The Government are all on drugs (judging by their decisions)

And so it came to pass.

Cannabis was upgraded from a Class C drug to a Class B drug by the Labour Government.  This was despite The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) advising the Government that this would make no difference and that the drug was not as harmful as cigarettes and alcohol.

Yet Brown and Jacqui Smith, in the Home Office, decided they knew better and with the pressure of the Daily Mail they took the decision to change the law.  A law that will make no difference whatsoever.  The students won’t stop buying it.  The middle ages parents living in their Islington townhouses won’t stop breaking it out at the end of their dinner party before bed and the entrepreneurial dealers won’t stop their trade.

Next month the ACMD will advise the Government, again, to downgrade Ecstacy from Class A to Class B.

I couldn't find a stereotypical picture of a man smoking a joint, so I've used this

Again the Mailet al will rally round calling on the Government to not be soft on drugs, which is encouraging the young that these little pills are acceptable.

This is despite there being a “Middle England” demographic that find it acceptable to drink themselves into a stupor before crawling into their cars and driving through the country lanes – a far more dangerous activity than dancing the night away in a club, or talking gibberish to South Park, or watching every episode of The Office back to back and weeping during the Christmas Special before going to bed.

Cannabis was thought to have contributed to Amsterdam, during the 2004 Euro Championships, being the only venue that didn’t experience riots.

I digress.

Should the Government ignore the ACMD’s advice on Ecstasy – meaning Ecstasy, a largely recreational drug taken by clubbers to keep them up all night, is classed alongside Heroin and Crack Cocaine – then it must surely mean the end for the ACMD.

The ACMD, created in 1971 as part of the Misuse Of Drugs Act has already suffered embarrassment when in 2006 2006, the Science & Technology Select Committee criticised the organisation as being ad-hoc in their decision making, a lack of transparency and having a dereliction of duty as the only scientific body to advise the Government.

If an organisation that is the only port of call for the Government on drug policy is so weak it sets a worrying precedent that policy can be dictated by newspapers in such a blatant and obvious way.

The concern is that other weak non-Governmental advisory bodies will be exposed by the press who will whip up a storm that flies in the fact of sensibility, scientific facts and tolerance. 

At least OFCOM are managing to hold it together… For now