I've been out of the loop for a couple of weeks buried in work so haven't paid much attention to blogging and so on. recently a senior police officer in Oxfordshire told local media he would like to see an informed and open debate on drugs policy and specifically a look at whether legalisation would be better. Slightly surprisingly it hasn't generated a huge hoo-ha in the letters pages, but one yesterday I thought worth replying to...

Dear Sir,

I disagree with my good friend Alan Lester (8th March) and congratulate David McWhirter for wanting to raise the debate on drugs policy.

For while politicians run scared of proposing radical ideas because of the tyranny of focus groups the police, as agents who implement current policy, can provide the evidence that what they have to enforce, and how, contribute to the deaths of those who have fallen into the oftentimes inescapable grasp of insidious addictions. As such, it is bad law.

Further, the law is discriminatory. If you have money to book yourself into the Priory or similar you get a telling off and perhaps even kudos for doing something about your problem. If you are poorer, you are at the mercy of public treatment and rehabilitation regimes and ultimately more likely to end up in jail.

We should start with some very fundamental questions. Like why are certain things banned, and not others? Many would be shocked at the racism and prejudice that accompanied prohibition. Alcohol and tobacco are bigger killers than all illegal substances put together. Sugar, as I should know, is coming up fast on the rails. Millions are addicts to caffeine and thousands to prescription drugs.

Once monarchs, emperors and ministers used opium. Popular pick-me-ups contained cocaine. And whatever effect they had on the individual was as nothing compared with the effects of prohibition on society, locally and globally, today.

Sincerely,

Jock Coats,