Friday, April 13, 2012 -

    HASC Drugs Inquiry. An Analysis Of The Written Evidence. Part 1

    I have conducted an in-depth analysis of the written evidence submitted to the Home Affairs select committee inquiry into drugs policy.

    As published by the committee, the evidence runs to 731 pages.  Although numbered up to 189, there are, in fact, 171 submissions.

    Kathy Gyngell, the ex-daytime TV producer, notorious for her extreme prohibitionist views, has managed to get two submissions accepted - 01 – “CPS” and 116 – “Centre for Policy Studies”

    I had previously thought that David Raynes, who is the author of submission 94 – “Pheon Management Services” was also behind 132 – “National Drug Prevention Alliance”.  However, I now accept that the NDPA submission was made by Peter Stoker independently and I have apologised to David Raynes for my error.

    I shall be writing to Keith Vaz MP, chairman of the committee, to ask him to correct this.  It is clearly improper that these double submissions have been submitted in disguise and accepted.

    Results

    I have assessed each submission as falling into either green or red categories.

    This was not a difficult task as it was very clear in which category each submission belongs.  The only exception was 183 – Alliance Boots, which taking a conservative view, I placed in red.

    137 – 80% - in favour of reform/opposed to prohibition

    34 – 20% -  in favour of the status quo/prohibition

    CLEAR Evidence

    49  - 29% – cite CLEAR evidence 

     

    Further parts in this series will look in detail at some of the more notable submissions.

    HASC Drugs Inquiry. An Analysis Of The Written Evidence. Part 2

    HASC Drugs Inquiry. An Analysis Of The Written Evidence. Part 3

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    • http://twitter.com/Cannabis4Autism Cannabis For Autism

      Are we going to see a breakdown of the ‘Genocide 34′?

      Who are they? What do they do? How do they profit from prohibition?

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

      29% cite clear evidence is an incredible achievement for CLEAR and the demographics and lucidity of the people citing CLEAR is amazing

    • Focusonpeace

      The quicker they end prohibition, the quicker they make a profit, i dont see how throwing harmless Cannabis users in jail and police wasting court time is profitable.
      This fear they have is media based, not based on any scientific research.

    • steve a

      In the main they appear to be those who profit from prohibition, particularly with respect to heroin, coke and other strongly addictive drugs.  Very little of it was directly anti cannabis.

      There were a couple of genuine “I think drugs are bad, shoot the commie, poofter, hippy scum before they are born” types but they were very much in the minority.

      Most of the supporters of the war on those of us who use drugs seemed to be drawn from organisations with some very dubious credentials who would not dream of criticising government policy but had just developed this brand new plan to maybe cure heroin addiction slightly with a 2 years of intensive inpatient injail treatment programme to get them hooked on extremely high doses of drugs even more addictive and expensive than Heroin.

      Additionally about a quarter of them seemed to work for or with research groups who think that we should keep everything exactly as it is for at least  20 years while they carry out in depth studies of the effects of in depth studies in the problem.

      I respect those who have a view for at least holding a view but that lot are not worthy of it.  All in all a very unsavoury bunch with the deliberate and so obvious it beggars belief intention of makng a lot of money from how the system is at the moment and with a lower set of moral standards than even our old mate Hitchins.  Hopefully their evidence will receive the treatment it is due and go straight in the waste bin where it and they belong.

    • http://www.peter-reynolds.co.uk Peter Reynolds

      There is some real reefer madness, a touch of crazy stoner, too much commercial exploitation and a lot of pretentious claptrap, sociology-speak.  All of life is there!

    • Focusonpeace

      Why isnt Amsterdam or Spain used as an example of how prohibition causes more harm than good. Surely they just need to look across at the Netherlands to see how normal respectable people might decide to smoke a dooby instead of downing a Pint after work, and how this doesn’t make a difference in society what so ever, infact its happening right now if it was legal at least it could create more job opportunities.