How do MPs’ views on drugs policy compare to the British public’s? – Survey

Thanks to Peter Reynolds for bringing this to my attention via Linked In

It’s timely information as there’s a debate today in Westminister Hall on medical cannabis but all of us outside the bubble have been unable to find out anything about the debate other than it is suppsedly happening

YOU GOV

And how does opinion differ within the general population?

In the past few years, several countries – including Germany, Luxembourg, Malta and Canada – as well as a multitude of US states, have legalised the possession and use of cannabis. Here in the UK, the Liberal Democrats pledged to legalise the purchase and consumption of cannabis in their 2024 election manifesto, the only main party to do so.

MPs have not voted on legalising cannabis since 2018, when proposals were voted down in a sparsely populated House of Commons, but a new YouGov survey offers insight into how a future vote might go.

The results show that 50% of MPs are opposed to cannabis legalisation when asked in a support/oppose format, compared to 39% who would be in support.

An alternative version of this question that YouGov also uses asks respondents to choose between legalisation, decriminalisation, and keeping the sale and possession of cannabis a criminal offence. When put this way, 25% of MPs continue to prefer the legalisation option, while 38% say they want it to be illegal – 28% of MPs chart the middle path of decriminalisation.

The large majority of MPs do, however, believe that doctors should be allowed to prescribe cannabis for medical use (83%). Only 7% are opposed.

When it comes to harder drugs, however, there is far more consensus: 81% of MPs say that sale and possession of drugs like heroin and crack cocaine should remain illegal, with only 4% preferring decriminalisation and 4% full legalisation.

On the broader issue of how drug use should be treated by the state and society, more MPs come down on the side of considering it a health issue (36%) than a criminal issue (11%) – although the largest number say they should be treated as both equally (51%).

How do MPs’ views on drugs differ from the wider public’s?

On the binary question of legalising cannabis, the British public are split, with 45% in favour and 42% opposed, making the public slightly more pro-legalisation than MPs.

We see a similar trend on the three-way question, with Britons slightly more likely to support the legalisation option (31%) than MPs, and slightly less likely to prefer the decriminalisation option (24%) or keeping cannabis illegal 33%.

There are, however, somewhat fewer Britons who think doctors should be allowed to prescribe cannabis for medical use (73%), with twice as many of the public opposed (14%) as MPs.

When it comes to harder drugs, the public’s view largely aligns with that of MPs, with 83% saying they should remain illegal, 7% saying they should be decriminalised, and 4% opting for legalisation.

And on the wider issue of how to treat the drugs problem, while the most common answer among the public is again that it should be seen equally as a health and criminal issue (40%), notably more Britons see drugs as more of a criminal issue than MPs did. More than a quarter (28%) say so, with 23% saying it should be seen as more of a health issue.

The results of the survey show that young people have more liberal attitudes towards drugs than their elders; voters for left wing parties take a softer approach than those who backed right wing parties; and men take a softer stance in some areas than women.

The British public’s view on drugs, by age

Those Britons in age groups under 50 generally support legalising cannabis on our binary question, while the over-50s tend to oppose it.

On our three-way question, 25-49 year olds come down most on the side of full legalisation (41%), whereas 18-24 year olds are more evenly divided between legalisation (31%) and decriminalisation (29%). The over-50 age groups prefer for cannabis to remain criminally prohibited at rates of 38-44%, the most common stance for these older Britons.

All age groups are, however, about equally strongly in favour of doctors being allowed to prescribe cannabis for medical use (71-75%).

When it comes to harder drugs, the majority in all age groups want to keep them banned, although 15-16% of the under-50s age groups take a softer stance, compared to 5-8% of their elder peers.

And on the matter of drugs being a health versus a criminal issue, younger Britons see it more as the former and older Britons more as the latter. More than a third of 18-24 year olds (37%) say drugs should be seen as more of a health issue, compared to 15% of the over-65s, who in turn are more likely to see drugs as more of a criminal issue (38%) than the youngest Britons (16%).

The British public’s view on drugs, by voting group

Conservative voters take the most notably hard line on drugs policy. Fully 64% oppose cannabis legalisation on our binary question, compared to 48% of Reform UK voters, 40% of Lib Dem voters, and 33% of Labour voters.

On the trinary question, the majority of Tories (55%) again opt to keep cannabis criminalised, compared to 38% of Reform UK voters, 29% of Lib Dems and 23% of Labour voters. For Reform UK voters this was also their most common choice, whereas Lib Dem voters are effectively split three ways on between legalisation, decriminalisation and criminalisation, while for Labour voters full legalisation is the most popular option, at 39%.