Tempest In A Teapot After UK Official Calls For Drug Decrim

​”A growing body of comparative evidence suggests that decriminalizing personal use can have positive consequences,” Green said.

“It can free up huge amounts of police resources, reduce crime and recidivism and improve public health,” Green said. “All this can be achieved without any overall increase in drug usage. If this is so, then it would be rational to follow suit.”

Green, who leads 4,500 criminal and defense barristers, said the Bar Council is apolitical and could speak out in favor of policies “which work and not those which simply play to the gallery.”

“And this will save money and mean that there is less pressure on the justice system,” Green said.

In a paper which studied how money could be saved in the criminal justice system, Green also spoke out in favor of Justice Secretary Ken Clark, who has said that fewer criminals should be sent to prison.

“If the prison population could be reduced from circa 85,000 to 80,000, it could save over £200 million per annum,” Green said.

“There is a great deal of research from elsewhere to suggest that a less ‘bang ’em up’ approach to sentencing actually reduces crime,” Green said. “The tabloids’ response, which is to throw more people into custody, simply does not work.”

​​”I am shocked by the suggestion that drugs should be decriminalized for personal use,” claimed the obnoxiously sanctimonious Keith Vaz MP, chairman of the Commons’ Home Affairs Committee.

“The legalization of drugs would simply create the mistaken impression that these substances are not harmful, when in fact this is far from the truth,” Vaz said.

“The answer to the issue of drug abuse is not to merely decriminalize it,” Vaz said. “This is not the best solution for the wider public or the police.”

Vaz neglected to mention what the best solution might be to his own sleazy activities, which has been so egregiously bad that he was forced to ask for a Parliamentary investigation into his own conduct.

James Clappison MP was quick to join the cowardly catcalls against a rational approach to drugs, saying Green’s remarks were “not entirely a helpful contribution to the debate.”

​”There seems to be a very strong link between recreational drug use, leading to drug addiction leading to crime fuelled by drug addiction,” the logic-challenged Clappison claimed. “I would have thought the chairman of the Bar Council would have seen that for himself.”

Then again, MP Clappison, I would have thought you’d have sense enough to see that the illegal nature of drugs leads to high prices, which leads to drug-related crime.

And I would have thought, as a public figure, you’d have known better than to pocket £97,892 in Commons allowances intended to pay for a second home — even though you own 22 houses which you rent out.

But I guess that would have been unrealistic expectations of a cowardly, greedy, craven politician like yourself, eh?

Philip Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley, gleefully joined the chorus of idiots.

​”It’s a ludicrous argument to say let’s legalize drugs to take pressure off the police and courts. That is an argument to legalize everything,” said Da
vies, who evidently favors the microcephalic all-or-nothing, “either everything should be illegal or there should be no laws at all” approach.

When deciding how much credibility to assign Davies, bear in mind that this is the same dumb ass who last year sent letters to Trevor Phillips, a black man who is chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, asking “Is it offensive to ‘black up’ or not, particularly if you are impersonating a black person?”

In the letter, Davies asks “why it is so offensive to black up your face, as I have never understood this.” I’d estimate, Mr Davies, that there are apparently quite a few things well beyond your mental grasp, sir.

“What is he talking about? This will send out the wrong message to youngsters,” said Debra Bell, a publicity-seeking mother who claims her son developed “severe personality changes” (like, for instance, seeing through her pathetic bullshit?) after smoking cannabis from the age of 14 with his friends.

With all this hot air about “sending the wrong message to teenagers,” I can’t help but wonder how, exactly, nauseating displays of political cowardice, legislation based on superstition, and favoring hysteria over rationality is seen as “sending the right message to teens.”

What is your goal here, United Kingdom? Raising a generation of logic-crippled reactionaries who wouldn’t know rationality if it bit them on their wholesomely drug-free asses?

“We have not called for the decriminalization of drugs,” a Bar Council spokesman plaintively backpedaled, once the firestorm started. “Plainly we are recommending an evidence-based approach.”

British users can get up to five years in prison for possessing “Class B” drugs like cannabis, since the U.K.’s brief experiment with decriminalizing cannabis was ended and harsh penalties were reinstated after over-the-top British tabloid hysteria surrounding “Skunk,” a powerful strain of marijuana popular in the U.K.

Possession of Class A drugs like heroin, cocaine and ecstasy is punishable by up to seven years behind bars, while Class C drugs can get you up to two years in the clinker.