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The Magistrate's Blog (2005-2012)

This blog has migrated to www.magistratesblog.blogspot.co.uk This blog is anonymous, and Bystander's views are his and his alone. Where his views differ from the letter of the law, he will enforce the letter of the law because that is what he has sworn to do. If you think that you can identify a particular case from one of the posts you are wrong. Enough facts are changed to preserve the truth of the tale but to disguise its exact source.

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Location: Near London, United Kingdom

The blog is written by a retired JP, with over 30 years' experience on the Bench.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Politics vs Reality (Chapter 94)

The Probation Officer blogs about the War On Drugs from a position of near-unrivalled experience. Most of the points he makes are perfectly true,even obvious, but depressingly, the combination of realpolitik and tabloid pressure means that there is next to no chance of any meaningful political movement in the foreseeable future.
This has been so for all of my adult life - I remember James Callaghan binning a report on cannabis unread, because he was enough of a case-hardened old politician to know trouble when he saw it, so into the too-difficult file went the report. To be fair, it is by no means a simple issue (that may be this blog's understatement of the year) in which we are bound by a network of international treaties and protocols. Medical opinions are divided too. Don't hold your breath.

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