Drugs and the Tories

[Saracen]

Saracen, you are making an important and totally invalid distinction there (i think, correct me if i have missed it) - you seem to separate drugs and alcohol. They are one and the same thing. Alcohol is a nasty poison/drug that is just as 'bad' (or on the same level) as any other recreational drug. If I take it that you are just using alcohol as an example of a drug though you make a good point.

Well, I regard them as the same in some ways, but different in others.

They are the same in the broad sense of physiological effects, but different in legal and social aspects.

The term 'drugs' is obviously a very wide one, from aspirin to crack cocaine or heroine. So in this context, by "drugs" I'm obviously talking about illegal ones and, really, Class A ones. Maybe Class B.

In that sense, mere possession is illegal as is dealing. The simple fact that this is so has an impact on availability and price, and that makes it a rather different market from alcohol. After all, if booze is your 'poison', you can get a fix at the local supermarket or off-licence. It seems to me to be pretty clear that a large portion of petty crime (car crime, burglary, etc) is drug related. Many people needs significant sums of cash to feed their drug habit. I'm not aware of many people doing burglaries to feed their alcohol habit. So there seems to be clear distinction there.

And there seems to be a difference in terms of petty street violence too. There is a lot of minor violent crime and antisocial behaviour due to (usually) young people coming out of bars, pubs and clubs totally bombed and getting into scuffles and punchups in the street. The sheer scale of this gives police a major policing problem in that it certainly isn't practical to nick everybody staggering home potted, for drunk and disorderly.

That is what I see as the difference between drugs and alcohol. While the effect on the boady may often be broadly similar, and both present serious issues, the economics, policing and social impact affect us in different ways.

[alterion]

I also don;t think its relevant. at 19-21 i would guess at least 50% of people would have tried drugs and david camron probably hadn't decided at that time that he was going to fail at becoming leader of the country. now he is older its natural that his views have changed in the benefit of hindsight. Having said that the drugs issue has caused a suffiecnt cloud now that any tory attempts to change the drugs policy in the future would come crashing in. My own view on the matter is that you can with ban ciggies or legalize minor drugs such as cannabis. I think that drugs that clearly are extremely powerful and offer no real "reasonable use" should certainly be kept illegal. however as a liberal i acknowledge that in the future many class A drugs should be legalized even if i don;'t like the idea in order to ensure that they can be legislated and controlled and separted from more harmful intoxicants. (btw that was probably a horrid post to read.. sorry)

[mike_dowler]

There is certainly a legal difference between 'drugs' and alcohol, whatever one's personal moral preferences might be on the subject - as has already been pointed out, possession of class A drugs is a serious offence. The fact that many people may have committed this offence does not change the fact that it is (at the moment) illegal.

As a politician, and particularly as a candidate for leadership of a mainstream political party, David Cameron's personal opinions on drugs and drug-taking are of great public interest. That means it is an appropriate topic for questions by journalists (unlike the alleged drug use of his relative, which is a private matter).

It seems to me that he really had only two possible options:
1) Say he is favour of decriminilisation/legalisation
2) Say that he is in favour of the status quo (not the band!)

If 2) applies, as I suspect it does (particluarly as he hasn't said anything to the contrary afaik), then the issue of whether he has taken drugs in the past is relevant. If not, then he should say so and be proud of the fact. If he has, then he needs to admit that he made some mistakes in the past, and be willing to submit to prosecution if appropriate.

Either way, you can't just pretend something didn't happen just because he was young at the time, although it would be a reason for the public to forgive him if they felt that he now regretted his past actions.