Former MP and medical doctor Dr Evan Harris lit out at the Home Office today for denying scientists to have their say over cannabis and other drugs. Letting kids smoke cannabis was better than turning them into criminals, he said. He had something to say about badgers too.
Harris – a medical doctor – lost his seat last year as Libdem MP for West Oxford and Abingdon by just a few votes. He now writes for the Guardian, it appears.
But tonight, at the Port Mahon pub in St Clements - Staropramen 380 pence a pint - he took the opportunity at the monthly SciBar event to accuse the last Labour government of being more than a little economical with the truth.
He claimed the last government changed the rules on classifying recreational drugs by overriding the rules because of political expediency. He told the audience at the Port Mahon pub: “I don't know why Jacqui Smith has a down on horse riding.”
He said that every scientific advisor had agreed it was a good idea to declassify cannabis from category B to C. But because of a story in the Mail on Sunday, the Labour government broke the law.
Jacqui Smith, the Home Officer, he alleged, dragged the scientific advisory chair out of a meeting in his doctor's clinic and demanded he apologise for saying crimininalising cannabis users was worse than letting the guys smoke pot.
Said Harris: “The government shouldn't intimidate scientists. The scientist did nothing wrong. All he did was defend the evidence he had gathered in his capacity as a scientist.”
Harris accused the Home Office of a knee jerk reaction. He said that the Home Office hadn't even realised it had a scientific officer. In fact, he said, every government department has a scientific officer and the Department of Health didn't realise it had one either.
Dr Harris said that the last government seemed to be afraid of the badger lobby. 50,000 badgers, he said, were killed on the road every year.
“It's very dangerous for Michael Landsley to say anything,” he claimed. He seems to think that the Home Office is absolutely useless. The Minister of the Interior was not available at press time. Nor was Private Eye. But a rep from Private Eye was there, we understand.
Badgers and drink driving do not mix, and Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition can't possibly expect to kerb the numbers of badger on the road until every boar, sow and cub is all ensconced on the grass. The Home Office has no call to be crimininalising badger clans who are caught out betwixt the stripes whilst making the roundabouts in the noct, and it is far worse than letting the little guys get gassed smoking pot.
Drinking for badgers is no doubt within their nature, but this does not excuse some rotten boroughs' badger baiting of baiting badgers down the street of shame and drink. I do not have a close relationship with badgers or the tabloids, but I can say, and I mean this most sincere, a doobian badger is much more to be tolerated than some smelly kid. And the badgerkin are not on about making it into an indecent display upskirting with some new religion, mon.
Why do they badgers do it in the road? It is man's fault for painting the traffic stripes there to entice them. To be shore, it is even in the bible. By placing the road markings directly in front of the badgers when they've come to drink, man has brought about ringstraked, speckled, and spotted flockings of badger in heat and dry Summer. It smacks of wickedness where in haste the Home Office hid the idols under the badger's furniture sett. And bottles strewn here in yon.
But by planting and cultivating in badgers a proper respect for cannabis, we would do well to keep them far from the highways and byways where they'll be tempted to drink and then get on the roads.
Nothing good may come of intimidating scientists and bible scholars who are only trying to have the world rid of the evils and trafficking road markings and horse riding.
If we ever hope to leave for our children a world which is un-incumbered and flowing with badger, it is imperative we take this stand on grass, and grab it by the resin choke as shotgunners for each of our furry little badger friends, and the Ministry of the Home Office be hanged.