Posts Tagged ‘Theresa May’
Home Office Drug Strategy Consultation
All over the BBC this morning is the story that addicts may have their benefits withdrawn if they refuse treatment. This, apparently, is a proposal included in the Home Office’s new Drug Strategy consultation document.
Where is this document? It’s not on the Home Office website. That’s a bit strange for something that purports to be about consulting with the public isn’t it?
I had to phone the Home Office press office to get a copy. I shouldn’t have to be doing this for the government but you can download it here:
Home Office Drug Strategy Consultation Document
Theresa May and James Brokenshire, the ministers responsible for this, should remember that they are not in office to preserve the status quo or cook up policies between themselves based on the misinformation that the Home Office currently promotes. Their first responsiblity after their duty to the Queen is to the public. Consultation is not something they should pay lip service to, nor is it something they can pick or choose. It should determine their actions.
As part of this consultation, the Home Office should take into account the tens of thousands of people who have used the Your Freedom website to call for relaxation in the drug laws and particularly the legalisation of cannabis.
I urge everybody with any interest in the drugs issue to download, complete and return the consultation document. It’s presented as a Q&A form. I also suggest that you keep a copy and send a copy to your MP. Regrettably the Home Office doesn’t have a good record on keeping track of what the public says to it. It loses a lot of things.
On the face of it, I support the idea that if you’re a heroin, cocaine, alcohol or prescription drug addict and you’re offered treatment but refuse it then you shouldn’t be able to live on benefits. That seems entirely just. The danger is that just as current drug laws drive addicts to crime and prostitution so will this. This is progress though. There has to be personal responsibility but also some flexibility to ensure this doesn’t become another self-defeating policy. Most important of all, possession of drugs for personal use and/or social supply must be taken out of the criminal law.
The other headline grabbing proposal is that the government should be able to impose a temporary 12 month ban on “new substances”. This is designed to tackle the danger of “legal highs” – a danger mainly of the government’s own making because of its policy of prohibition. There is a real glimmer of hope and intelligence here though because “Possession of a temporarily banned substance for personal use would not be a criminal offence to prevent the unnecessary criminalisation of young people”. I applaud this. It shows that it is possible to get common sense from the Home Office. There is hope yet!
***UPDATE***
As I go to press (oh, alright, as my finger hovers over the “publish” button), the consultation document has become available on the Home Office website. A little tardy but better late than never.
You can respond to this consultation until 30th September 2010. Make sure you do.
Theresa May Must Act On Gary McKinnon And Ian Tomlinson
It's Decision Time
After defence there can be no higher priority for any government than justice. The new government’s honeymoon period is over. The cases of Gary McKinnon and Ian Tomlinson need urgent attention from our new Home Secretary.
A Victim Not A Villain
Gary McKinnon’s case raises profound issues. He is in danger of “extradition” to the US but any idea that this is some legitimate process is nonsense. He is actually in danger of illegal rendition or kidnapping which the previous Labour government seemed ready to sanction. Any alleged crime was committed on British soil so there isn’t even any question of “extradition”. If he is to be tried he must be tried where the alleged crime was committed.
There seems though to be no progress at all on the murder of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests. This is a scandal and injustice of the very highest order and those responsible for prevaricating and filibustering over bringing charges are criminals themselves.
Murder
Ian Tomlinson’s family waits helpless while the dilatory DPP, Keir Starmer, and the CPS quibble and procrastinate over facts that the whole country has seen revealed on its TV screens. Obviously they intend to delay long enough so that the case be consigned to history like the murder of Blair Peach by a police officer in 1979. It was only last month that the Metropolitan Police came clean on this, 30 years too late.
There is some nonsense excuse being peddled that there is a problem with obtaining expert medical evidence. This is a dreadful miscarriage of justice. These are issues for a jury to decide. Keir Starmer should be dismissed for gross misconduct and should consider himself lucky if he doesn’t go to jail for perverting the course of justice.
Thug
We have already seen the inexcuseable acquittal of Sergeant Delroy Smellie, the thug who assaulted Nicola Fisher at the G20 protests (see here). This must be one of the lowest points ever in the history of British justice. There can be no other description of this verdict and District Judge Daphne Wickham who made the decision than corrupt. She deserves to be tarred and feathered for what she has done.
What can be higher in priority on Theresa May’s todo list than these matters of great principle and injustice? She should put everything else aside. There can be no more excuses.
Eenie, Meanie, Minie, Mo – Drugs Policy? That’ll Be Lib Dem!
Only now is the depth and breadth of David Cameron’s coup becoming clear. He has swept aside all the old politics and we voted for exactly what he has given us. Hail to the Chief!
It’s true that now he can dump those old Tory policies that no one really wanted and we can take the good ones from the Lib Dems –
God's Herb
none more so than their drugs policy.
The Lib Dems are very, very close to the Transform Drug Policy Foundation which, however it describes itself, promotes a radical right wing solution to the drugs problem – legalise, regulate, tax.
This might seem a second tier, lower priority issue until you consider that most organised crime and virtually all street crime is caused, promoted and maintained by the illegality of drugs.
Legalise all drugs, regulate and tax their supply. You pull the rug from under organised crime and you take away the need for nearly all street crime. You massively reduce the harm caused by drugs. You take perhaps £10 billion out of the black economy. You save several billion more on law enforcement costs.
It’s a no brainer for anyone who has the courage and common sense to think about it. I hope Theresa May is listening – and thinking.
Peter Reynolds 