| 1 | 1 | | It isn't necessary to support the legalisation of soft drugs (though this magazine has |
| 2 | | long advocated precisely that) to regard the nine-month jail sentence imposed on Sir |
| 3 | | David Steel's son last week as wholly disproportionate to his supposed offence. Graeme |
| 4 | | Steel had pleaded guilty to cultivating 40 cannabis plants - which the police, absurdly, |
| 5 | | valued at £30,000 - at his cottage in the Scottish borders. He and his girlfriend say they do |
| 6 | | not drink, or smoke cigarettes: they cultivated the plants for their own use as a safer, |
| 7 | | healthier alternative. |
| 2 | 8 | | What conceivable public benefit is obtained from such a sentencing policy? Lord |
| 9 | | Cameron, passing sentence in the High Court in Edinburgh, was at least clear in his view. ' I |
| 10 | | would be failing in my duty if I did not mark disapproval of your conduct,' he said. 'What |
| 11 | | you did, you did deliberately and in full knowledge of the law.' Steel had fallen victim, it |
| 12 | | seems, to a new determination on the part of the Scottish courts to damp down on |
| 13 | | homegrown cannabis, the cultivation and use of which has soared as a result of new types |
| 14 | | of seeds and horticulture techniques developed largely in Holland. |
| 3 | 15 | | A more ludicrous approach to the issue of drug use can hardly be imagined. The |
| 16 | | major drug problem in this country does not arise from the use of drugs itself but from the |
| 17 | | associated criminality - bath in terms of the organised criminal gangs that dominate the |
| 18 | | supply chain and the lower-level criminal behaviour of some drug users who turn to crime |
| 19 | | to finance their purchases. |
| 4 | 20 | | In the case of homegrown cannabis (a relatively benign drug - at the very most, no |
| 21 | | more harmful than moderate alcohol consumption), the connection with other farms of |
| 22 | | criminality is severed. By supplying their own needs, the growing army of homegrown |
| 23 | | horticulturalists, currently finding new uses for attics and cellars throughout the country, |
| 24 | | step outside the organised criminal drug trade. No more profits, in their case, for the |
| 25 | | malignant characters behind the international drugs traffic. No fear that impoverished |
| 26 | | youngsters in search of a high will turn to muggings and burglaries to provide the cash. |
| 5 | 27 | | Holland has had something of a bad press in the recent discussions about cannabis |
| 28 | | decriminalisation. Yet there is no doubt that it has largely succeeded in separating the |
| 29 | | supply and consumption of soft drugs from that of hard drugs. What's more, most of the |
| 30 | | cannabis now consumed in Holland is no longer imported from overseas, but is of precisely |
| 31 | | the homegrown variety that the Scottish courts are so anxious to crack down on. |
| 6 | 32 | | A sensible policy towards drug use would welcome such developments. Instead, as |
| 33 | | the outrage following Clare Short's measured comments on decriminalisation |
| 34 | | demonstrated, it is still not even possible to discuss the issue in any considered or rational |
| 35 | | manner. |
| 7 | 36 | | It is worth referring back to what Short told David Frost on TV last Sunday. 'I |
| 37 | | personally think the way we're handling the drug problem is a tragedy,' she said, 'and I |
| 38 | | think it is a major problem that a lot of young people use cannabis and see it as relatively |
| 39 | | unharmful while it's sold by the same people who sell the most vile and destructive drugs. |
| 40 | | Lots of people in the police have said we should look at that. I think we shouldn't be |
| 41 | | cowards, and we should get some archbishops and former chief constables and see if we |
| 42 | | can't organise the whole thing better. And maybe that includes taxing and selling cannabis |
| 43 | | in a separate place than hard drugs.' |
| 8 | 44 | | In any healthy, democratic system, such remarks - even from a shadow cabinet |
| 45 | | minister - would cause no problems. This was a personal view; Short made no attempt to |
| 46 | | suggest that it was Labour policy. Even so, she was silenced by her own party leader, Tony |
| 47 | | Blair. |
| 9 | 48 | | The problem is that we are living under a tabloid tyranny, in which caution and |
| 49 | | media manipulation must take precedence over open discussion for fear of how the papers |
| 50 | | might twist and distort honest debate. Isn't it about time politicians faced down the tabloid |
| 51 | | tyrants? If someone as thoughtful, candid and imaginative as Clare Short is now to be |
| 52 | | silenced on speaking out about anything other than transport, what hope is there for the |
| 53 | | sort of innovative thinking that needs to be brought to bear upon the 1,001 other problems |
| 54 | | facing our bruised and bleeding society? |
| | | |
| | | 'New Statesman & Society', November 3, 1995 |
