New Labour New Highs

In a masterful and courageous move, Labour has decreed that you do indeed get higher on cannabis than you do on mere class C drugs. Not as high as you would on a class A drug, of course, that is some serious shit, but if you find you only get a class C high, then I think you can report your dealer to trading standards.

At least that is, presumably the message Gordon Brown is trying to send. This is all about message after all, rather than inconvenient reality.

Unfortunately the message actually sent is that government drugs policy is arbitrary and not to be trusted. Science, it turns out, has a higher duty to the truth than it has to the tabloids, which makes it unsuitable as a guide to policy.

It gets worse. Had the message worked as intended, it would have implied that class C drugs are all broadly safer than cannabis and class B drugs about as dangerous as cannabis. That is to say the government wanted to send a message that it was soft on all drugs but cannabis - and softer indeed than the evidence would demand.

I am genuinely suprised that they do not reclassify all class C drugs as class B, all class B as class A, and all class A drugs as class A*. Grade inflation does the job in education, why not here. And it would prove that they are being tougher than ever on drugs.

Sign the petition.