Widespread use of cannabis FUELLING violent crime, says Jacob Rees-Mogg

The Nottingham attacker, Valdo Calocane, was sentenced yesterday to a hospital order for manslaughter with diminished responsibility of three people: Barnaby Webber, Grace, Omali Kumar and Ian Coates.

Families of the victims spoke outside Nottingham Crown Court and said the sentence did not provide justice and that Mr Calacaine had got away with murder and this tragedy poses serious questions about violent crime in Britain.

Perhaps best asked by Mail on Sunday colonist Peter Hitchens First... how much of violent crime in Britain is caused by mental health problems?

Second, what is causing these mental health problems in the first place? Well, Mr Hitchens first lays blame on Enoch Powell's shutting of the numerous residential mental hospitals across the country in the 1960s when he was health secretary, but even more so on the widespread use of cannabis, especially among young people.

While we do not know of any historic use of drugs in the case of Valdo Calocane, we do know that he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and we know that cannabis is linked to the disorder.

We also know, as Mr Hitchens points out that all reports of Valdo Calocane suggest he was a pleasant person up until the age of 15. So what changed? Well, it's no secret that despite the law stating that the punishment for possession of cannabis is up to five years in prison, this very rarely happens.

More often it is those with the intent to sell cannabis who are sometimes given prison sentences, but even then, not very much. This is what Peter Hitchens calls the de facto decriminalisation of cannabis, which the latest numbers, which come from 2019, seem to support.

They reveal that only 853 people are imprisoned for cannabis-related offences while there were over 100,100 thousand cannabis-related arrests. So have the police arbitrarily decided not to enforce the law and is it their role to do this? Because if they have, and it does turn out that cannabis is driving much of Britain's violent crime, then that would make them culpable. Peter Hitchens goes on to cite several experts in New York. Psychiatrist said.

Of all the people I've diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, I can't think of a single one who wasn't also positive for cannabis. A leading British psychiatrist, King's College London's Professor Sir Robin Murray, changed his mind about cannabis decriminalisation, stating for cannabis the risk of psychosis goes up to about 6 times if one is a long-term heavy cannabis smoker.

We're now 100 per cent sure that cannabis is one of the causes of a schizophrenia-like psychosis. If we could abolish the consumption of skunk, we would have 30% fewer patients in South London. I don't know the answer to this question, but if we have laws, surely we should enforce them.