The one war we DO need

LAST Wednesday was the annual Holy Day of Marijuana users. A sickly cloud of cannabis smoke hung in the warm air above Hyde Park as they gathered to praise and consume this minddestroying poison.

Despite its ‘soft’ image, its users often become insane and commit acts of hideous violence.

Possession of marijuana carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and an unlimited fine. It is a hard and dangerous drug which ruins thousands of lives every year.

But you would not have known it from the relaxed response of the police, who long ago gave up any serious attempt to enforce the drug laws they are paid rather a lot to apply.

Despite this, you may be sure Parliament’s Home Affairs Committee will shortly be told, during its latest inquiry into the issue, that there is a ‘War on Drugs’ in this country which has ‘failed’ and must therefore be abandoned.

There is a long queue of blowhards waiting to tell them this. They say we must ‘treat’ voluntary drug criminals as if they suffered from a compulsory disease. Much of the evidence submitted to the committee is of this sort.

But I and a few others have put in evidence urging enforcement of the law, as is successfully done in Japan and South Korea. We hope to impress on the committee chairwoman, Yvette Cooper, that plenty of people don’t want legalisation.