House of Comments - Episode 123 - Menage a Sept

The latest House of Comments podcast is now out.

This week I am joined by Guardian journalist James Ball to discuss the seven way debate, the alleged Nicola Sturgeon memo and the Labour attack on the Lib Dems for being "soft on drugs"

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Other podcasting software e.g. for Android can be pointed here to subscribe.

Or you can listen to the embedded episode below here:

listen to ‘Episode 123 - Menage a Sept’ on audioBoom

Any feedback welcomed in the comments below.


PS: A big thanks to Audioboom for hosting the podcast. We would also like to thank Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com for our theme music.

House of Comments - Episode 98 - Money is no Object

Episode 98 of the House of Comments podcast "Money is no Object" is out. I am is joined by Lib Dem PPC for Guildford Kelly-Marie Blundell and Former Labour PPC and councillor Paul Blanchard to discuss the latest political fallout from the floods, the recent petition urging the government to review drugs policy and we ask whether voter recall is now dead for this parliament. Spoiler alert - it is.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Other podcasting software e.g. for Android can be pointed here to subscribe.

You can download the mp3 for the latest episode directly from here.

Or you can listen to the embedded episode below here:

listen to ‘Episode 98 - Money is no Object’ on Audioboo

Any feedback welcomed in the comments below.


PS: A big thanks to Audioboo for hosting the podcast for us. We would also like to thank Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com for our theme music.

House of Comments - Episode 80 - Going Postal

Episode 80 of the House of Comments podcast "Going Postal" is out. Myself and Emma discuss the Royal Mail privatisation, drugs policy, Norman Baker and conspiracy theories, whether Jeremy Browne might defect to the Tories and Labour's schools and welfare policies.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.

Other podcasting software e.g. for Android can be pointed here to subscribe.

You can download the mp3 for the latest episode directly from here.

Or you can listen to the embedded episode below here:

listen to ‘Episode 80 - Going Postal’ on Audioboo

Any feedback welcomed in the comments below.


PS: A big thanks to Audioboo for hosting the podcast for us. We would also like to thank Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com for our theme music.

Stupid drug laws having stupid effects

I've banged on about drugs policy enough times on this blog for most readers to know my view. But just in case you're new in summary our drugs laws are stupid. Very stupid. They do not take into account the evidence correctly and front line politicians, especially in the Home Office have time and again shown themselves to be wilfully blind to the harms their laws are causing. Whenever challenged they consistently come out with a statement which is some variation on "drugs are harmful which is why they are illegal" completely failing to engage with the debate and missing the point that most campaigners fully recognise they are harmful which is why we want the law to change to help reduce that harm!

I do try to give the benefit of the doubt to those who disagree with me on this. It can be difficult sometimes though when the evidence seems to be deliberately ignored.

A good example of this comes today with a report that Professor David Nutt, former advisor to the government who was unceremoniously sacked for telling the truth (and who I once interviewed) is saying that the current drugs laws are preventing him from doing research properly. Specifically he has been trying to source clinical grade psilocybin which is the primary active ingredient in magic mushrooms. Psilocybin was recently added to the list of "controlled substances" and Professor Nutt now cannot get hold of it. Regarding the study he wants to do to see if the substance could help with depression he said:

"It hasn't started yet because the big problem is getting hold of the drug. Finding a company to provide a clinical-grade psilocybin had proved impossible as none is prepared to go through the regulatory hoops". 

"So we are between a rock and a hard place, which is very unfortunate, because if this is an effective treatment for patients then they're obviously being denied that possibility so one of the things we have to do now is have a more rational debate about the way the drugs laws are being implemented."

For me though the most noteworthy aspect of this report is the response of the Home Office. A spokesperson said:

"Our licensing regime enables legitimate research to take place while ensuring that harmful drugs don't get into the hands of criminals. We have no evidence to suggest that the current listing of psilocybin as a schedule one substance is a barrier to attracting funding for legitimate research."

But we have one of the most respected psychopharmacologists in the country saying that there is precisely this problem. I can only assume that the reporter who got the quote was telling the spokesperson about the problem Nutt had encountered which elicited that response.

I don't think I have ever seen a clearer example of the Home Office wilfully ignoring the evidence that is in front of them. They are being told that there is a problem with the sourcing of psilocybin. In other words they are being given evidence that their policies are preventing legitimate research and their response is to say there is no evidence for that.

Yes there is. Nutt just gave it to you.

Until we can get around this kafkaesque culture of wilfully ignoring the evidence in the Home Office we are never going to get anywhere in trying to get a more sensible drug policy.

Volatile drug use stats

Needless to say I am delighted with Nick Clegg's clear and politically brave comments on drugs policy reported widely today.

But I just wanted to focus on one small aspect of the coverage and discussion today. David Cameron, Theresa May and others who have spoken out against any change in current policy have repeatedly pointed out that there is no need for a review because drug use is falling. That may well be true but drug use statistics have a habit of bouncing around all over the place not really correlated with any legal or other factors. If anything it's cultural trends that drive these figures.

So my point is, what happens when the "drug use is falling so there is no need for a review" excuse stops being true? I am almost certain that at some point in the near future, drug use figures will tick up again.

When that happens, how will those politicians who have used the falling rates as a reason not to have a review react? Because the logical conclusion drawn from their own words now is that when the rates rise there will be a reason for a review.

They have hitched themselves to a notoriously unreliable hostage to fortune.

House of Comments - Episode 40 - Strivers vs Skivers

Episode 40 of the House of Comments podcast "Strivers vs Skivers" was recorded yesterday evening and is out today. This week myself and Emma Burnell discuss the Chancellor's Autumn statement and try to work out who the strivers and skivers are, whether Starbucks are a fair target for tax protests, pluralism with respect to the new "Labour for Democracy" movement and speculate on how the government will respond to the Home Affairs Select Committee report on drug policy.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here (note - this is a new feed so if you used to subscribe to the old feed a couple of years ago you'll need to do so again).

Other podcasting software e.g. for Android can be pointed here to subscribe.

You can download the mp3 for the latest episode directly from here.

Or you can listen to the embedded episode below here:

listen to ‘Episode 40 - Strivers vs Skivers’ on Audioboo

If you are a political blogger and wish to be considered as a future guest please drop me an e-mail at markreckons@live.co.uk.

Any feedback welcomed in the comments below.


PS: A big thanks to Audioboo for hosting the podcast for us and especially to Audioboo's James O'Malley who has helped us out getting relaunched. James is also editor of The Pod Delusion podcast which is about "interesting things" and is well worth a listen too! We would also like to thank Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com for our funky new theme music which we hope you appreciate!

It's time for Nick Clegg to make the liberal case on drugs policy

The Mail on Sunday yesterday reported that the Home Affairs Select Committee report into drugs policy, reporting this morning is going to recommend that the option of legalisation should be seriously considered and a Royal Commission should be set up to report on the issue prior to the 2015 general election.

As readers of this blog will know I am a long standing supporter of liberalisation of our drug laws. So this report is a breath of fresh air as far as I am concerned. A sensible pragmatic look at the problems with current policy and an attempt to suggest steps that could help.

Right on cue, the government has already given its initial response and completely unsurprisingly they are making it clear they do not intend to do what the report suggests, before it has even been published. A government spokesperson said:

"Drugs are illegal because they are harmful - they destroy lives and blight communities. Our current laws draw on the best available evidence and as such we have no intention of downgrading or declassifying cannabis. A Royal Commission on drugs is simply not necessary. Our cross-government approach is working."

This is the same line that is trotted out by current ministers every time anybody: former ministers, senior business leaders, scientific advisers etc. try to advance this debate beyond the heavily constricted terms imposed by the government of the day. No matter what evidence is put in front of them they respond instantly to shut down further discussion.

However, this time we know that there is someone very senior in government who does not agree with this knee-jerk dismissal response. It is the second most senior minister of them all, the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. We know this because back in September I interviewed him and one of the questions I asked him was on drugs policy. You can read the full interview here but the salient part of it is below:

"...there are an increasing number of bodies who are revisiting this debate in the round. So for instance the Home Affairs Select Committee has been looking at this now for a long time and I think is due to report in December. I will be reading that very, very closely indeed. If a cross-party select committee revisits some of these issues and urges us to open them up as a government, I think the onus is on us, not them to explain why we shouldn’t. Because every time people look at this issue on a cross-party basis in a considered fashion, it seems to me over several years now including in the committee that David Cameron once sat, actually the advice is for radical action towards a more evidence based approach. I will look out for what the HASC has with quite an open mind."

The onus is now on Nick Clegg to make the case for a liberal approach to drugs policy. It was clear from the interview that he is very open to discussion about alternative approaches. This report now gives him the political space to do this. It's not a loony fringe view from some political outsiders but a clear call for a sensible approach from a committee consisting of MPs from all parties who have taken the time to look at the evidence and speak to a broad cross-section of witnesses on this subject.

Mr Clegg also told me that he hadn't discussed this particular issue with the Prime Minister. I very much hope that will change today and he will make clear that the HASC report has the full backing of him and his party.


This piece has been cross-posted today on Liberal Democrat Voice.

The fluffy one on my drugs policy pledge

Millennium Dome Elephant has done a post where he points out how the Four Pledges question (that Jennie Rigg asked as part of her Federal Policy Committee candidates' grilling: "What four pledges would you put on the front of the next Lib Dem manifesto?") is tricky because as candidates we have differentiate ourselves but also make sure the pledges are deliverable.

Part way through his article he points out how one of my answers "A pledge to legalise and regulate all currently illegal drugs" illustrates the problem:

Of course this is absolutely the right policy: he's done much more research into the evidence than me, but what we'd both tell you is that the so-called war on drugs is a massively expensive failure that boosts the profits of criminal gangs while putting many lives in danger from cut drugs and crossfire. Legalisation would save police time and money; allow users some certainty they were getting what they paid for and not chalk cut with horse tranquilisers or rat poison; and allow us to treat addiction medically without stigma. The levels of harm from cannabis or ecstasy (see Jennie's question one) are not nothing but are tiny compared to the levels of harm that we accept from drinking or smoking. It's obviously the liberal thing to do. And, hell, it might even boost the economy.
But Labour and the Conservatives will join forces to block it, just as they did with Lords Reform, because the status quo is in there interest – namely playing to the "law and Order" gallery for the support of certain newspapers in their ever more insane bids to outflank one another on the right.
They'll beat us up for suggesting it and then beat us up AGAIN for not delivering it!

The fluffy one is of course correct that Labour and the Conservatives would join forces to block this policy in a coalition. However I am not convinced by the rest of his analysis.

I suppose it all depends what we hope to achieve with our pledges. I have never made any secret of the fact that an evidence based drugs policy is very high up the list of my policy priorities (for many reasons). So as I am standing for the committee within my party that deals with policy and I am asked a question like this I am bound to include drugs policy reform as an answer. It doesn't mean that I would have much chance of actually succeeding in getting it on the front cover of our next manifesto! But I would certainly argue for it to be a prominent policy.

Let's just run though with the assumption that it did make it into the Big Four. During negotiations I would expect either the Reds or Blues to insist they were not able to support this policy. But what that would then do is spark a very widespread debate about why this should be. There is growing evidence that many people in this country are sick of the existing failed approach and if the third party was advocating a reform approach as part of its programme for government which legalised and regulated drugs it would force the other parties to properly engage with the reasons why they were not willing to look at the evidence. Sure, they will try and use the same high-handed responses they always do "drugs cause harm" (as if those of us wanting reform do not already know that and indeed are trying to reduce it) but because this would be a big story there is likely to be more detailed analysis and comparisons with e.g. other countries where reform has been successful. I have always thought that if there was a full open national debate on this subject those of us who advocate change have a good chance of winning the argument and helping to persuade even more people to our cause. This would be a good opportunity to do just that.

On Millennium's final point about how we would then be beaten up for failing to deliver on this policy, I very much doubt that. The public have seen Labour and Conservative again and again over the years refuse to engage properly with this debate. The fact that they would block it would be no surprise and we could hardly be blamed for at least trying.

This of course opens up the wider question of whether we should be including pledges that we essentially know will not end up as part of a government programme. I may address that in a later post.

This is why drugs policy is how it is

There was a fascinating poll published in The Guardian this weekend showing that 77% of MPs do not think current drugs policy is working but that only 31% of them would consider relaxing the current laws. This was done in secret of course. Had they been on the record I suspect far fewer would have put their heads above the parapet.

As I often do with the articles I had a flick through some of the comments below, the vast majority of which were sensible pleas for relaxing of the laws. But one stood out for me in particular (from Craig 67220):

"...The problem is that the media would refuse to support a law that would rob them of easy front page headlines: you can't really print a story based on the stigma of drug use if those drugs aren't so taboo. Sure, abuse would still make headlines, but if smoking a joint or sniffing coke or taking a few pills is seen as on a par as having a pint, or a smoke, it becomes less of an issue...."

Leveson has shown just how amoral newspapers can be in their pursuit of stories that will guarantee sales. Time and again we have seen that increasing circulation takes priority over any sort of propriety. We saw it again recently with the Sun's decision to publish photos of Prince Harry naked whilst on holiday and supposedly in private. There was no public interest in these, they simply helped increase circulation briefly.

I actually wrote a piece about the amorality of The Daily Mail a few years ago regarding their approach to campaigning on the HPV vaccine. They campaigned against it in England, and for it in Ireland. The same vaccine. The same newspaper. Two opposing campaigns. The only rationale that makes any sense regarding this is that they must have thought an anti-campaign here would sell more papers but that a pro-campaign in Ireland would serve the same ends. That is completely and totally amoral. Playing with the health of young girls for financial gain.

There must surely be a fair bit of truth in Craig's comment. Of course if drugs were legal then all those tabloid splashes about some or other pop star snorting cocaine and the "My Drugs Hell" confessionals would be less marketable. They'd still shift copy of course, problems with the legal drug alcohol still does but drugs have an extra cachet because the frisson of their illegality. Ironically this same sort of frisson is one of the things that can perversely encourage young people to try drugs in the first place as an old friend of mine reminded me this weekend.

The fact that so many MPs can (privately) acknowledge our current drugs laws are failing and yet simultaneously refuse to engage fully with the debate about what to do to improve the situation shows what a mess we are in. The salacious tabloid agenda surely has to take a fair bit of the blame for this. Any politician openly voicing these concerns is shot down by those exact same newspapers that profit so heavily from the status quo.

It doesn't take a genius to see why that should be the case.

Peter Hitchens learnt something from his days as a Trot

In recent years I have noticed that Peter Hitchens, the right-wing columnist who is steadfastly against any relaxation of the drug laws has come up with an eye-catching formulation regarding this policy area.

He claims that there is no "War on Drugs". His argument is that liberal society is turning a blind eye to drug use and the police and authorities talk a good game but essentially pedal softly. His further argument is that until we crack down "properly" on everything to do with drugs then the problems will continue.

It's a neat way of trying to justify why the current policy has failed. It's not because as people like me would have you believe, prohibition of drugs causes many of the problems but because we haven't had enough prohibition. Or at least we've had the wrong sort of prohibition. Do you see? Those of us who are campaigning for an end to our nonsensical drug laws have got it totally arse about face.

Of course I disagree with Hitchens on this. Tell the thousands of people every year who are locked up for minor drugs offences and/or have their lives ruined with a criminal record that there is no War on Drugs.

But the more I have heard Hitchens pedal this line, the more it has reminded me of something from my youth.

In the 1980s as I was coming of age politically, as the USSR was clearly in decline and other countries where Communism had been experimented with such as Cuba showed how such states always seem to degenerate into some sort of Totalitarian dystopia a curious thing happened. Proponents of Communism argued that "True Communism" had never really been tried. Despite the evidence staring them in the face that their One True Way simply did not work they raged against the dying of the light essentially saying that the problem was we hadn't had enough Communism.

It is no surprise to me that Peter Hitchens was a Trotskyist in his youth. And even though he has repudiated much of what he learnt during that phase of his life he has certainly kept some of their rhetorical tricks in his arsenal. He should not get a free pass on this.

There is another interesting parallel here. Those who so passionately argued that we needed more or proper Communism were blind to the fact that the actual outcome of their ideology was what had happened in real countries time and again in the real world. They weren't anomalies, they were the evidence of what happens when you try to follow that route.

Exactly the same applies with the War on Drugs. Country after country after country has tried prohibiting many, many substances. The end result has been an explosion in drug use and violence from criminal gangs across the world in the last 40 years. These are not side effects from the "wrong sort of War on Drugs". They are the end result of the current policy.

Exactly like the solution to the problems with Communism was not more Communism, so the problems with the current drug laws cannot be more of the same, even in a more hard line form. That would simply exacerbate the problem.

What we actually need is Glasnost and Peristroika in our drugs policy where we are honest about what has failed and are open to what we need to do to improve them.

Osborne cocaine allegations highlight political hypocrisy on drugs

Guido has details today of a story about how someone who knew George Osborne when he was in his early twenties is claiming that she saw him take cocaine on multiple occasions.

Osborne has had these allegations made to him before and has always strenuously denied them. It is possible that this latest round of allegations will come to nothing too. It is not clear if there is a smoking gun.

But if it turned out to be true would Osborne have to resign?

If it was up to me he would definitely have to. Not because I think taking cocaine as a 22 year old is such a terrible thing, I don't and I know many young people take all sorts of illegal drugs and go on to have completely normal lives. The only person he was likely to harm is himself and if he was willing to take the risk, it should have been up to him.

But Osborne is one of the most senior members of a government that supports punitive measures against people who take cocaine. In fact it is possible for someone caught in possession of a small amount of a "Class A" drug such as cocaine to be sentenced to 7 years in prison. The same sentence you can get for armed robbery.

So if it turned out that he had taken cocaine, by the terms of the drugs policies that he himself supports he has committed an offence equivalent to this. That's why he should have to resign. Because he himself insists that anyone caught doing what he is alleged to have done can have that sentence imposed on them.

Of course we already know that people like Louise Mensch have admitted drug use in the past and Nick Clegg and even David Cameron himself have refused to deny similar allegations. Cameron insisted that he is entitled to a "private life before politics".

The fact that Osborne could survive something like this, and that numerous of his colleagues have survived too demonstrates the truth of the matter. That despite the "tough on drugs" rhetoric, politicians actually understand that drawing a parallel between a crime like armed robbery and ingesting a powder that affects nobody but yourself is ludicrous.

If you don't believe me, ask yourself whether Mensch, Clegg, Cameron or Osborne could still continue as MPs if there was a strong suspicion that any of them had been involved in an armed robbery.

Of course not. Robbery is a real crime.

Louise Mensch has missed an opportunity on drugs

Following Conservative MP Louise Mensch's excellent work on the Culture Media and Sport Committee, pursuing News International with robust questioning about the activities of their newspapers the tabloids have recently tried to strike back. They have of course tried the tactic that they know best. Muckraking.

They apparently have evidence that during the 1990s, Louise took drugs whilst partying with violin virtuoso Nigel Kennedy amongst others. Louise's response was swift and was clearly an attempt to cut the story off at the knees:

"Although I do not remember the specific incident, this sounds highly probable... since I was in my twenties, I'm sure it was not the only incident of the kind; we all do idiotic things when young."

As I heard this on the radio I found myself vocally praising her riposte to this. Essentially she was saying "so what". She was young and she did what young people do. She went up in my estimations.

However later on that same day I spotted this tweet from her account:

She is using the old politician's trick of admitting having used drugs when she was younger but insisting they should remain illegal now. This has been the standard way that MPs have recently tried to avoid charges of hypocrisy by distancing themselves from their previous behaviour using their former "stupidity" or "youth" as an alibi.

This is particularly disappointing in Louise's case because this tactic is usually used by MPs to keep the tabloids at bay. But she and her committee have the papers on the ropes at the moment. If ever there was a time to break free of the ridiculous strictures the print media in this country impose on public discourse about drugs, now would surely be it? She could easily have said something like "I did take drugs when I was younger as did many of my contemporaries and I think we need a mature debate about this subject rather than these salacious attempts by the tabloid press to use it as a means to push their agenda.".

Now it is of course possible that Louise genuinely thinks that taking drugs as her and her contemporaries appeared to have regularly done (judging by her own comments) was idiotic and anyone doing the same today should be prosecuted and potentially imprisoned. But if that is true then then anyone finding themselves today with a criminal record for having done this would find it impossible to ever get selected as a candidate for a party in a winnable seat, let alone get elected. So the logical conclusion is that she is saying that she is not really fit to be an MP but that she didn't get caught so was lucky. It is very hard to view this as anything other than hypocrisy.

Louise Mensch knows she is on safe ground using this sort of formulation. After all, the Prime Minister led the way with his "entitlement to a private life before politics" comments during his leadership campaign. It would appear today's politicians can have their cake and eat it on this issue.

To be fair to her, maybe she does not want to be fighting on multiple fronts given the current circumstances. That would be understandable in a way although regrettable in my view.

I can only hope that as the power of the press in general and the tabloids in particular continues to wane, partly as a result of Louise's (and others) sterling work that eventually other MPs in her position will feel emboldened to speak up honestly about their experiences and use it as a way to open up a serious debate about drugs policy.

This post was first published on Dale & Co.

Will Cameron's honesty on press influence spread to drug policy?

Something struck me during David Cameron's press conference about the "Hackgate" scandal last Friday. It was this particular passage:

Because party leaders were so keen to win the support of newspapers, we turned a blind eye to the need to sort this issue, get on top of the bad practices, to change the way our newspapers are regulated.

It's a bit like MPs' expenses.

The people in power knew things weren't right.

But they didn't do enough quickly enough – until the full mess of the situation was revealed.

Now, when the scandal hits and the truth is plain for everyone to see ... there are two choices.

You can downplay it and deny the problem is deep – or you can accept the seriousness of the situation and deal with it.

I want to deal with it.

I was a bit surprised, although pleasantly so that Cameron should admit that politicians have been too much in thrall to the tabloid press and the Murdoch press in particular. It is one of those aspects of public life that has been so prevalent for so long that it barely even merits a mention and of course politicians would never have admitted what Cameron has just done in public. Ed Miliband has also said something similar publicly too.

Cameron is of course responding to the current firestorm around the News of the World and tabloid phone hacking allegations. But the influence of the press generally and the tabloid press in particular runs much deeper.

Already Lance Price, Tony Blair's former spin doctor has off the back of this said that Murdoch had a very strong influence on Labour's attitude to the Euro during his time in office.

But there are lots of areas of policy where there is a strong suspicion that the influence of the tabloids and The Sun/NotW in particular has held sway. One of the most obvious has been in drugs policy.

I have become fairly active in campaigning for a relaxation of the drugs laws and lobbying for a more evidence based approach in recent years and have blogged about various aspects of it on many occasions. Given the fact that in his early days as an MP, David Cameron had put his name to a Select Committee report that recommended a more liberal approach to drugs I had hoped his election as Conservative leader would have heralded a new way of dealing with this. But by the time of the leadership campaign in 2005 his views were downgraded to "options should be considered" and by the time I questioned him on the subject in early 2010, just before the General Election he had very firmly distanced himself from his former views.

The strange way in which politicians seem willing to engage with and consider evidence based approaches to the subject of drugs policy when they are a long way from power and how that changes to backing the status quo as they get closer to power is somewhat hard to understand. Unless you factor in the way the press treats the issue with labels like "Soft on drugs" and appeals to emotion regarding keeping children safe (despite the fact that more children than ever can get drugs now under the current regime). Any senior politician who steps outside the narrow tramlines permitted for debate regarding drugs is apt to find themselves hounded by the tabloid press.

Here is what former Conservative Minister Phillip Oppenhein told me about the subject when I interviewed him a couple of years ago:

I think that politicians would be surprised at the response they would get to a serious debate on the subject. My experience is that a lot of Tories now favour reform, but they are terrified about being seen as soft on drugs by the media and prejudicing an almost certain election victory. Cameron had a chance to start a real debate when his own drug taking experiences became an issue, but I guess he was too timid to do so.

If politicians from the PM down are now genuinely throwing off the shackles off the tyranny of the tabloid press then they should no longer have anything to fear from an open and honest debate on this subject.

If that was to happen, perhaps something very good could come of this horrible scandal with the harm caused by drugs in our society greatly reduced under a liberalised, controlled regime rather than leaving it to the gangsters backed by screaming tabloid headlines.

This post was first published on Dale & Co.

Almost two thirds of people think drug users should not be criminalised

Interesting result from a recent YouGov poll on drugs. The following question was asked:

Suppose people use illegal drugs but have not committed any other crime. In general, should such people be treated as criminals and brought before the courts, or should they be treated as people who may need medical treatment and other forms of support?

And the responses were:

• They should be treated as criminals and brought before the courts: 30%
• They should be treated as people who may need treatment and other forms of support: 62%
• Don't know: 7%

So more than two thirds of those who expressed a view and nearly two thirds of all respondents think that drug users should not be criminalised.

Given this sort of finding, I find it bizarre that politicians and ministers are still unwilling to enter a serious debate about decriminalising or legalising drugs. The reasons I hear again and again are that it is politically difficult to do so and that's why most senior politicians are not willing to engage with it. But how on earth can that be true when the majority of people actually think drug users should not be being criminalised? And what does it say about our political structure that these people and that view are largely being sidelined? A shrewd politician would surely be able to find the words and the approach to go with this very strong grain of public opinion?

So who from the senior ranks of all parties is going to step up to the plate and speak for two-thirds of the British public on this subject?