Do-gooders who have not thought about drugs since school will nod.
Just because Nick Clegg speaks in clichés does not mean he is an idiot. But when he says, as he did in an interview with The Sun on Friday, "We are losing the war on drugs on an industrial scale," we ought to be on our guard. "Industrial scale" is one of his favourite phrases. The Liberal Democrats have betrayed their promises on an industrial scale, and they are going to lose votes at the next election on an industrial scale. But Clegg has a plan for the next election that might just work.
On drugs, his plan is to talk liberal garbage. Cliché after cliché. "Losing the war on drugs." "A conspiracy of silence." "It's time we told the truth." Lots of right-on do-gooders who have not thought seriously about drugs since school will nod and think that liberalisation, decriminalisation or legalisation – whatever – is a good idea. Yet the truth is that no one has a better idea, except in minor details, than the present policy, which has been remarkably successful.
From 1998 to 2011, the proportion of young people aged 16 to 24 who had taken illegal drugs in the past month has halved from 20 per cent to 10 per cent, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales. This Labour achievement, at a time when the consumption of legal drugs, alcohol and tobacco, has also fallen, is ignored by people who are under the influence of that ancient piece of rhetoric, "the war on drugs is not working".
