When you hear about “record cannabis seizures,” it’s easy to picture Border Force officers in high-vis vests cracking open suspicious shipping containers with the kind of giddy anticipation usually reserved for kids on Christmas morning. The narrative is always the same: a triumph for law enforcement, another blow struck in the endless “war on drugs,” and presumably a round of self-congratulatory hobnobbing over tea back at HQ.
According to the Home Office’s “Seizures of Drugs in England and Wales: year ending March 2024” report, Britain did indeed seize a staggering 85.01 tonnes of herbal cannabis. That’s a massive 53% increase from the 55.59 tonnes of the previous year, with 74.15 tonnes intercepted by Border Force alone, their biggest haul since records began in 1973 (Home Office, 2025).
On paper, it looks like a solid win. Smiling officials, big press releases and the comforting illusion that the war on drugs is being won, one suspicious crate at a time. But if I’ve learned anything from history, it’s that surface-level victories usually hide a far weirder reality.
While the authorities pat themselves on the back and polish their “seized” signs for photo ops, a smaller, quieter cannabis story is unfolding across Britain. Since 2018, medical cannabis has been technically legal in the UK, though initially about as accessible as a unicorn dentist appointment. By 2025, a small but surprisingly vibrant subculture has emerged: patients legally using cannabis-based medicines for severe childhood epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, chemotherapy-induced nausea and chronic pain.
These aren’t the dreadlocked festival-goers or the chaps you meet in Camden promising “proper Cali” for £20 a gram (and an unsolicited mixtape). These are middle-aged cancer survivors, veterans with PTSD, parents desperately trying to stop their children’s violent seizures; people you’d see at Waitrose comparing courgettes or queueing politely at the pharmacy, not lurking behind a kebab shop.
Around 30,000 private prescriptions have now been issued annually through clinics such as Curaleaf, Releaf UK, Alternaleaf and CB1 (Alternaleaf; Releaf). These prescriptions aren’t cheap, running anywhere from £300 to £1,500 a month, turning cannabis into a kind of weird wellness status symbol. Meanwhile, licensed producers like Dalgety have built high-security cannabis farms in the Midlands, with bulletproof doors and CCTV banks that wouldn’t look out of place in a Jason Bourne film, churning out enough cannabis to supply 4,000 prescriptions a month (The Times, 2023).
What emerges is a surreal lifestyle dichotomy: on one side, the black market roars, feeding the £9.4 billion illicit drug economy that the National Crime Agency (NCA) warns is directly fuelling firearms trade, human trafficking and county lines operations (House of Commons Library, 2024; GOV.UK, 2020). On the other, a boutique cannabis wellness scene flourishes quietly in discreet clinics and plush Soho members’ lounges, complete with “cannabis mindfulness” retreats and middle-class mums drizzling CBD oil into their green smoothies after Pilates before darting off to a panel talk about “microdosing for creative flow.”
It’s the kind of absurdity you almost want to stand up and slow-clap for: while Border Force celebrates intercepting literal truckloads of cannabis, private patients, legally, vape high-THC oil before bed to ease nerve pain. They can even legally drive, provided they have proof of prescription (London Cannabis Clinic). And despite these historic seizures, cannabis use among adults aged 16 to 59 in England and Wales actually fell slightly to 6.8% in 2024, roughly the same level as a decade ago (Office for National Statistics, 2024).
So here we are: record-breaking hauls, a fiercely alive black market, a tiny legal oasis for the privileged and unwell, and a government seemingly caught between Victorian moral panic and the wellness influencer’s soft-focus Instagram reel. The record seizures aren’t proof of victory; they’re more like a giant neon sign screaming that the cannabis flood is so colossal we can’t even begin to mop it up. Meanwhile, the existence of a legal subculture of patients, many forced into expensive private care because the NHS remains largely closed to cannabis treatment, only highlights the carnival of contradictions.
We’re left with a system that is not so much winning or losing as it is muddling along in a high-stakes game of national doublethink: punishing some, quietly licensing others, all while pretending it’s working. It’s like a chronic national cough that no one seems quite ready to treat properly. Until Britain admits what it really wants from cannabis — to prohibit, to regulate, to tax, or to medicalise — we’ll keep seizing record tonnes in the name of a war that was lost before it even began, while a small, legal subculture flourishes in a haze of spa retreats and eye-watering private invoices. Puff puff pass indeed.
References
- Alternaleaf. Medical cannabis access in the UK. https://www.alternaleaf.co.uk/
- GOV.UK. (2020, February 27). Review of drugs: summary (accessible version). (Dame Carol Black’s Review). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-drugs-phase-one-report/review-of-drugs-summary
- Home Office. (2025, February 13). Seizures of drugs in England and Wales, financial year ending 2024. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/seizures-of-drugs-in-england-and-wales-financial-year-ending-2024/seizures-of-drugs-in-england-and-wales-financial-year-ending-2024
- House of Commons Library. (2024, March 4). Illegal drug use and organised crime. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2024-0050/
- London Cannabis Clinic. Driving and cannabis prescriptions. https://londoncannabisclinic.com/
- Office for National Statistics. (2024, December 12). Drug misuse in England and Wales: year ending March 2024. ONS. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/drugs/bulletins/drugmisuseinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2024
- Releaf. Private cannabis prescriptions. https://www.releaf.co.uk/
- The Times. (2023). Inside UK’s first legal cannabis farm. The Times. (Please note: paywalled news publication.)