Weekly news - Drug reform / European immigration

The New Year was rolled out (pun intended) to the story that Colorado has become the first state to legalise cannabis for recreational use, joining Uruguay in helping to inflame a rejuvenated debate on drugs and their prolonged illegality.

On the surface this appears to be a victory for the liberal contigency of America - which on this issue has been far more progressive than the puritan UK government who still cling to the widely discredited 'war on drugs' mindset whilst sidelining the now-lauded spokesman for drug policy reform, David Nutt.

And yet, this is still in Colorado, a state not a federal law, and as such these first purchasers are in effect 'legal criminals', with the billion-dollar industry of 'Big Cannabis' beholden to the federal government deciding not at some later date to enforce the prohibition. Few expect this to happen but at present it is still a potential risk.

As for my view, I am convinced that legalising, taxing and properly regulating all forms of drugs is the most sensible and mature policy. Continuing to demonise, obfuscate on useful informational sources, and criminalise drug users - sending them to prisons which are often more awash with drugs than the streets outside - just seems illogical.

There are two simple reasons that are manifest as to why criminalisation fails to work.

Firstly, the human propensity to experiment and abuse drugs. People have and will always seek mind and mood altering drugs, whether exhilarating or anxiolytic, from the Chinese opium dens to the Georgian-era gin houses, to the explosion of a 'Prozac nation' over the last 2 decades.

Secondly, it is axiomatic from reading any personal account of addiction that the substance in question that has been stamped with the mark of illegality scarcely even registers on the consciousness of the habitual user. The deterence objective of the illegal status has been utterly supplanted by the physical and psychological need for the chemical stimulus.

With this in mind, surely it would be preferable for a properly regulated and mandated drugs market which eliminates the societal scourge of dealers, traffickers and inevitable gangs, as well as the constant influx of 'legal highs' with all their inherent ambiguity and misinformation regarding particular toxicities; not to mention funneling a new and much needed revenue stream into the Treasury.

All this said however, I do remain wary of blanket legislation. It is of course the case that some are more susceptible to addiction than others, as well as there being the obvious allure that may overcome those of a more curious disposition who would otherwise not have been tempted by experimenting with harder drugs simply through their lack of exposure or ready access. Only a comprehensive and fully considered system with proper help programmes for addicts and good quality information for prospective users will suffice. The war on drugs has been lost, its the quality of the armistice that really counts.

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The other major story to follow in the hungover New Year slipstream was the opening of the UK's borders to migrants from Bulgaria and Romania, a story that oh-so-predictably incites all the worst forms of latent xenophobia in people that UKIP hope to sweep up in their dragnet at the next general election.

The level of immaturity at which news such as this is presented across the media, with headlines shouting about 'vast waves' and 'uncontrolled numbers', means that, as with drug policy, a sensible and mature debate about immigration is derailed. Clearly, Labour's laissez faire approach to immigration from Poland and elsewhere was sheer folly, a consequence of the insouciant 'boom years' that now seem so far away.

But immigration on such a scale is surely a fundamental consequence of the neoliberal globalised world in which we are purported to now be inhabiting? Herein lies the paradox in the government's thinking. Cameron and Osbourne travel to China, Japan and elsewhere declaring Britain to be 'open for business' and espouse the merits of internationalism as positive tenets for the economy back home, and yet they then pander to the mediatised scaremongering which declares the possibilities of yet more migrants flocking into the country to work.

As far as I can see, it makes little to no sense focusing on the individual migrants themselves. So long as their working prospects in terms of being able to provide for their family are better here than in their home country, they will come. Instead, the government needs to tackle the employment sector, the agencies that advertise jobs exclusively on foreign websites, and the ruthlessly minded employers who exploit this ready and willing overseas workforce by driving down pay, job security and standards of living simply because they can get away with doing so.