While I was offline for a month, I kept a note of any links and news stories worth commenting on. Now that I’m back, I’m aiming to post two short items a day here, about stuff that happened during my online absence, until I’ve cleared the backlog. This is one of those.
The government are now no longer required, as they previously were, to have at least six scientists on the committee that determines this country’s legal policy regarding drugs.
The UK’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs is now, apparently, no longer expected to be directly informed by any sort of facts. When deciding on policy that determines when the state can send men with guns to lock you up in a small room somewhere because of things you did to yourself, any analysis of data which pertains to reality has been declared redundant and unnecessary.
It’s troubling to wonder what the hell else they intend to use, when deciding how the law should work. I mean, science is scrapped, so what’s left? Picking an ideology and blindly sticking to it? Guesswork? Dartboard and a blindfold? A pigeon pecking at bits of card?
Perhaps in future each new parliament will roll three specially constructed dice several times: one with the name of a drug, one with an amount in grams, and one with the prison sentence you get for being caught with that amount of that drug. The first one could also have, say, “cinnamon” on one of the sides, just to make things a bit more interesting.
No, the second dice just tells you what you should multiply the sentence-in-years dice by to make it in no way fit the crime.
Seriously, drug sentences are often incredibly long for what they represent.
That’s frightening to know; and even more frightening that I didn’t know.