Why is the Lib Dem front bench so afraid of talking sensibly about drugs?
How many scientific reports do we need before we can have the "science based" policy that Nick Clegg says we should have ?
Back on the 31st of July the Commons Science Select Committee released their recomended rating system as part of their report on drugs (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/31_07_06_drugsreport.pdf).
Anything from our front bench..? No - Just Nick Clegg giving us more "we need more science" hot air and dithering.
Back in March Sir Menzie Campbell claimed that the report was "a wake-up call. Our current policies are clearly not working. We need a non-partisan debate about the way forward." that was when they were discussing the initial findings
So has the front bench woken up ?
It's been, what 4 or 5 years since the last drafting of party policy on drugs, how many reports from scientists, doctors and MPs have we had in that time ? 6, 7, 8 ?
So where is this debate ? None of the front bench are prepared to stick their neck out, even our "radical" new leader is solumnly silent or tries to avoid the subject - Jock barely getting a sentance from him on the subject in the blogger interview with him, and that was just hot air.
Both Nick Clegg and Menzies Campbell have had ample opportunities to make an issue of this and really show the failings of Tory and Labour party policies, but have failed - when Brian Paddick spoke out on the subject, Nick Clegg was quick to call his sensible and well researched suggestions "too radical" - which is crazy and backward, it was exactly what Nick and the shadow justice minister / home secretary should have been pushing.
It's crazy that a supposedly Liberal party is taking an attitude of "see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing, do nothing" on what is probably the largest social problem in the western world of the late 20th and early 21st century.
I know there are some illiberal lib dems who oppose sensible drug legalisation, but we are a liberal party and proclaim to base policies on common sense, freedom, justice and in this case "science", so WTF is going on ?
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Just for the record and me. When you say liberal do you mean John Loke, Thomas Jefferson, individual rights and freedom, self reliance ect.,ect......Or do you mean socialism, collectivism, unionism, the US Democrat Party, ect., ect?
Regardless, your words mirror some thoughts in the US...I think?
I mean Liberal as in The Liberal Party in the UK that almost predates the United States ;) .. as in Mills, etc. The usual meaning of liberal outside of the hall of mirrors politics that you get in the USA.
I did not know the Liberal Party in the UK was liberal in the sense of Mills or Loke, or any sense for that matter. Thought they were socialist, unionist ect., like Canada. When the media in USA says liberal they usually refer to an authortarian socialist.
I find your posts very interesting and informative...and sometimes confusing to me,,,but thats education.
Seems to me that the powers-that-be in a given country will always exert an influence, and the LD aren't really much different than New Labour because the political system that contains them both isn't going to change. The closer they get to power, the more the p-t-b influences will increase. It is clearly greater than science!