During the covid debacle, Peter Hitchens spoke a great deal of common sense. However on other subjects, he can be flaky. This is one of them.
Optimism is a cruel deceiver. It led many to think that Al Johnson would be a good and conservative Prime Minister, and then he wasn’t either of those. He never had been, and if you had paid attention to me, you’d have known. Now optimism is persuading many to buy shares in Nigel Farage, supposedly England’s last best hope. He is not. Do you have to find out for yourselves, or will you listen to me?
Actually, I’m going to use my own assessment. And I will take Nige over Hitch. Why?
But, by contrast, look at the subject of drugs, on which there are other supposed leaders of the people who are also feeble and defeatist.
Ah, yeah, Hitch’s old war drum. He does keep banging it. Marijuana is a bee in his bonnet and on this subject, all reason vanishes.
Mr Farage does not talk about this much but on April 2, 2010, on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions, he emitted the following: ‘I have a feeling that prohibition in this whole area simply isn’t working. Every year we say that we are going to fight the war on drugs harder than we have fought it the year before.
‘And I think this is one of those areas of life, and, whilst people may find this distasteful, I think we need a proper, full Royal Commission on this whole area of drugs to investigate whether perhaps life might be better for millions of people living on council estates that are dominated by the drugs dealers, that are dominated by the crime that surrounds, the money that people raise, to get these drugs.
This appears to be a perfectly rational piece of reasoning. After all, how is that war on drugs going? Have we won yet? How did prohibition of alcohol work in the USA? Did they win that one? If something is made illegal, it doesn’t stop the market, it merely creates a whole field of criminal enterprise. If someone wants to destroy their lives with substance abuse, then let them. We allow people access to alcohol, which is a potentially destructive drug. We are seeing an attempt to ban tobacco, which is probably far less destructive, and with it, an increase in access to illicitly obtained supplies. You can certainly get hold of cheap baccy in Bristol these days. So how is that ban going to work?
‘Let’s find out through a Royal Commission whether perhaps we should decriminalise drugs, whether we should license them, license the users, and sell them at Boots – because frankly if you add up the costs of drugs to society the big problem is the fact that they’re criminal and everything that goes with that. And I think there is an argument that says if we decriminalised it, we would make the lives of millions of people far better than they are today.’ He more or less repeated this in a newspaper interview four years later.
Yes? So? It means that he has maintained a consistent position. It’s a perfectly reasonable position.
This is also the view of the North London liberals Mr Farage appears to despise. It has been utterly and predictably discredited by several jurisdictions and countries where marijuana has been legalised. The criminal trade flourishes alongside the legal one.
See also, tobacco, but so what? By allowing people legal access, it will undermine the criminal one (no one has claimed that it will completely disappear) and for some, it will mean cleaner supplies, with tax revenue from the sales. The point being, you cannot stop it, so why try? There are more important things to concentrate on. After all, what is Hitch proposing? More of the same? A failed strategy that is wasteful and pointless? That achieves nothing? That has certainly had around a century in which to prove itself effective and yet has done no such thing. We get it, for Hitch, drugs are bad, m’kay. I agree, which is why I don’t take them. If others want to, providing they understand the risks, then let them.
He also didn’t like it one bit when I reminded him that he had saved the Tory Party in the 2019 Election, by withdrawing dozens of Brexit Party candidates from Tory-held seats.
We know why he did that. It’s because he believed them when they promised to behave like Tories. He is guilty of naiveté here, but nothing else. He has had time since then to reflect and regret.
Put not your trust in Nigel. He is surprisingly like all the others.
I’d put rather trust in Nigel Farage than I would Peter Hitchens’ analysis of him, which is sailing very closely to the ad hominem.
Anyone who thinks Nigel Farage is going to come sailing back in and save the Tories as their new party leader is delusional, but as Chairman of Reform and letting Richard Tice do the leading he’ll do very nicely.
The Tories are doomed to lose the next election and wander the political wilderness until they rupture into factions and the Conservative party as we know it ceases to exist OR they find a leader that can lead them and policies worth voting for.
Nobody wants Blue Labour and nobody will vote for them apart from the wets and the WEF’s. I’ll be surprised if they get a 100 seats come the election.
Indeed, he should remain with Reform.
There are plenty of people who believe that what they believe can be made true and effective in society. We all do it to some extent but most of us, not seeking to make a living from our opinions, have little more humility.
There is no such thing as society (h/t M Thatcher) just lots of mostly ordinary doing their own thing. Some of those people become easily addicted. Some are criminals and will seek their own advantage at any cost. Some even believe that a glorious Utopia beckons where the lion shall lay down with the lamb and everybody will love their caring leaders.
But attempt a quality adjusted life years analysis (QUALY) and The Powers That Be get all squirmy – because any argument about the trade off of a social change (Lockdown, drug decriminalisation, smoking bans etc.) reveals that TPTB are not all powerful and some people will still be harmed. And today’s politicians avoid blame like the plague. Or pandemic.
Part of the reason that decriminalisation of drugs still results in criminal activity is that the prod noses and pen pushers can’t bring themselves to actually deregulate it. The US experience is that the costs of legally growing and selling marijuana are such that is becomes expensive versus the illegal version.
The same type of people (just infesting a different government department) are also the ones who ban everything because of their puritanical attitude.
To summarise, the clerisy are yet again to blame for the woes of the country.
I understand that Portugal has decriminalised drugs; you’d never know if you’re daft enough to consult the msm. Can anyone confirm with facts?
Hmmm. I have read somewhere else about substances that were safe and effective.
And they were legal.
In fact the legislators, who decree which drugs might possibly harm people, encouraged, demanded, that everybody of all ages, regardless of all other medical condition, including pregnancy where even the teensyest weensyest drop of very dilute alcohol is baad, take.
But they were certainly not effective.
And the same legislators are banning all serious discussion, research and opinions on the “safe” factor.
LR said: “If something is made illegal, it doesn’t stop the market, it merely creates a whole field of criminal enterprise.” This doesn’t only just apply to drugs and booze. It can apply to anything especially if what is legal is of lesser perceived quality than the illegal item.
Case in point is CB Radio. In 1981 the UK govt legalised CB using FM tramsmission mode but it was seen as less useful for reasons of range and other tech reasons than AM transmission mode also the FM models were only useful for the UK market nowhere else which pissed off international truckers who didn’t want radios that could not talk to other radios in France and Germany so purchased radios that were illegal in the UK.
Part of the govt reasoning was that a unique frequency and mode choice would kickstart a new part of the UK’s electronics industry. It didn’t. The Japanese and Taiwanese just made so many UK market radios that start ups could not compete. Yet again it was a case of the State trying to pick a business winner and failing.
The point is the UK govt banned the AM radios but it didn’t stop people wanting them or buying them. All you had to do was ask around. When I wanted an AM radio in 1987 I got recommended by radio minded mutuals in the pub to a particular electronics shop. At the shop I said that I knew X as a mutual contact by way of introduction. The shopkeeper then locked the front door of the shop, pulled the blind down and got the radio I was looking for out of a secret cubby hole from underneath the counter. I paid my money, promised that I would not reveal where I got it if I was nicked with it and went home. The war on AM CB radios was lost by at least 1990 as so many people were ignoring the law. In 2014 the UK govt ended up being forced to allow them by the EU but by that time the ban which was on the statute books was being soundly and often ignored.
Prohibition really doesn’t work. Logic says that it should but it does not. Prior to the Misuse of Drugs Act we had what was called the ‘British prescribing system’ where Opiate addicts, many of who where that way because of the use of opiates as pain killers in both war and peace, got prescriptions from doctors for Heroin. When this system ceased to exist after the Misuse of Drugs Act the illegal trade took off massively. I do sometimes wonder if Britain’s opiate problems would be as bad as they are had we not engaged in such ferocious prohibition.
I also believe that prohibition is a major driver into recreational drug research in order to create stuff and get it to market before the laws regarding prohibition can catch up. I sometimes wonder whether the issue with designer drugs and the misuse of animal drugs would be less if there was a controlled market for opiates, stimulants and cannabis?
Yes, I remember CB radios. I didn’t have one, but friends did. They used AM and the law be damned.
My wife and I still use them, mostly so that she can tell me to pick up more milk from the Tesco. Also there’s an exemption to the RTA mobile phone law for hand held microphones using simplex communication https://www.essexham.co.uk/amateur-radio-whilst-driving
The CB rig came in handy last month when I broke down and my mobile phone was on charge at home. I called my wife over the radio, told her what was the problem, where I was and to call the AA. She then used my AA card which was at home to alert the AA who then came out to me. My wife said that she encountered immense confusion from the AA operator about how my wife knew that I’d broken down and didn’t have a phone and she had to explain ‘he told me over the radio’ LOL