Description
Book SynopsisAgain and again British politicians, commentators and celebrities intone that ''The War on Drugs has failed''. They then say that this is an argument for abandoning all attempts to reduce drug use through the criminal law.
Peter Hitchens shows that in Britain there has been no serious ''war on drugs'' since 1971, when a Tory government adopted a Labour plan to implement the revolutionary Wootton report. This gave cannabis, the most widely used illegal substance, a special legal status as a supposedly ''soft'' drug (in fact, Hitchens argues, it is at least as dangerous as heroin and cocaine because of the threat it poses to mental health). It began a progressive reduction of penalties for possession, and effectively disarmed the police.
This process still continues, behind a screen of falsely ''tough'' rhetoric from politicians. Far from there being a ''war on drugs'', there has been a covert surrender to drugs, concealed behind an official obeisance to internati
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements Preface I. The Secret Capitulation 1. Cannabis is a Cause 2. How to Sink Giggling into the Sea 3. Psychiatry is Not an Exact Science 4. The Real Purpose of Classification 5. No Use Appealing to God. Try John Stuart Mill 6. Cannabis and Violence 7. What about Alcohol and Tobacco then? 8. The Cabinet gets it Wrong 9. Enter Richard Crosman 10. Jim Callaghan's last Stand II. The Search for Soma 11. Aldous Huxley 12. The Left Casts of its Puritan Garments 13. The Mysterious Spread of Cannabis 14. Jaggerism is Invented 15. Bloomsbury Takes Over Britain via the Airwaves 16. Steve Adams Steps Up to Explain 17. The Long March-Wootton and After 18. Widdicombe Unfair 19. Lady Runciman - Who is She? 20. Legislation on the Beat - Brian Paddick 21. The Great Red Herring - Medical Marijuana 22. Freeing Up or Freeing Down 23. Some Notes on Harm Reduction and Rehabilitation 24. The Demoralisation of Britain Index
