Knee Jerk Response Of The Day

From The Metro:

A six-year study by the UK Drug Policy Commission showed most of the billions Britain spends annually tackling illegal drugs is not justified. For cannabis, the commission suggested that amending the law relating to the growing of it, at least for personal use, might go some way to ‘undermining the commercialisation of production’.

And so on and so forth.

The Home Office insisted its approach to tackling drugs is the right one. "Drug usage is at it lowest level since records began," a spokeswoman said.

That's one way of trying to measure the success or otherwise of a drugs policy, even though actual usage figures are largely guesswork. Problem is of course, that countries which legalised e.g. cannabis all saw a slight fall in consumption (to the extent it can be measured etc).

And no doubt Dame Ruth Runciman, chairwoman of this Commission will get Nutted in due course.

Home Office Fun

Two stories from today's Metro remind us that the country is run by idiots.

Page 1: Making meow meow, BZP and spice illegal will not stop people from trying them but will put them at risk from dealers who mix them with dangerous cutting agents, according to a report from the UK Drug Policy Commission.

In 2008 and 2009, when the now-banned meow meow was growing in popularity, cocaine-related deaths dropped by 28 per cent. The relaxation and subsequent re-introduction of controls on cannabis use also had no impact on the general decline in the drug’s use, the report claims...

However, the Home Office said it had no plans to change drug law. "We believe the Misuse of Drugs Act works and continues to protect the public from the serious harms caused by illicit drug use," it added.

Page 2: The article is a nice bit of shroud waving by The Police Federation. Yes of course the police force could be put to better use or cut costs a bit, that's not the point; the relevant bit is right at the end:

A Home Office spokesman said: "As a service spending £14 billion a year of public money, the police can and must make their fair share of the savings."

Yup, that £14 billion is about one per cent of GDP, or about two per cent of total UK government spending (prisons is another £4 billion or so on top of that). Seeing as maintaining law and order is the corest of the core functions of state and only makes up two per cent of total spending anyway, I don't think this is the right place to start if you're trying to save money.

Would it not make more sense to look at the £14 billion we send to the EU each year, or the £10 billion which the Department of (for?) Work & Pensions spends on administration costs each year?

"Drugs swoops have little impact"

Woo hoo! They've finally noticed!

Police are fighting a losing battle against drugs crime, with seizures having little impact on cutting supply or reducing demand, research suggests.

The government clearly weren't happy with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, who recently concluded that there was no point in increasing criminal penalties for possession of cannabis, and were of course promptly ignored.

So now we've got the UK Drug Policy Commission, which is basically a bunch of Labour luvvies (i.e. I've never heard of any of them except The Fink), and they come up with the same conclusions.

This is sort of the opposite of 'going native'. The gummint sets up these quangos, lets them know in no uncertain terms what sort of conclusions they want them to reach, sits back ... and nope, sorry, the answer is unchanged and it's not the one the gummint wants.

Next time they might as well play safe and staff it with tabloid editors.