The War We Never Fought

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 purp