From the relentless pro-drugs legalisation media blitz of the last few weeks, you would think this was the most pressing item on the government's agenda after the floods. It is not. Who is behind this campaign with a Gantt chart on their wall logging the daily media hits is a question for another day.
My worry is why responsible people are lending their names to this "cause" when they are so obviously ignorant of the facts and the implications. I am not bothered about Russell Brand. His petition demanding a parliamentary debate has become the stuff of comedy, given his earlier public strictures on ignoring democracy. Beyond celebrity groupies and metropolitan admirers, his erratic and self-serving ramblings won't persuade.
No, the people who perturb me are middle-aged political converts to this cause: Nick Clegg, Nigel Farage, Daniel Hannan and Norman Fowler. Whether intentionally or not, they have aligned themselves in a culture war which pits the liberal against traditionalist, cosmopolitan against parochial and old against young. This is what drugs' legalisation is about: a war over fundamental values. It is not a battle about basic freedoms – far from it. Drugs enslave.
