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This was The Observer headline on Sunday. Anti-reform forces are now campaigning to persuade politicians and the public that drugs are very dangerous, and therefore should continue to be prohibited. But personal harm suffered by a consumer, however serious, does not justify his legal oppression. This is a matter of principle, not of pragmatism.
“Deaths show that the number of people who died after taking ecstasy has jumped two-thirds in the past year, to 27”. Twenty-seven! With over 500,000 regular users, and perhaps 2 million Ecstasy tablets consumed every weekend, the figure is infinitesimal. “Government figures show that heroin killed 754 people in 1999, while cocaine killed 87. Each year, hundreds of thousands are killed by the effects of alcohol and tobacco” Mat Southwell of the Dance Drugs Alliance puts it more graphically > “The chance of dying each time you take ecstasy is one in a million – the same as downhill ski-ing”. That puts it into perspective.
The truth is, that this form of risk analysis does not justify the infringement of an individual’s “fundamental freedoms”, to use the language of the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA). We are all entitled to take our own risks in life, provided that we do not harm others. My freedom to control my own personal consumption is part of my right to respect for my private life,as guaranteed by the European
Convention, Article 8. The state is not entitled to limit my freedom, merely because personal risks to myself are involved. That represents, quite simply, an abuse of state power.
I am entitled to take my own risks, make my own decisions, provided that they harm nobody else. I am entitled to commit suicide, in my own way, provided that I do not infringe the rights of others. That is the law.
There are strict limits, to the right of a dirigiste state to interfere with my private life. That is the particular province of civil liberties. And our awful drugs laws, animated by the intolerance and insensitivity of American prohibition, go much too far. The state presumes too much, dictates too much. Labour politicians must move in a more liberal direction. The LibDems are merely prevaricating, calling for a Royal Commission, instead of having the courage to take a decision themselves.
Check out the Angel Declaration. Six Labour MPs (and one LibDem) have already committed themselves, by signature at that website, to the most radical form of reform > that is, de-criminalisation. They are real leaders, willing to blaze a trail. If you agree, you can add your signature – check it out!
“This is pretty revolutionary stuff. There will be lots of worries, but as long as it is understood that the purpose of holding this information is to ensure that we should collectively intervene to prevent children from becoming criminal, I think it will be accepted”
Not by me, Mr Blair! My “revolution” would be against the Police themselves, if they behaved that way. This approach reflects clear intellectual and political errors of judgment, against which citizens must be protected. It is an abuse of statistical reasoning. The Met has lost perspective, lost any sense of liberal principle. "These boys display certain characteristics, therefore they are likely to be criminals, therefore I will collar them now." Ian Blair implies that a policeman would be entitled to approach parents to reveal that their little Johnny was likely to become a criminal, and ask what are they were going to do about it? That is illiberal and profoundly mistaken. If these illiberal doctrines are being peddled by senior police chiefs, what sort of inhumanity exists among the Other Ranks?
Every citizen, every child, is entitled to the benefit
of every doubt. No statistical reasoning can displace that presumption. There should
be no question (except perhaps in the cases of extreme mental
malfunction, medically certified) of any prior Police intervention in citizens’
lives. We must all, in particular the Police, learn to take human rights more seriously, and
avoid applying "risk analysis" to our fellow human beings.
That’s why I play my part in the civil rights movement, both as a lawyer and a citizen. I am proud to be a Board member of LIBERTY, and Secretary of the newly-emerging 
In those circumstances, civil-rights reasoning provides a platform from which the banner can be raised. I have no idea what success today’s Los Angeles petition will have, given the collective madness now sweeping America