The spooky thing is that every politician who admits to having a puff says that they didn’t enjoy it at all, some go further and say they were forced or tricked into it. (Interesting declension of the verb for having a puff: “I tried it, you smoked it, they used it”). You do have to wonder how it ever got so popular if everyone who tries it doesn’t enjoy it. There are a few logical reasons for this:

• Our politicians are unrepresentative of the general population. Or…
• They are fibbing. Or…
• There is nothing special about dope one way or another, and its only popular because its illegal.

That last one is the most positive for the politicians – it implies that the sort of people who base their tastes on whether they actually like something and not for a cheap thrill of doing something naughty are the sort of people who tend to become politicians. In other words it implies that politicians are unrepresentative of the population but only because they are better. Mind you, it also implies that you could solve the drugs problem by making them legal so they would have to be careful using it as an explanation.

A mixture of all three seems most likely…

Maybe thats the answer to a few problems though. We could solve the country’s obesity problems by making fresh vegetables illegal and then we would see all the young rebels loitering in shady alleys waiting for their broccoli dealer to turn up.

Of course, everyone with a blog or newspaper column is making variations on the same comments, but I think that there is a conclusion which can be drawn from all the questions and admissions, but it can be drawn not from the answers, or even from the questions but from the fact that the question is asked at all and how it is asked.

It is now routine for journalists to ask new or newly-prominent politicians if they have ever tried cannabis and they ask it with every expectation of getting an answer. Unless they are asking Dave the Chameleon obviously. I think this shows some sort of assumption that society doesn’t really have much of a problem with it and does not really see it as a crime.

Can you imagine it being routine for politicians to be asked if they have ever shoplifted? Or if they have ever beaten their dog? Or if they have ever driven while drunk? Or if those questions were asked would the questioner really expect any sort of answer beyond a deflection which accuses the questioner of being impertinent and offensive? Put it another way, if an MP had nicked some CDs from a shop in his youth, mistreated his pets, often driven home after downing 8 pints at a party and had regularly wound down with a spliff and had to admit to one, which one would they most likely admit to?

I would love, just once, for an MP to say “I used to smoke dope. I enjoyed it. It so happens that I don’t smoke at all now, but I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

And I still can’t work out why classified drugs are “used” while even the most seasoned alcoholic is not said to ‘use’ alcohol and chain-smokers are not said to ‘use’ cigarettes. If fact if you are addicted, whether to cocaine, alcohol, tobacco or cannabis it is probably more accurate to say you are being used by the fags, booze, or whatever than the other way round. “Use” implies a degree of control which the addict does not really have.

I doubt if anyone at my (state) school had ever seen illegal drugs, if they did they never mentioned it.  I can only assume that society moved on in the 4 years since I went to school and Dave went.  Either that or its just another example of how they do things differently at Eton. 

I can’t help remembering what the late, great Bill Hicks had to say about the war on drugs – that someone addicted to drugs is ill, not a criminal, and you don’t cure sick people by putting them in prison.

I’m firmly against the idea on both moral and practical grounds.

The moral grounds are that I don’t feel that most drugs are inherently bad – OK in moderation but bad if taken to excess. Just like alcohol: another drug but one which, although causing more deaths, injuries and anti-social behaviour than all other drugs put together is deemed socially acceptable. Pure coincidence that the drugs which are taxed are OK, but the others are bad.

There are several practical grounds. The first one is the total lack of joined-up thinking. The Home Office is already considering releasing prisoners because of over-crowding. Criminalising a whole new chunk of the population does not look like it will help.

A second practical consideration is that a lot of drug-takers do not have much of a choice. Even if not addicted, they will know how much they want and how long it will last. Having never bought drugs myself, I am guessing a bit here, but I would have thought that the actual buying is the most risky part of the whole experience: that is where an average consumer is more likely to come into contact with a criminal. If I was buying drugs I would feel happier buying twice as much so I have to only make that transaction half as often. If you can only buy a couple of joints’ worth at a time you will have to be visiting dealers all the time surely.

Closely connected to that is the economy of scale. We buy baked beans, washing powder, tinned tomatoes, tea bags and toilet rolls in bulk because it is cheaper that way. The drug-takers most likely to turn to crime to fund their purchases are the poorer ones. Forcing them to either criminalise themselves or buy in smaller portions at a higher unit cost is not going to improve matters there. By the way, I don’t know how long 10 joints would last – lets be conservative and say a fortnight – but having a month’s worth does not seem excessive. At times I have had enough tea bags in the house to last me a couple of months without there ever being any suggestion that I was intending to deal in tea bags, and some of the booze-cruisers returning from France weighed down with crates of beer and wine and a few thousand cigarettes really are just stocking up for a few months.

In fact, I suspect a greater proportion of booze-cuisers are ‘dealing’ than those who have 10g of cannabis. (Yes – a couple of cartons of fags for a work colleague does count)

The whole thing smacks of a department trying to look tough by hitting out at the easy targets.

Our company has changed its supplier of medical services and today was the first visit by the new lot. Previously we were allowed to go into the toilets to produce our urine samples in peace, but now we have a lady to follow us in and listen to what is going on.

Or what is not going on… somehow, and even after drinking lots of fluids all morning, having someone keeping tabs on you has a somewhat inhibiting effect!

With an invasion of privacy like that on a quarterly basis, I find it difficult to get worked up about ID cards…

Boisclair’s admission created a stir in the Canadian press, but it does not seem to have harmed him in the polls — the Montreal Gazette reported that he gained 11 points the day after he admitted the drug use.

Its not too late for Cameron to say he did coke – whether its true or not.