Calls for the legalisation of drugs in Britain are repetitive. Prohibition has failed! The government must end the War on Drugs! There are liberals in favour of legalisation on the left. There are libertarians in favour of legalisation on the right. Both say Britain (or the West)'s terrifying crackdown on illegal drugs has been tried for 40 years, and has failed miserably.
There are arguments in favour of legalising drugs. There is the argument that we should allow Britons to smoke, snort, swallow or inject whatever they like. Do whatever you want in your own home as long as it's not hurting anyone else sort of thing. There is the argument that drug users are not criminals but victims, and they must be helped by not attaching stigma to them. There are also arguments against legalising drugs. I seek not to deal with the issue of legalisation itself, but of the current situation.
In Mexico there is what could be described as a war between the Mexican state and the drugs cartels that operate in that country. That conflict spills over the American border. Critics of British drugs laws are all too quick to point to the situation in those countries, and call British drug policies, and those of the West in general a "war" against drugs. But legalisers on both left and right ignore a rather important point: the "war" label is a red herring, and the language used to describe Britain's response to drugs is extremely misleading. Britain has never had a "War on Drugs" (See Peter Hitchens' new book, "The War We Never Fought").
We currently have a system where the production and sale of illegal drugs is punished to some degree, but there exists an intensely relaxed system for the personal use of the same drugs. The legal establishment, law enforcement and political class regard personal drug use as a small pleasure, which many teenagers and some adults will experiment with, and should be allowed to do so as part of the natural growing up process, or for coping with boring everyday life. That creates an organised hypocrisy whereby our politicians tell us drugs are wrong and evil, and destroy lives, but then do nothing to prevent the personal use of illegal drugs.
