Pubdate: Sun, 29 May 2016
Source: Mail on Sunday, The (UK)
Copyright: 2016 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/255
Author: Peter Hitchens

ONE MORE LIE IN THE DRUGS 'WAR'

THE trumpeted 'ban on legal highs' is a fiction, like the rest of our 
drug laws. The new Act imposes no penalties at all for possessing 
these dangerous poisons - except for people who are already in jail.

This is an amazing giveaway of the Government's real drugs policy, 
which is to look the other way while pretending to be 'tough'.

In fact, simple possession of cannabis, heroin or cocaine is now 
hardly punished at all, even though it is illegal.

Claims that this 'frees up' the police to pursue 'evil dealers' are 
not backed up by the figures. Prosecutions for these offences stay 
about the same each year.

It makes no sense. The thing that makes the dealers, importers and 
growers evil is the damage that the drugs actually do to their users 
and their families.

The final, crucial link in this wicked chain is the purchase of the 
drug by the user. Yet this is the one thing we don't punish.

Users are let off, or treated as if they are the victims of an 
irresistible disease.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom