Continue reading »]]> 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 believe it. Fear of what the Mail might say has been a major impediment to a serious engagement by politicians in a public debate about drugs.

I was therefore delighted to read Andrew Alexander’s article (How legalising drugs would deal with the local baron[1]) in the Mail today. He advanced no new arguments but put persuasively what sensible people who have studied the subject have been have been saying for many years.

My delight was short-lived. You carefully counter-balanced Alexander’s article with an ill-informed rant by Stephen Glover (Why doesn’t this dangerous man come clean and admit he wants to legalise drugs?[2]). Glover says “I believe that legalising drugs, or even just taking them less seriously than alcohol, would be a social disaster in which the poor and disadvantaged would suffer most.” This is a belief without evidential support. It is an “argument” worthy of Sarah Palin or Christine O’Donnell. But in giving it prominent exposure you will have restored the fear of sensible politicians that saying anything sensible on the subject will result in a savaging by the Mail.

Yours sincerely

John Adams

[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1326030/How-legalising-drugs-deal-local-baron.html#ixzz14EgrklOg

[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1325788/Why-doesnt-Prof-David-Nutt-come-clean-admit-wants-legalise-drugs.html#ixzz14EjGfQBW

Previous postings on this theme at http://john-adams.co.uk/category/drugs/ and http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/000195.php

PS My letter unsurprisingly did not get published. But I take some encouragement from the numerous comments posted in response to the Alexander and Glover articles. I looked at the first 20 responses to both articles. The comments on the Alexander (pro-legalization) article were overwhelmingly favorable: 17 to 3. The comments on the Glover (anti-legalization) article were overwhelmingly negative: 18 to 2. Can it be that most Mail readers buy it to stoke up their indignation? JA 13.25, 4/11/2010.

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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 of nerve on this sensitive subject. Although Jenkins’ article generated an enormous on-line response – 602 comments the last time I looked – it published no letters, including mine!! So being my own publisher I reproduce it below.

Simon Jenkins says “The mountain that must be climbed is licensing, regulating and taxing supply.” The Sherpas have made a start. In 2004 the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit published a report entitled “Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy for England”. It had a foreword by Tony Blair. He said:

“Millions of us enjoy drinking alcohol with few, if any, ill effects.”

But: “The Strategy Unit’s analysis last year showed that alcohol-related harm is costing around £20bn a year, and that some of the harms associated with alcohol are getting worse”.

So: “The aim has been to target alcohol-related harm and its causes without interfering with the pleasure enjoyed by the millions of people who drink responsibly.”

“Ultimately” he argued, “it is vital that individuals can make informed and responsible decisions about their own levels of alcohol consumption. Everyone needs to be able to balance their right to enjoy a drink with the potential risks to their own – and others’ – health and wellbeing”.

He concluded: “I strongly welcome this report and the Government has accepted all its conclusions. These will now be implemented as government policy and will, in time, bring benefits to us all in the form of a healthier and happier relationship with alcohol”.

A cut and paste job on the alcohol harm report, replacing “alcohol” with “drugs”, would go a long way to producing a Drug Harm Reduction Strategy. It contains no mention of prohibition.

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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 the scientific evidence of harm, or does not understand it.

She brushes aside his comparison that shows that riding a horse is many times more dangerous than using ecstasy on the ground that the first is legal and the second illegal. A second message is, therefore, that ecstasy should be made legal, or horse riding illegal. Or is the intended message that the Government cares nothing for consistency.

More on drugs here and here

Continue reading »]]> 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 the summer has been Mill. Roy Hattersley disputed Mill’s pre-eminence in an article in the Guardian . His article persuaded me that Mill did indeed deserve to win the competition. Below my reply to the Guardian in which I conclude that Mill’s policies on seat belts and drugs are ones with which I would have agreed.

John Stuart Mill and the cream-bun theory of liberty
Saturday August 11, 2007

Roy Hattersley (Liberty is not what it was, 6 August ) argues that Gladstone, not John Stuart Mill, was the most important Liberal in British history. He quotes Mill’s famous dictum – “all errors which [a citizen] is likely to commit against advice and warning, are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to what they deem his good” – and proclaims it out of date. He could not have chosen two better examples, compulsory seat belts and the prohibition of recreational drugs, to make the case for Mill…
Full letter here [PDF]
More on drugs here>