PM: POLICE MUST ACT ON MAIL EXPOSÉ

And social media giants need to stop Instagram drug peddlers

BORIS Johnson last night urged the police to take swift action following the Daily Mail’s revelations about the billion-pound Instagram drug trade.

Downing street also called for a response from social media companies as he praised us for exposing the problem of children buying potent cannabis on the platform.

Labour’s schools spokesman Peter Kyle said Instagram’s high-strength cannabis trade was as ‘rancid as crime can get’.

He also warned that the distribution of the drugs sold on social media often involved children in county lines gangs.

The Mail’s investigation found hundreds of dealers on the Facebook-owned site are peddling the drug to youngsters as part of a billion-pound online industry sparking major health concerns. Pushers – who have tens of thousands of followers – promoted their wares with enticing pictures of cannabis packaged to look like children’s sweets or cereals.

They then arranged sales via private messaging services.

Undercover reporters met a drug baron who used Instagram to help make millions a year – and boasted about kidnapping and cutting off the fingers of a client who failed to pay.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman said: ‘We have seen this investigation by the Mail, who rightly brought this to the public eye.

‘Criminals who peddle illegal drugs wreak havoc on communities, fuel serious violence and devastate people’s lives. We would fully support any police action to tackle any criminals peddling illegal drugs in this manner.’

Asked how he wants social media sites to react, he said: ‘We are introducing tougher rules on social media firms. I think they themselves have said that they are taking action in this space and we would urge them to do so as quickly as possible.’

The Government’s crime plan, which was released in the summer, set out tactics and investment for dealing with the ‘scourge of illicit drugs’ which are major drivers of burglaries and violent crime, the spokesman added.

He said that over the last two years, ministers had invested over £65million into tackling drug gangs, which had seen the police arrest 1,500 people. He added: ‘There is definitely more to do here, which is why we’re setting up plans to publish a long-term drug strategy by the end of the year.’

Our expose revealed how online sales of high-strength cannabis had ‘exploded’ during lockdown, leading to fears of the drug causing a ‘psychosis timebomb’.

Experts have warned that drug dealers had now ‘shifted from street corners on to social media’ because of the ease of selling online. Advertising on online platforms such as Instagram also gives the dealers greater legitimacy and it enables them to ‘build a brand and identity’.

It comes as almost 13,000 under18s needed treatment because of cannabis last year, including more than 1,000 aged 13 and younger.

One consultant psychiatrist warned high-strength cannabis was driving youngsters into ‘psychosis, depression, anxiety, selfharm and suicide’.

The Mail’s investigation also found some Instagram dealers offered ‘gifts’ to children buying from them if they persuaded their classmates

EXPOSED: THE DRUG LORDS OF INSTAGRAM

to also become customers. Mr Kyle said: ‘From start to finish this business of selling drugs via social media has at its core the suffering of children. It would not be viable as a business without children suffering.

‘Children are being sold drugs by social media, children are incentivised to involve other children, children are transporting the drugs from one part of the country to the other.

‘It is children who are delivering to the customers who are also often children. It is the criminal exploitation of children.’ Instagram has removed hundreds of dealers’ pages after being alerted by the Mail and said that it was continuing to investigate. investigations@dailymail.co.uk

NO ONE has campaigned more vociferously than the Mail against the scourge of singleuse plastic.

And we have frequently exposed the shortcomings of our recycling system – proving that far too much plastic put out to be recycled ends up as landfill.

But isn’t an imperfect system better than none? Apparently not, according to Boris Johnson yesterday.

Speaking to a group of schoolchildren, he said that recycling plastics ‘doesn’t work’ – to the fury of the recycling industry and bemusement of millions of householders who dutifully deposit their rubbish into different bins every week, believing they’re helping the planet.

The long-term answer, the PM said, was to cut the use of plastics in the first place – especially multinationals such as CocaCola, that produce hundreds of billions of throwaway bottles a year.

There is, of course, truth in that. But isn’t he making the perfect the enemy of the good? To deny that recycling has any place in cleaning up the planet is surely self-defeating.

Mr Johnson also made jokes about feeding people to animals and stopping cows from burping as contributions to combating climate change. Given the age of his audience, such levity is understandable. But with the Cop26 climate conference just around the corner, isn’t it time for the foolery to stop? Or world leaders might get the idea he’s not really serious about anything.

WITH more Daily Mail revelations about pushers using Facebook sites to ensnare children into the world of drugs, and a whistle-blower telling Parliament that it stokes online hate, parts of the web giant have clearly become a moral swamp. If the firm won’t drain it voluntarily, then it must be made to by prosecution and draconian fines. Money seems to be the only thing they understand.