Is cannabis driving us crazy?

Fewer people are smoking cannabis these days, down to 1.4 million from two million, they say. I say, if you believe that, you’re high.

Arrests, prosecutions and the issuing of ‘cannabis warnings’ might be down — but then, I’ve seen the police quite deliberately look away from dope smokers on the street.

Weed is everywhere. I’m sure of this, because the smell of the city has changed. A decade ago, as I cycled across town, the dominant scent was diesel. There were also wafts of tobacco from the fag-break gang and the odd drift of ground coffee.

Ten years later both the cigarettes and the diesel have faded. There’s the cartoonish smell of vaping, but as far as I’m concerned, the smell of London is now cannabis.

It hangs over Angel, Hoxton, Clerken-well, Covent Garden. I’ve smelled it on Holland Park Avenue and the Kings Road. It’s a depressing smell. Not exotic at all, just cloying and sad.