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. Yesterday evening, a little waft on Exmouth Market, then the usual outside the park. I’m not sure I’ve had a dope-free cycle across town since sometime in 2017.

On the Embankment, most mornings, the cold air is cut with cannabis. Men sit on the elevated benches overlooking the Thames and smoke and stare; facing the river before they face the day.

Why does the city smell differently? I found a bit of research from the University of York which might provide part of an answer. They looked last year at the number of people accessing drug treatment services over the past ten years and found, not a rise in overall users, but a dramatic rise in the number of people over 40 smoking cannabis, nearly 120 per cent.

Now these are results I can believe in.