Peter Hitchens

The War We Never Fought (eBook, ePUB)

The British Establishment's Surrender to Drugs

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Again and again British politicians, commentators and celebrities intone that 'The War on Drugs has failed'. They then say that this is an argument for abandoning all attempts to reduce drug use through the criminal law.

Peter Hitchens shows that in Britain there has been no serious 'war on drugs' since 1971, when a Tory government adopted a Labour plan to implement the revolutionary Wootton report. This gave cannabis, the most widely used illegal substance, a special legal status as a supposedly 'soft' drug (in fact, Hitchens argues, it is at least as dangerous as heroin and cocaine because of the threat it poses to mental health). It began a progressive reduction of penalties for possession, and effectively disarmed the police.

This process still continues, behind a screen of falsely 'tough' rhetoric from politicians. Far from there being a 'war on drugs', there has been a covert surrender to drugs, concealed behind an official obeisance to international treaty obligations. To all intents and purposes, cannabis is legal in Britain, and other major drugs are not far behind.

In The War We Never Fought, Hitchens uncovers the secret history of the government's true attitude, and the increasing recruitment of the police and courts to covert decriminalisation initiatives, and contrasts it with the rhetoric. Whatever and whoever is to blame for the undoubted mess of Britain's drug policy, it is not 'prohibition' or a 'war on drugs', for neither exists.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury UK
• Seitenzahl: 256
• Erscheinungstermin: 6. Dezember 2012
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781441172068
• Artikelnr.: 40084706

Autorenporträt

Peter Hitchens is a columnist for the Mail on Sunday and a contributor to many other publications. He has published several books, including The Abolition of Britain and The Rage Against God, also published by Bloomsbury Continuum, mainly on aspects of what he regards as a Cultural Revolution which has transformed Britain for the worse in the last half century. He is active on social media, especially Twitter. He has been a journalist for nearly 50 years, has reported from 57 countries and was a resident correspondent in Moscow and Washington. He is a former revolutionary Marxist who now describes himself as a socially conservative Social Democrat.

Inhaltsangabe

Acknowledgements Preface I. The Secret Capitulation 1. Cannabis is a Cause
2. How to Sink Giggling into the Sea 3. Psychiatry is Not an Exact Science
4. The Real Purpose of Classification 5. No Use Appealing to God. Try John
Stuart Mill 6. Cannabis and Violence 7. What about Alcohol and Tobacco
then? 8. The Cabinet gets it Wrong 9. Enter Richard Crosman 10. Jim
Callaghan's last Stand II. The Search for Soma 11. Aldous Huxley 12. The
Left Casts of its Puritan Garments 13. The Mysterious Spread of Cannabis
14. Jaggerism is Invented 15. Bloomsbury Takes Over Britain via the
Airwaves 16. Steve Adams Steps Up to Explain 17. The Long March-Wootton and
After 18. Widdicombe Unfair 19. Lady Runciman - Who is She? 20. Legislation
on the Beat - Brian Paddick 21. The Great Red Herring - Medical Marijuana
22. Freeing Up or Freeing Down 23. Some Notes on Harm Reduction and
Rehabilitation 24. The Demoralisation of Britain Index