Failing war on drugs has created an army of criminal monsters

YOU don’t usually think of the Times of London as a source of subversive material, but in July 1967 it carried a most unusual full-page advertisement that exposed the absurdity of establishment thinking on drugs, then and now.

Signed by luminaries ranging from the Beatles (who paid for the ad) to maverick Tory MPs and trendy Anglican bishops, it proclaimed “The Law against Marijuana is Immoral in Principle and Unworkable in Practice”.

It opened with a quotation from Baruch Spinoza, the 17th century Dutch philosopher, which still made plenty of sense 300 years later, and still makes sense today. It has the kind of hard clarity you won’t get from our ducking-and-diving politicians today. Too much common sense, not enough populism, too many colours nailed firmly to the mast. I won’t detain you with all of it, but these lines should give a taste of its bracing tone: