08/08/2026
When a child thinks they’re buying cannabis but ends up va**ng Spice, prohibition hasn’t protected them.
A new Guardian investigation highlights a disturbing problem in the UK’s illicit v**e market: young people buying products sold as THC or cannabis v**es may actually be consuming synthetic cannabinoids, commonly known as Spice.
Research from the University of Bath found Spice in 13% of 1,923 v**es confiscated from 114 schools in England, rising to around 25% in London and Lancashire. WEDINOS found an even starker picture among products specifically submitted as THC, CBD or cannabis v**es: 39% contained synthetic cannabinoids instead.
Spice is NOT cannabis.
Synthetic cannabinoids can be substantially more unpredictable and dangerous, with serious effects including seizures, psychosis and cardiac arrest.
Yet an unregulated illicit market allows products containing them to be sold to young people as something else entirely.
Researchers have also found these products being openly marketed through social media, making an already dangerous market extraordinarily difficult to control.
We should absolutely be asking how we stop children accessing drugs.
But we also need to ask a harder question: is prohibition actually achieving that?
When we surrender the drug market to organised crime, there are no age restrictions, no product standards, no ingredient labels and no meaningful quality control. People cannot reliably know what they are buying.
The Green Party believes drug policy should be built around evidence, public health, and harm reduction, rather than assuming that criminalisation itself keeps people safe.
Protecting young people means reducing harm in the world as it actually exists. 💚
Read Amy Fleming’s investigation in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/aug/06/psychotic-cardiac-arrest-children-va**ng-prison-drug-spice
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