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 [...]

Below is a letter to the Guardian, published today (11 February 2009) in reduced form.
Jacqui Smith is keen that the Government’s 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 about [...]

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 [...]