The Daily Mail today raised my hopes that it had had a Damascene conversion on the subject of drugs – and then dashed them. Below a letter to the editor that is certain not to get published. Dear Sir The Mail is often given credit for making the political weather. Certainly many politicians claim to …
Category: drugs
Sep 11
Drugs prohibition
Simon Jenkins wrote an exceptionally powerful piece in the Guardian on 4 September entitled The war on drugs is immoral idiocy. His title conveys the essence. He went beyond proposals to decriminalize consumption, to advocate decriminalizing production as well to be replaced by licensing, regulation and taxation. The Guardian appears to be suffering a failure …
Feb 11
Ban horse riding, or …
Below is a letter to the Guardian, published today (11 February 2009) in reduced form. Jacqui Smith is keen that the Governments classification of drugs should send clear messages to would-be users. One message conveyed by her attack on David Nutt (Drugs adviser says sorry over ecstasy article, 10 February) is that she does not care …
Sep 06
John Stuart Mill and the cream-buns theory of liberty
Britain’s Liberal Democrat History Group provoked a mid-summer controversy with its search for the greatest British Liberal of all time. Its short list, to be voted on at the party’s annual conference in September, consisted of William Ewart Gladstone, David Lloyd George, John Stuart Mill and John Maynard Keynes. The front runner for most of …