silly season for addled idiots

So here we go again, some eejit with nothing better to do thinks it's time to legalise all drugs, because Welsh chief constable Richard Brunstrom has called for legalisation and regulation of all drugs, describing the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 as 'not fit for purpose' and 'immoral', urging its repeal."

There is a very good case to be made for decriminalising heroin under some conditions and prescribing it to people who are already addicted. It would vastly reduce the misery suffered by the victims of burglary and dealing, and moreover would make great inroads into reducing street-prostitution, as well as taking the most vulnerable (predominantly) women and girls out of situations where they might fall prey to the sort of scum who profit from their abuse at the hands of scum who use street prostitutes.

But what about stimulants?

This is the point at which pedants jump up and protest that caffeine's a stimulant. So it is, but caffeine never dissolved a nasal septum, bled calcium from bones, nails and teeth, induced impulsive crime and aggression or was to blame for unintended or even non-consensual sex. Cocaine does the first, amphetamines the second, both of them (and also methamphetamine) the third, and all three plus ecstasy the last - although a skinful can do the last two for less layout. Ecstasy, moreover, carries the perverse risk of death by drinking too much water due to its well-known effect of dehydration. Nobody in their right mind drinks a lethal amount of water, but if you have a roomful of people who have dropped E's then you will find nobody in their right mind.

Steroids turn the level playing field that sport should be played upon into a quagmire, lead to aggression and baldness (ever wondered why slapheads are moody buggers?), but on the upside, M&S will give any man brave enough to enter the lingerie section a free bra-fitting. And they shrink testicles to the dimensions of peanuts. Talking of which, as they are illicit and therefore not regulated, the carrier-oil can be anything...like peanut oil. Ouch.

And then there's the last refuge of the warm fuzzy liberal, cannabis. You know, the stuff that Bill Clinton put in the reefer that he tried to play the flute with. Trendy politicians push each other out of the way to offload that they did inhale once upon a time, and do not take it into account that cannabis has been selectively bred in the last two decades to maximise the amount of THC, the main one of the 60 or so psychoactive ingredients. Kids are ending up in psychiatric wards because they never had a chance in the face of huge amounts of psychosis-causing chemicals and of the collusion of their elders.

If the 1971 Act is not fit for purpose, it is precisely because it has been chipped away at by the cool, if unintended, products of middle-class upbringings stirring up sub-working-class sentiments to satisfy their need for publicity and controversy. Nothing wrong with being middle-class, of course (some of my best friends have fondue sets!), but when somebody with the means to spread their articulate attention-seeking propaganda among the fuddled masses pulls strings, we get the sort of Greek tragedies that have been inflicted upon the world by Marx, Lenin, Franco, Mosely, and not to forget St Clayre-Rayner, patron of professional victims.

In the draughty old fen, our hard-working sergeant is at pains to point out that recent drugs seizures don't mean we have an entrenched drug problem. Which is a good thing, as the tender mercies of John Barleycorn Esq upon some of our young folk keep the police busy. Mr Brunstrom should listen to his police officers and PCSO's on the ground before he gives the green light for the nation to get high.