Drugs as a defence? Now I’ve heard it all

THERE was a curious and telling detail in the defence offered by Elton Charles, husband of Lord Patten’s daughter Laura, when he was accused (and last week convicted) of ‘conspiracy to possess a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence’.

The curious detail was his alibi. He said he was not doing what the prosecution claimed he was doing. He was just meeting his brother to obtain some marijuana. Now, I know the police and the courts have totally forgotten this but I have not: possession of marijuana carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and an unlimited fine.

Is this the first time anyone has ever pleaded not guilty to one crime on the basis that he was committing another at the time? I have seen no report that prosecutors then moved to charge him with this offence, although he had stated on oath that he had committed it.

Or is it yet another admission that this law, so often claimed to be part of a cruel and ruthless ‘war on drugs’, has been secretly repealed by a pro-drug establishment?

You might get the same impression from the repellent, smug confessions of two professionals, a banker and a teacher, in Femail last week, that they smoked this noisome drug with their grown-up children. What brainless noodles they all must be, more so now than when they started doing this. Weak laws mean weak morals, and that’s what our elite seem to like.

I await the report on drugs by the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee which, as far as I know, finished taking evidence on May 25. Will it call for tougher enforcement of the existing law? What do you think?