Pubdate: Sun, 01 May 2016
Source: Mail on Sunday, The (UK)
Copyright: 2016 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/255
Author: Peter Hitchens

CLEGG'S DRUGS CONFESSION

SOME things are unsayable in British politics. One such is the truth 
that cannabis has been, for many years, a decriminalised drug. The 
police, the CPS and the courts have given up any serious effort to 
arrest and prosecute users, just as evidence starts to pour in that 
it is extremely dangerous.

Instead our elite moan about 'prohibition', which does not exist, and 
the cruel 'criminalisation' of dope-smokers, which would be their own 
fault if it happened, but actually doesn't. Arrests for this offence 
are rarer every week, and some police forces openly say they don't do 
it any more.

Only two years ago, when he was Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg 
claimed in The Sun newspaper that we were throwing supposedly 
harmless drug users into prison at the rate of a thousand a year. 
I've never been able to find out where this figure comes from. But on 
Thursday, he dramatically changed his tune. I extracted from him, on 
live TV, the most honest thing any senior British politician has 
actually said on the subject.

'There is sort of de facto decriminalisation of cannabis going on... 
it's not a very remarkable discovery. Everyone knows it.

'Of course there is de facto decriminalisation ... let's have a bit 
of honesty that decriminalisation is happening de facto.'

He acted as if he'd been saying this all along. Has anyone else ever 
heard him do so?

The incessant lie that we are waging a failed 'war on drugs' with 
prohibition and persecution only fuels the cynical, greedy campaign 
for full legalisation. If this succeeds, we will get advertising of 
drugs, drugs on sale on the internet and in the high street, and 
untold irreversible misery.

Now at least Mr Clegg, of all people, has exposed that lie. Let's 
hope it's not too late.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom