The Sun running a story about the attitude of politicians to drugs reform is fairly commonplace. A Liberal Democrat politician calling for the drugs laws to be reviewed is fairly commonplace. What is however rather less common – and so all the more significant – is for the former to feature the latter in a positive light as LDV mentioned earlier today:
Nick Clegg declared the war on drugs a disastrous failure last night — and demanded that David Cameron plucks up the “courage” to order a major review of Britain’s ageing narcotics laws…
Reforms … most Brits want a review of drug laws and think legalisation could be a solution. A YouGov poll for The Sun found two thirds say current policies have failed — but a fifth oppose looking at all options…
The Deputy PM insisted his call did not make him “soft”. And he claimed powerful allies in his call for change — including ex-MI5 boss Baroness Manningham-Buller and ex-deputy chief of MI6 Nigel Inkster. Mr Clegg said: “It’s not just me. The Association of Chief Police Officers say we must update our approach.”
Here’s the BBC’s coverage of the story, followed by an interview with myself:
* Mark Pack is Party President and is the editor of Liberal Democrat Newswire.



2 Comments
Good work.
Some rather silly questions from the presenter I thought. 🙂
If Nick Clegg wants to change the drugs strategy that is failing in the UK, he should support through the LibDems the introduction of the ‘cure’ treatment that is now part of the Vietnamese NHS. Both Labour and the Cons have denied its introduction although it safely detoxifies within 72 hours without ‘cold turkey’. It is a humane treatment also. This treatment if introduced in the UK would cut costs in the NHS and crime by a massive order – http://worldinnovationfoundation.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/what-successive-governments-and.html
Dr David Hill
World Innovation Foundation