Cocaine

I know I shouldn’t ask this, but is cocaine really that addictive?

Cocaine addiction is a dreadful thing. I’ve seen it so many times: bright, once-pretty people with washed-out grey faces who can’t think about anything else. Children, partners, careers – they can all go hang so long as the restaurant has a loo where you can do a quick line between courses, or you can nip outside to suck on a crack pipe. This how frantic it can get: If anyone has stopped to watch me go to the cash machine and withdraw stacks of bills, several times because of the $200 transaction limit, then head out to an idling van with tinted windows, and return minutes later with bulging pockets, it wouldn’t take much

Processed food is dangerous. It’s time for radical action that libertarians will hate

Two very different but valuable crops are grown in Central and South America. After hours of toil, each is carefully harvested. But it’s not the plant itself that is prized: it’s the product inside. So both crops are subject to a process of extraction. The aim is to have a high concentration of pure product. One of the crops is sugar cane and the other is the coca plant, which contains cocaine alkaloid. Consuming either sugar or cocaine stimulates the brain’s pleasure centres. When they are purified, this effect is heightened, producing an exaggerated biological response. For example, coca leaf has been chewed in Central and South America for hundreds of

You’d have to be high to believe the drug-driving laws were designed to improve road safety

New drug-driving regulations came into force on Monday, establishing legal limits for the levels of sixteen intoxicating substances in the blood. Eight are illegal drugs, and eight are legal, prescription drugs. Police are being issued with new roadside testing kits, though these can only detect the presence of cocaine and THC (the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis). Others suspected of driving under the influence will still have to be taken down to the station for a blood test. The limits set for the illegal drugs are, perhaps unsurprisingly, lower than those set for prescription drugs. I am not about to argue for leniency in cases of drug driving, but the

This new Sherlock Holmes exhibition will have Cumberbitches salivating

Have you ever experienced the joys of Jawohl, meine Herr’n? If not I strongly advise an appointment with YouTube. The song features in the 1954 film Der Mann, der Sherlock Holmes war (‘The Man who was Sherlock Holmes’), and is performed by Hans Albers and Heinz Ruhmann, mainly while soaping themselves in the bath (one each – it’s not that kind of film). Albers and Ruhmann do not, as you might expect, play Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, but rather men pretending to be Holmes and Watson in order to solve a crime. At one point they’re prosecuted for the impersonation, with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (an actor, not the real

Portrait of the week | 9 January 2014

Home George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made it clear in a speech that he intended to cut £25 billion after the next election, with about half of the savings coming from cuts in welfare payments. Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister, said that the means proposed were ‘unrealistic and unfair’ and showed that the Conservatives wanted to ‘remorselessly pare back the state for ideological reasons’. Nick Clegg told the Commons that official estimates suggest that more than 1,500 Syrians had entered Britain last year through the asylum system. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, said that Mr Clegg had ‘a very important ceremonial function as David Cameron’s lapdog-cum-prophylactic

Spectator letters: Defending super-heads, and how to drink your yak’s milk

In defence of super-heads Sir: I would like to defend head teachers all over the country from the assertions made in Mary Dejevsky’s article (‘Super-heads will roll’, 7 December). The international Pisa studies — which proved how urgently the English education system needs to improve — show that greater autonomy for head teachers within proper accountability structures produces better results for children. That is why this government’s reforms have been designed to transfer powers to heads, away from council control. We’ve balanced this increased autonomy with sharper, stronger accountability. Head teachers are charged with spending taxpayers’ money wisely and honestly and, as accounting officers, are personally responsible for the resources

James Delingpole: In defence of cocaine

‘Is anyone here even remotely shocked that Nigella Lawson has done cocaine?’ I asked. Everyone shook their heads. Well of course they did: it was the after-show drinks in the green room at a BBC studio. ‘So why is it being reported in the media as if it were some amazingly big deal?’ No one knew the answer to that one. Everyone present had either tried Class As or been to numerous parties where they were about the only ones there who hadn’t taken Class As. Yet here we were, gossiping about the latest revelations from the Nigella court case for all the world as if they mattered. ‘One Direction

Narcoland, by Anabel Hernandez – review

It is by now surely beyond doubt that those governments committed to fighting the war on drugs — and on paper that’s all of them — face a total rout. To understand the scale of the defeat, all you need to know is that Barack Obama and David Cameron have both been unable to deny that they were once users. The US spends more than a billion dollars a year on international narcotics control and as a result, as a US official in Colombia once told me, has forced up the price of a gram of cocaine in New York by just a few dollars. That must have put drugs

Steerpike: Murdoch ruined Dave’s holiday

  So did Dave enjoy his brief break in Ibiza? Not if Rupert Murdoch could help it. Rupe declared on Twitter that the Woolwich atrocity would be a personal test of Cameron’s leadership. ‘Could save him or finish him if he mishandles.’ Three days later the Aussie ref flourished a yellow card. ‘With UK on terror alert, Cameron on holiday. Unbelievable.’ The following morning, by an extraordinary coincidence, the Sun splashed on a picture of a tanned and smirking Cameron next to the headline. ‘Crisis? I’m off to Ibiza.’ Rupert’s quest for revenge goes on.   Poor old Dimbers has lost the plot. First, as a BBC hack, David Dimbleby is required

The War on Drugs is as pointless as it is immoral; obviously it must continue. – Spectator Blogs

Like Tom Chivers I’d not planned to write anything about the latest suggestion our drug laws are sufficiently confused, antiquated and beyond parody that at some point it might be worth reconsidering them. It’s not that I’ve tired of reform, rather that I’ve pretty much tired of making the case for reform. I have precisely zero expectation that this Prime Minister, who once seemed unusually sane on drug issues, will fulfill the naive and youthful promise he showed on the opposition benches. But then, like the redoubtable Mr Chivers, I saw Thomas Pascoe’s views on the matter and found myself sufficiently provoked by his argument that I was stirred to