We need to talk about cannabis

Before we celebrate the ban on tobacco sales to people below a certain age, we need to consider what habits might take its place. And it might not only be vaping.

Approaching the Holland tunnel in New York a few summers ago, I lowered my car window and was hit by the stench of cannabis smoke. It came from a car full of youths in the adjacent lane. More alarmingly, the smoker was also the driver of the car. In the last few years, uninhibited toking has become an increasingly common sight – or smell – everywhere.

I can see many reasons to decriminalise cannabis, especially in the US where the fetish for incarceration has ruined millions of lives for offences which would never carry a custodial sentence over here.