Democracy is a great idea, but the problem is it gives us politicians who can be the most dishonest peddlers of misinformation on the planet. David Cameron showed just how badly politicians can mislead when he answered a question about cannabis law reform this week.
First of all, a reality check; In what now seems like a golden age of enlightenment Melanie Philips – herself the antithesis of enlightenment – in typical outraged style quoted David Cameron who said in 2002
Customs and Excise is supposed to keep the drugs out. The police and the courts are supposed to catch and punish users and dealers. It hasn’t worked.
Indeed, David Cameron, the leader of the ConDem government and sadly now our Prime Minister used to understand the futility of prohibition and before he took over the leadership of the Conservatives he was making some pretty intelligent comments about the need for drug law reform. Now he’s in a position to actually do something about it it seems he’s changed from being a well informed person willing to consider change to a total bigot who justifies his actions on the back of deliberate misinformation.
That David Cameron bases cannabis policy on total fabrication became clear last week when he answered a question on Al Jazeera TV sent to him from “Owain R” from Lancashire concerning the legalisation of cannabis. Interestingly this was the second most popular subject people asked questions about so it’s clearly on the political agenda. Owain asked (the question happens at about 10min 40secs):
Why is marijuana illegal when alcohol and tobacco are more addictive and dangerous to our health, but we manage to control them? Wouldn’t education about drugs from a younger age be better?
There are a lot of ways Cameron could have answered that question, including honestly, but instead he answered:
Well there’s one bit of that question I agree with which I think education about drugs is vital and we should make sure that education programmes are there in our schools and we should make sure that they work. But I don’t really accept the rest of the question. I think if you actually look at the sort of marijuana that is on sale today, it is actually incredibly damaging, very, very toxic and leads to, in many cases, huge mental health problems. But I think the more fundamental reason for not making these drugs legal is that to make them legal would make them even more prevalent and would increase use levels even more than they are now. So I don’t think it is the right answer. I think a combination of education, also treatment programmes for drug addicts, I think those are the two most important planks of a proper anti-drug policy.
On the subject of medial cannabis Cameron said
That is a matter for the science and medical authorities to determine and they are free to make independent determinations about that.
And to sum up he said
But the question here about whether illegal drugs should be made legal, my answer is no.
Leaving aside the issue of education – which is after all about learning facts based on the truth, the rest of Cameron’s answer was just so wrong
I think if you actually look at the sort of marijuana that is on sale today, it is actually incredibly damaging,
Cameron seems to be implying that the cannabis on sale these days is different to what used to be sold. This, of course, is the great “skunk scare” we’ve heard so much about; the claims that street cannabis is now “25 fold stronger” than it used to be (Sunday Independent) and that this is leading to all sorts of terrible harms as other gutter press tabloids like the Daily Mail have been claiming.
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