Daily Mail Demolition #2

In today’s edition the Daily Mail responds to this week’s debate on drugs with what can only be described as a juvenile and fraudulent argument.

To sum up the past couple of days:

• Nature, Time, the BBC and just about every other science publication and news outlet covered Dr. Nutt’s latest research and it’s promising findings for possible clinical use of psilocybin, provoking academic debate on the restriction on study of illegal drugs for clinical use.
• UK law took a small yet definitive step forward, reducing sentences for medical use of drugs, small time users and drug mules (Telegraph, Guardian, Sky, sentencingcouncil.judiciary.gov.uk/guidelines/forthcoming-guidelines)
• Richard Branson gave evidence at the Government’s select committee on drugs (Guardian, video – skip in about three minutes for the start, Branson’s blog).
• The legal developments are based on evidence emerging from states such as Portugal who have successfully decriminalised drug use and are reaping the benefits (rigorous, balanced analysis of the stats here).

In case you somehow missed the staggering (excuse the pun) error. The coroners verdict was death by “misadventure”, the coroner explicitly stated that cannabis wasn’t the direct cause of death and instead implicated the popular legal alternative, alcohol.

Is this really the best that the pro-drugs-war camp can offer? This, against all of the evidence. This scrap of blatant deception, in defence of a policy that causes untold misery, death, unnecessary incarceration, spread of disease, incentive for crime, currency for criminals, violence at home and abroad, the list goes on.