Jonah, no disrespect at all, on the contrary, just disagreement, lots of it! You’re quite correct, there’s no point in going through the drug debate again, but as you sort of, do so shall I. Sort of.

Let’s start with those offending adjectives, and, at the risk of being called Clintonian, some parsing. Remember too that this discussion was kicked off by reference to a striking dishonestly commercial that, in essence, impugned the patriotism of millions of Americans, rough talk indeed at a time of war.

When I used the terms you objected to, I was talking very specifically about ‘drug warriors’. You are quite right that there are many good reasons to oppose legalization. It’s a perfectly respectable point of view held by you and many other reasonable people. The motives of the ‘drug warriors,’ basically the political and ‘moral’ activists who have subjected this country to the disaster of what is, yes, a truly “fatuous” (‘foolish,’ ’silly’) crusade, are, however, often something else. For far too many of them, their stance is either about political advancement, proclaiming their moral superiority or both. Given that their crusade has, in my view, been immensely destructive to this nation, describing it as ’self-indulgent’ seems, if anything rather mild.

Turning quickly to the wider subject we’re not meant to be discussing, I certainly don’t think that ending prohibition would be a panacea (we are an imperfect species), but I’m convinced that it would solve more problems than it created.

You mentioned the tragic story of your friend. Awful. Horrific. But no reason to espouse a policy that has wrecked far more lives than legalized heroin ever would. It’s worth recalling that ‘addiction’ is a far more complicated phenomenon than drug warriors usually admit. Is an addict a slave to the drug, a zombie who has lost his ability to take decisions for himself? No, of course not, not physically anyway. Cold turkey from opiates is unpleasant, very unpleasant, basically like a very, very nasty case of the flu, but it’s perfectly possible to get through it. What’s more, the idea that the decision to take, and continue taking drugs, is ‘irrational’ is, in fact, usually wrong. Drug taking may be misguided, and it may be self-destructive, but that does not make it irrational.

Are there some people, your ‘irreducibles’ perhaps, who cannot find the strength to quit? Sure, but their problems are better dealt with by physicians than prosecutors. How many junkies have died, I wonder, because the criminalization of their habit pushed them into an environment where medical help was elusive, needles were infected (‘fatuous’ does not even begin to describe the rules against needle exchanges), and cravings were fed by pushers whose only interest was in increasing the dose, the dependency and thus the danger?

Vast subject, so that’s it – for now…