Medicinal cannabis has changed ‘drug landscape’, says customs head

And the rise may be due to the prevalence of legally available cannabis in the island, according to Emma Webb, the head of Customs and Excise.

Just over 1kg of cocaine was seized during the year, compared to about 376g the year before.

This was mostly spread across different incidents throughout the year, said Miss Webb, but significant investigations could lead to higher amounts being seized and there was always going to be an annual variance.

In monetary value, the amount of cocaine seized was worth about £135,000, and taken with one seizure of heroin and four of MDMA – known as Ecstasy – contributed to a total value of Class A drugs of just more than £167,500 for the year. In 2022 the total value seized was just over £100,000.

By contrast to class As, there were fewer seizures of class B drugs, although the total amounts of some were higher.

Although seizures of herbal cannabis were lower than in 2022 – 27 compared to 37, the amount was more – 2.5kg, compared to about 1.9kg.

However, after 10 seizures of cannabis resin in 2022, totalling just over 10kg, last year there were just three, totalling 3.91g.

‘I think the drug landscape has changed slightly, with medicinal cannabis now being available on prescription,’ said Miss Webb.

‘So it’s a natural thing that we’re not seeing it at the border so much.’

She said that a combination of the work done by officers at the ports and intelligence had led to the seizures, and spoke about one case that started with the arrest of three people acting suspiciously at the harbour, two of whom were found to have MDMA and LSD on them, which in turn led to two more people being identified and arrested the following day in connection with the importation of the class A drugs.