal prices competitive enough to displace illicit supply.
Tax principle
Raise meaningful public revenue without preserving the illicit market. Rates should be reviewed using evidence on consumption, illicit-market activity, public-health outcomes, product potency, tax receipts, crime and the development of the legal market.
4. Implementation choices still to be defined
- Adult age threshold: Set the minimum legal purchase and possession age using health, safeguarding and enforcement evidence.
- Potency limits: Decide whether limits, progressive tax bands, product categories or additional warnings should apply to stronger products.
- Licensing fees: Model proportionate fees that fund regulation without excluding responsible smaller operators.
- Transition: Define how licences, enforcement, existing consumers and the move from illicit to legal supply would be managed.
Open for scrutiny
Final ages, tax rates, potency limits, licensing fees and implementation dates are not specified and remain open for scrutiny.
5. Public health and safety
Legalisation must not be treated as normalisation without safeguards. A proportion of cannabis-tax receipts would support services that reduce harm, improve evidence and enforce responsible behaviour.
- Addiction services: Prevention, early intervention, treatment and recovery support.
- Mental-health services: Support, referral and research where cannabis use and mental health interact.
- Public education: Honest information about impairment, dependency, potency, pregnancy and risks to younger people.
- Drug-driving enforcement: Maintain serious penalties and improve testing, policing and public awareness.
- Treatment and rehabilitation: Fund evidence-led treatment and sustained recovery.
- Health research: Monitor consumption, harms, claimed benefits, market changes and long-term health effects.
6. Mandatory consumer protections
- Health information: Clear health and safety information on every regulated product.
- Quality and testing: Minimum quality standards and testing for contaminants, ingredients and potency.
- Advertising restrictions: Tight advertising restrictions, including protections for children and vulnerable people.
- Traceability and recalls: Traceability, product recalls, complaints procedures and enforcement against unsafe or misleading products.
- Continued prohibition: Continued prohibition of unlicensed production and supply outside the regulated system.
Principle
The objective is not to encourage consumption. It is to regulate, protect and reduce criminal control.
7. Questions for scrutiny
This proposal should be tested with public-health specialists, addiction and mental-health services, people with lived experience, police, road-safety experts, clinicians, pharmacists, regulators, local authorities, economists, tax specialists, licensed-market experts, youth organisations and the devolved administrations.
- 01What minimum adult age should apply to purchase, possession and entry to licensed premises?
- 02Which products should be permitted, restricted or prohibited within the regulated market?
- 03Should potency be capped, taxed progressively or controlled through product categories and serving sizes?
- 04How should the three tax levels operate without making legal supply uncompetitive with illicit sellers?
- 05What share of receipts should be protected for addiction, mental-health, education and research services?
- 06Which cultivation, testing, packaging, labelling and traceability standards should licences require?
- 07How should advertising, sponsorship, branding and online promotion be restricted?
- 08What possession, home-growing and public-consumption rules should apply?
- 09How should drug-driving law, impairment testing and enforcement be improved before implementation?
- 10What protections are required for children, pregnant people and those vulnerable to dependency or psychosis?
- 11How should responsible smaller businesses compete without allowing market domination by large corporations?
- 12What transition timetable, pilot arrangements and independent evaluation should precede national implementation?
- 13How should UK-wide reform coordinate with devolved health, justice, licensing and policing responsibilities?
Core purpose
Move an established market from organised crime into regulated public oversight.
8. The proposed direction
Proposal 35 would legalise recreational cannabis for adults within a licensed market covering cultivation, production, testing, packaging, retail, advertising, taxation and enforcement.
Unlicensed production and sale would remain illegal, and drug-driving would remain a serious offence.
A three-level tax system would be designed to produce public revenue while allowing the legal market to displace illicit supply.
A proportion of receipts would support addiction services, mental-health provision, public education, enforcement, treatment and research.
Final policy must define the adult age threshold, potency rules, tax rates, licensing fees and transition timetable.
Source basis: Manifesto 1.1, Part XXI, Policy 39, ‘Legalise and regulate recreational cannabis’, Major Promise 35—Legal, Regulated and Taxed Cannabis. Exact tax rates, adult age threshold, potency limits, licensing fees and the transition timetable are not specified in the source and remain open for scrutiny.
Read. Question. Challenge. Improve.
This is a public-scrutiny working proposal. Questions, evidence, objections and alternatives are welcome.
Have Your Say
What is your view on this proposal?
Scrutiny, not endorsement. Disagreement is as useful here as support.
Responses are counted anonymously and the running totals are shown publicly beside each option. One response per device, changeable at any time.
Have an objection, question or better alternative?
Set out your argument. Serious challenges shape later versions of the manifesto.