We have to say no to 'just say no'

There really must be another way. According to The Economist, 5 per cent of the world’s population abuses drugs. Yet the UN conference in Vienna has offered no new routes to combating this world-trashing menace.

The Economist, for the second time in 20 years, calls for wholesale legalisation. In a recession the mere tax take from such a move would be massive.

But more important, let alone the reduction of prison populations, there is every possibility that it would remove almost entirely the poison of criminality that illegality spreads throughout every society on earth. “It is far easier to attack something if it is brought into the light,” the article concludes.

One way is candid education: a genuine discourse about the dangers of all drugs, from aspirin to heroin, from alcohol to cigarettes.

Young people care hugely about their self image. Telling them honestly that their teeth will fall out, that they may suffer amputation or worse, has an impact (the latter conditions a consequence of tobacco and alcohol use and misuse).

Evo Morales chewing a coca leaf at least told us there even was a UN meeting about the matter. It was a stunt. The consensus that it is fine to advise would-be drug users to “just say no” does not work, and never has. Afghanistan, Pakistan Colombia, south central Los Angeles, parts of Edinburgh, Finsbury Park and beyond are needlessly racked by the criminality and danger that illegality brings.