Politicians in a haze of denial about ‘war on drugs’

DRUGS have a funny effect on politicians.

Take British prime minister, David Cameron; the persistent questioning, while he was running for the leadership of the Tory party, as to whether he had ever taken cocaine, was met with the line — no pun intended — that he had never done so while a member of parliament.

And drugs are looming large on Mr Cameron’s horizon again, as he desperately distances himself from a heavyweight report, commissioned by his own government, which has been the first in the past 40 years to decide that the harshness of penalties has little effect on illegal drug use.