Tuesday, July 10, 2012 -

    Blind Prejudice From A Man Who Does Not Deserve His Place In Parliament

    Michael Ellis MP

    At the HASC drugs inquiry, Michael Ellis, MP for  Northampton North, demonstrated astonishing prejudice and refusal to listen to evidence.

    His behaviour  towards witnesses is rude and aggressive.  He quite clearly has no interest in listening to anyone who does not subscribe to his preconceived view.  Anyone he disagrees with he calls “irresponsible”. He was just as rude to Professor Nutt three weeks ago.

    Mr Ellis is exactly the sort of MP that we need far fewer of.  He is a prime example of the sort of conceit and arrogance that has brought parliament into disrepute.  His background as a criminal barrister well qualifies him for permanent detachment from reality.  He and people like him are directly responsible for the maintenance of an evil and immoral policy that causes enormous harm, death and degradation to millions of people worldwide.

    He is, in fact, a waste of time for anyone seeking a more humane and effective drugs policy.  There is only one solution for Mr Ellis and that is to get rid of him.  Fortunately that should not be difficult.  His majority, at 4.8%, less than 2000 votes, was the result of a swing from Labour to Tory in the last election.  He has little chance of being re-elected and I pledge now that he will be one of CLEAR’s principal targets in the next general election.  We do not aim to win seats in parliament because we are a single issue party but we do aim to disrupt and defeat the electoral ambitions of prohibitionists like Mr Ellis.  We will expose his hypocrisy, dishonesty and prejudice at the next election.  We will support those who oppose him and we will ensure that the  people of Northampton and Britain are rescued from his brand of politics.

    Watch today’s oral evidence session here.  Mr Ellis’ depressing and destructive contribution starts at 11:26:20.

    On a positive note, great work was done at today’s session by Danny Kushlick, Niamh Eastwood and Tom Lloyd.  Thank you to them.

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    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Peter-Roberts/570424186 Peter Roberts

      Sounded pretty fair to me.

    • DisqusCannabis

      I would like to think Michael Ellis is stupid or ill informed, but given his experience as a barrister, this cannot be the case. He didn’t want the facts to be presented, presumably as it casts our drugs and alcohol policy in a very bad light. He hopes that by pushing his weight around, he will catch Danny Kushlink off guard, making him seem foolish. He said he ‘didn’t want to hear about Switzerland’, presumably because they have more success at controlling drug-related harms than his own government do.

      Kushlink was trying to highlight that almost all crime related to alcohol is violent/disorderly, with almost no element of acquisitive crime. Drinkers are not violent in order to steal, the effect of alcohol intoxication itself makes them violent. 

      The exact opposite is true of most illicit drugs. Most drugs do not make people violent while under the influence, or steal for fun. The high cost of their drug forces them to steal to support their habit, no other reason. Many heroin users are able to live what is essentially a normal life if they are given the drug for free. If alcohol were banned tomorrow, it would be responsible for more muggings and burglaries than heroin I’m sure. The same with tobacco. The only difference between tobacco use and heroin use is the price of the habit. 

      Both drugs are equally addictive, and tobacco use (not abuse, as heroin-addiction is defined) is responsible for far more deaths. I’m not trying to glorify heroin which is obviously going to take over your life if addicted, but the same is true of tobacco use. Where I used to work, most smokers were given smoke breaks on the sly because the effect of nicotine-withdrawal was detrimental to the business. That addiction is equally in control of the users life as heroin. If cigarettes cost £10-20 a dose, the average 20 a day smoker would be homeless, unable to afford food or clothes, unable to support a family and so on. Exactly like a ‘junkie’. 

    • Focusonpeace

      Nah Michael Ellis is an idiot to the highest degree! What a fool, sitting there looking smug interrupting Kushlick’s answers. What does he know about drugs and related crime staring down at the city from his ivory tower.  Why they allow this idiotic prohibitionist on the panel i have no idea!

    • maxwood

      I can’t judge Ellis or any other parlamentarian but I want to add to Disqus’ point above about nicotine $igarette addicts saved from homelessness by the low price of $igarettes as compared to heroin, and draw attention to the even more pertinent price comparison between $igarette tobacckgo and cannabis.

      We recently observed the US Supreme Court define the projected “penalty” for non-purchase of health insurance as a “TAX”; similarly it should be acknowledged that the expensive drug war against growers and suppliers resulting in a purchase price for cannabis 10 times higher than tobacckgo is a TAX.  Admittedly the Drug Warriors may admit the same and say it is justified as a “fiscal” means to scare youngsters away from trying “dangerous drug” cannabis.

      Note that some of the same politicians who support raising $igarette taxes to reduce $igarette consumption (a) don’t seem to be concerned that the cannabis tax is so hugely bigger than the tobacckgo tax, or (b) don’t notice that it drives many youngsters who need to smoke something to look kool toward 20-a-day lifelong nicotine slavery.  “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

      By the way, Moral Victories Department: in the recent California election concerning a one-dollar-per-pack addition to the $igarette tax, the Corporations and their Superpac(K)s spent nearly $50 million, seven times the supporters which included Mayor Bloomberg, to defeat the measure 51-49, haw haw, well the way things are going soon no money will be enough.  But even if that had passed the total tobacckgo tax still wouldn’t be a tenth of the de facto cannabis tax.  None of them wants to admit that if cannabis were legal, cheap and everywhere available, including to youngsters, a leading present-day avenue of deceitful recruitment into hot burning monoxide $igarette genocide would vanish from the earth.

    • ChristopherSawtell

      I was somewhat amazed, and pleased, to hear Keith Vaz say: “No! Mr. Ellis”, just as the obnoxious and odious Mr Ellis was about to start out on one of his polemical rants masquerading as cross-examination. Neither of which has any place in the select committee discovery process.

    • PilgrimSteve

      I wouldn’t trust anything Mr. Ellis has to say when he’s talking about irresponsibility to regulate drugs, at least while a quick check of the Register of Members Interests reveals that he accepted hospitality from JTI (Japan Tobacco International) to the value of £1,132.80 on 24th May 2011.  No surprise then that he’s already made his mind up before the inquiry has heard all the evidence from all contributors.

    • steve a

      I do note that the committee members in general seem keen to ask (sometimes sympathetic) questions about decriminalisation and are getting answers which in the main support our aims.

      There is no doubt in my mind that as regards cannabis they may not want to recommend the whole “control and regulation” thing next week but they are up for being persuaded that decriminalisation is worth more debate and while this is good news we should be careful as what we ultimately want is control and regulation using a model similar to those of my booze and fags.  

      It would be nice to hear a little less of, “Thank you for the monologue on the background to all this but can we please have a simple yes/no answer to the question?” from that nice Mr Vaz (and probably quietly to himself “and that might just shut that idiot Ellis up as well.”).  And Vaz would be right, deny him debate and you beat him.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Maharg-Smith/831904195 Maharg Smith

       Where he is totally missing
      the point is that heroin commercially produced would have a cost price
      per kilo of around that of fillet steak.Cannabis buds would cost less
      than strawberries.If he has any genuine concerns for victims of crime he
      should realise that the inflated price of drugs and the need for people
      to steal is a direct result of prohibition.He displayed his ignorance
      even further when it was explained to him that to decriminalise the most
      popular drugs would be the way to end the cycle of reoffending by
      people addicted to artificially high priced street drugs.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001874945930 Petri Helala

      Why is “Mr. Ellis” comparing burglaries and an individual using drugs? In burglary, you damage and loot other people’s property and sadly in some cases in the moment of crime causing physical harm to the owners of the property. People that use drugs do it at the risk of their OWN health. Smoking cannabis for example isn’t going make you have ideas about robbing other people and/or act out of your own tendencies out of blue. Alcohol is something that totally changes people and their behaviour. Percentual harm caused to others and ones own property is much larger when intoxicated by using alcohol, than using drugs. Imagine, If all drugs were legal. Crime rates due to people robbing for resources to get drugs would plummet to 0 %. Drug wars could end right there and then. I support bringing the cat to the table on this, increase public awareness on the drug war, drugs in general and the misconceptions about the effects of the drugs. And Also about the risks of perscription drugs as opposed to currently illegal drugs. Decriminalization is the goal, not government regulated purity levels and prices. :)

    • ChristopherSawtell

      Decriminalization is the goal, not government regulated purity levels and prices. :)

      Surely the desired is both?

    • ChristopherSawtell

      Why is “Mr. Ellis” comparing burglaries and an individual using drugs?

      He’s a sick and “irresponsible” psychotic sociopath who cannot help himself. :-)