Pubdate: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 Source: Times, The (UK) Column: Parliamentary Sketch Copyright: 2007 Times Newspapers Ltd Contact: http://www.the-times.co.uk/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/454 Author: Ann Treneman Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?207 (Cannabis - United Kingdom) CRIMEBUSTERS GO TO POT IN A HAZE OF CANNABIS SMOKE The tragic consequences of what can happen when someone smoked cannabis 25 years ago were there for all to see in the Commons yesterday. I refer, of course, to Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary. She had come to tell us about the Government's crime reduction strategy. I regret to report that she was forgetful, confused and, once or twice, very close to having a fit of the giggles. Perhaps she no longer feels the need to hide the effects. Who knows? Clearly she has an addictive personality. Yesterday morning, having told one TV station about drug-fuelled behaviour in the 1980s, she couldn't wait to tell another. Indeed, drug experts believe that her compulsion to tell her story was only thwarted by the fact that she ran out of TV stations. Sadly, her behaviour had already had the unfortunate effect of encouraging her peers to indulge in soul-baring. We had all thought that Tony McNulty, a Home Office minister, was her partner in crime-stopping. Now we know that he was a partner in crime as well. He admitted yesterday morning (so early in the day!) that he had smoked cannabis "once or twice". Vernon Coaker, another Home Office minister whose name has always set off alarm bells, has also admitted he went to pot years ago. They were there on the front bench, looking glazed and vacant as Ms Smith explained why everything is wonderful. "Over the past ten years, we have revolutionised the crime-fighting landscape," she noted. Can you revolutionise a landscape? Does Che know? Or was that the drugs talking from all those years ago? She was hazy on details. Indeed, it was impossible to tell, from listening to her, what was going on. "As today's crime statistics show, we are holding the improvements to the falls in crime," she announced. What did it mean? Or did it mean nothing? David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, was too busy abseiling to smoke cannabis 25 years ago. Perhaps it wasn't a coincidence, then, that he painted a very different picture. Crime was not going down, he said, and the public knew it. "All the fiddled figures in the world will not change their minds," he sneered. "This morning on television," he noted, prompting immediate flashbacks, "you said that drug crime is down. I just do not know where that idea is from." I think everyone watching had the same thought. Indeed, by then, Westminster had become slightly drug-crazed. A colleague arrived in the press gallery, glanced at Ms Smith and noted: "She hasn't brought her bong." Certainly Ms Smith had managed to reclassify herself, though we still don't know about cannabis itself. Ms Smith insisted that crime was going down. She said that the chances of becoming a victim of crime were at "historically low levels". But Mr Davis insisted that crime was skyrocketing: violent crime had doubled, knife crime had doubled, and gun crime had doubled. Can crime be both this good (Smith) and this bad (Davis) at the same time? We were seeing double. I'm not sure what happened in the chamber but, gradually, a party atmosphere seemed to creep in. A Tory MP invited Ms Smith to Kettering. "We could spend the night together," he noted to great excitement, "with the local constabulary chasing the 260 persistent prolific offenders in Northamptonshire!" Ms Smith responded by calling him her "honourable friend" but then quickly took it back. "We're not friends yet," she cried. "But we might be after our night out in Kettering!" So, Kettering, watch out: for, as we know all too well after yesterday, politicians love a party. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake