The Minister for Drugs (Legalization, Regulation and Taxation thereof)

What a jolly wheeze - I seem to have had the honour (I think) of being nominated for the position of Minister for Drugs (Legalization, Regulation and Taxation thereof) in Mark Wadsworth's Bloggers Cabinet. It's been a while since I wrote anything substantial on the subject of drugs, probably but uncharacteristically cowed by my opponents' disgraceful use of my previous writings on the subject in May's local elections.

Anyway, it's an interesting coincidence that I've just had a bit of a spat with someone on our local Headington & Marston Neighbourhood Forum about this very subject. Someone whose naive response to the "drugs problem" is to get tougher, to wage the "war on drugs" ever more fiercely and adopt a "zero tolerance" approach to dealers, traffickers and users alike. Whose entire argument appears to be based on the insane rantings of the likes of Anthony Daniels and Nicholas O'Kane.

So anyway, I just wanted to share with you the core principle on which I would develop Mark's commission, were it for real and as I explained to my correspondent on the local forum (who had gone so far as to hope, in a public forum, that I should lose my job for holding this opinion):

"No legislator has, in my opinion, a moral or natural right (and therefore cannot have one created for him by democratic mandate however strong) to implement or support laws which demonstrably kill or harm more people than the problem they are supposed to solve. Such laws are morally repugnant. And those who support them are just as bad. Some do so out of ignorance and don't think much about it - they are perhaps forgivable, but others think they have considered the issues and come to a reasonable conclusion which they promulgate with gusto. They are worse than the politicians and laws they support, for they give them the succour of public opinion. They are tantamount to promoting murder as a weapon of the law."

Whatever you think of drugs and the people who use them or even abuse them, it is not the aim of legalization to promote their use; indeed as a policy whose aim was to reduce drug use and the harms which can arise from their misuse, prohibition has spectacularly failed with more drugs on our streets supplied by a now immense industry controlled by organized crime.

For prohibitionists everywhere, I urge you to recall Einstein's definition of "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

PS: Watch out I hope in January for a new Lib Dem group - "Liberal Democrats Against Prohibition". Not just about drugs of course, but the isue will figure highly, obviously.