Adam Smith Institute

It's time to light up in the pub again...Yes, I realise that sounds absurd in the extreme, especially as you’ve not heard about the ban on cigarettes being lifted. But now technology has come to the rescue. A clever device has hit the market, which will enable you to get round the ban altogether.

Advertising for the Gamucci Micro Electronic Cigarette claims, "It looks like a cigarette, it tastes like a cigarette, it smokes like a cigarette, but it isn't a cigarette... [it] produces a real smoking experience without any of the deeply unpleasant side-effects of tobacco.”

The device uses state of the art vapourising liquid to produce smoke and it comes with cartridges that release vary strengths of nicotine if you just can’t give up the weed. So what are you waiting for, spark up... or at least plug it in, charge it up, and stand at the bar puffing away! Oh what fun, to watch the nannies' faces turn puce with rage as they realize they can’t do anything.
 

Back when he first became prime minister (how he must miss those days!), Gordon Brown was keen to show off his social authoritarianism. Perhaps he wanted to create a contrast with David Cameron's 'liberal conservatism' and win over the right-wing press. Brown's 'son of the manse' streak manifested itself in his decision to veto the Manchester super casino and slam the emergency brake on liberalizing gambling, and to announce a review of the reclassification of cannabis from class B to class C.

Well, the review is over and it appears that the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has recommended – quite sensibly – that cannabis remain a class C drug. But it also appears that – rather less sensibly – the prime minister is going to ignore their advice and have it reclassified anyway. As he eloquently told GMTV, "I have always been worried about cannabis, with this new skunk, this more lethal part of cannabis."

Let's be clear about what this means.  Possession of a class B drug carries a penalty of up to five years in prison and/or an unlimited fine. Supplying a class B drug (which could just mean giving some to a friend) carries a maximum 14-year sentence and/or an unlimited fine. Such punishments are plainly completely disproportionate to cannabis – a widely used recreational drug that is by no definition of the word 'lethal', as the prime minister claims to believe.

That's not to deny that cannabis can be detrimental to a person's mental health. But reclassifying it to class B and turning thousands of otherwise law-abiding individuals into serious criminals is hardly a sensible response. It exposes the absurdity of the government's whole approach to drugs. It also makes educating the young about drugs even more difficult: they know that cannabis is not a 'lethal' drug and when the government claims it is, they are less likely to believe anything else they say.
 

100. "Nobody should be free to smoke in public places."

There are many things which people do in "public places" – a concept which now includes private property open to members of the public – which others find unpleasant. The question is whether they do significant harm to others. It seems well established that many smokers harm themselves, and are at risk of incurring diseases thereby. This does not justify state intervention, any more than our consumption of unhealthy food and drink justifies it. The state can warn us, but the behavioural decision in the light of that knowledge is our own. Most smokers do not appear to engage in criminal activity in support of or in consequence of their habit.

There is less evidence that passive smoke harms third parties. People who share living space over the years with heavy smokers might incur greater risks, but there is little to suggest that non-smoking patrons of bars and clubs stand a significantly greater health risk if others smoke. The bus which spews diesel fumes onto a crowded pavement, especially at the level at which children breathe, might well prompt greater health risks. Those who cough and sneeze in public places undoubtedly pose health risks to others, while the thoughtless use of mobile phones on trains and in restaurants might raise the stress levels of those who have to suffer it to health-damaging levels. Society usually takes the view that there must be a significant risk to others before it intervenes.

Some of those who support smoking bans claim that most smokers welcome them because it helps them to give up. Very few cigar smokers, also banned in public places, want to quit, though. And although many people would like to lose weight, few would regard this as a justification for society to ban caloric foods in order to help them diet. The principle should be consistent, and not single out smokers to ban.
 

HMG's considered thoughts on what to do about drugs is containted in this document. It's an absolute masterpiece, quite the apotheisis of the bureacractic art. There is page after page of detailed plan, of targets to be set and met, of who is the departmental owner of this and that and those oh so vital dates by which "increase the number of DIP conditional cautions to 2,000" will be achieved (March 2009, for those interested).

Unfortunately, there is absolutely nothing at all about the only possible way to actually win the War on Drugs. Declare victory and then smartly retreat by legalising them. It simply isn't possible to wipe out drug use and supply without demolishing every last vestige of civil liberty....on which point they do make one horrendous suggestion:

23. Widen the categories of assets liable for civil recovery and introduce recovery of assets at arrest.

The drug war cannot be won by those tactics without undermining the human liberty and individual freedom that you and I cherish.

63. "We need ID cards to help fight terrorism."

Terrorists constitute the one group which seems to have no difficulty in gaining access to forged and false identification. If ID cards were introduced in Britain, no competently equipped terrorist would be without one. Terrorists do not usually write the word "terrorist" as their occupation; they try to hide their purposes, and only surface as terrorists at the moment of their crime.

It is all very well to talk of higher technology to combat ID card forgery, but the technology of the forgers advances, too, and many terrorist groups have the resources to use it.

What ID cards are actually about is control. They enable authorities to know our movements, along with a great deal of other information. We have always been reluctant to grant gratuitous information to those in authority because we have so often seen it misused. Just as sophisticated phone-tap technology is now used by local authorities to search for people involved in fly-tipping, so we can expect the information on ID cards to make its way rapidly down the scale of offences and be used against individuals suspected of trivial misdemeanors.

We have learned to our cost that every level of government is careless with the information it stores on us. Even if authorities did not misuse the information themselves, it is quite likely that their slipshod controls would make it easy for those with criminal intent to do so. There have been incidents of highly sensitive information lost on mislaid disks, or stolen while inadequately protected. The very collection of so much information together would create risks of it falling into the wrong hands.

Government talks of combating terrorism, but the real purpose of ID cards is probably to control employment of illegal immigrants or to fight benefit frauds. There are better and less expensive ways of doing this than subjecting the whole citizenry to an ID card regime.

60. "Alcohol should be made more expensive and less widely available to combat binge drinking and yobbery."

Many people who put no great faith in the price mechanism elsewhere happily advocate big price increases for things they disapprove of. Such things include smoking, budget air tickets, petrol, and alcohol. Price increases can indeed change behaviour, but it is poorer people who are hit hardest; the rich can afford the increase.

The assumption behind the anti-alcohol campaign is that low prices promote binge drinking, and the attendant anti-social behaviour sometimes seen in young drinkers. It is by no means clear that this is true. People in some other countries where alcohol is cheaper do not have the binge drinking or lout problem to anything like the same extent. It seems to be a cultural thing which affects some countries more than others.

An increase in the price of drink would probably just prompt a switch among binge drinkers to cheaper types, or perhaps to illegal substitutes. Meanwhile respectable middle-aged couples would have to pay more for their bottle of wine, and the great majority of Britons who do not binge drink and commit anti-social acts would be punished for the sins of the minority who do.

Similarly there are those who urge that pubs and bars should have reduced opening hours to deny drinkers the opportunity. Again, it seems that facilities enjoyed the many are opposed in order to target the abuse committed by a few. Determined binge drinkers would continue to drink, but at home or outside, rather than in licensed premises where the decision of the proprietor when to stop serving them exercises at least some restraint.

Countries which make it difficult to drink through state monopolies or huge liquor taxes seem to suffer greater drink problems than more easy-going ones. To curb drinking excesses, it is the culture that must be changed, not the availability of alcohol.

Persons or embryos that are known to have a gene, chromosome or mitochondrion abnormality involving a significant risk that a person with the abnormality will have or develop a serious physical or mental disability, a serious illness or any other serious medical condition must not be preferred to those that are not known to have such an abnormality.

59. "We need a Human Rights Bill to protect our liberties."

A Human Rights Bill is something which looks plausible on the surface, but disastrous when you look deeper into it. Such a bill would be a written codification of the liberties which Parliament thinks should be enshrined into a written law. In fact most of our liberties come from conventions and assumptions added to over the centuries. Some were acquired from individual laws passed by Parliament, some arose from celebrated legal judgements which enshrined an important principle.

Any attempt to write them all down will be forced to simplify them into a manageable text. Many of them have the nuances of precedents which arose in practice and are difficult to codify. Inevitably, such a text would be given priority over the history, losing subtle threads of association in the process.

Furthermore, once the principle of a Human Rights Bill were established, every pressure group in the country would try to get their particular hobby horse through its door and admitted as a 'human right.'  People would campaign to get the rights of children not to be chastised by their parents, and the right of unborn foetuses to be protected from abortion, or from mothers who drink or smoke. The right to free and equal education would be inserted to have independent schools closed down. The Bill would be an instrument to get the force of law to do things which elected Parliaments have thus far declined to do. In its drafting it would be near impossible to keep the contentious 'positive rights' separate from the negative rights which have constituted our liberties.

Parliaments have been scant respecters of those liberties in recent years, but a Human Rights Bill, far from protecting them, would open the floodgates to even more abuse and erosion of them, taking away our freedom in order to give others what some think should be their 'rights.'

57. "Children should be taken into care at the slightest hint of any parental abuse."

Some child abuse campaigners broaden the definition to make it seem more prevalent than it is. 'Child abuse' used to mean physical violence or sexual abuse, but campaigners try to include parents who might smack a naughty child, or even verbally assail one in an intimidating manner. This broad definition devalues the seriousness of horrific acts by putting them on a par with verbal or mild physical chastisement. On this definition, most children are abused.

On the more serious definitions of abuse, there are obviously cases where the only way to protect a child from an abusive parent is to remove the child to a safe place. But even in cases of real abuse, there are often better ways of protecting the child than by taking it into care. The best environment for a child is reckoned to be a family home, whatever type of family. When abused children are asked what they want to happen, most do not want to be taken into care; they want the abuse to stop.

When a child is taken into care, it sets back their potential development and achievement. Children in care, particularly those in institutions, do not fare as well on average than those who remain with their families. Obviously a balance has to be struck, and if alternative remedies like supervision, counselling and therapy prove effective, they are to be preferred to care orders.

In the notorious Cleveland case, many children were taken from their parents on the evidence of a child abuse 'expert' acting on a crackpot theory of abuse. There were similar cases allegedly involving devil-worshipping cults in the Scottish islands which also turned out to be the obsessions of officials rather than real abuse. These cases illustrate the dangers of giving officials too much power, and of the need for children's courts to keep tight rein on their powers.

... Is that is doesn't exist. That was Mick Hume's take in Friday's Times, and I think he gets it about right:

If there is indeed a problem with our late-night drinking laws, it is that many of us, on the rare occasion we get out, still cannot enjoy a pint after midnight at the weekend. That's what I call antisocial.

55. "When people are accused of serious crimes, they should have no right to remain silent."

The reason why people were allowed to remain silent was that one of the law's principles maintained that no person could be forced to testify against themselves. It is a defendant's choice whether to go into the witness box and face cross-examination; they cannot be forced to. The right to silence is part of that principle, and no jury was allowed to count it against an accused if that right were exercised.

The principle is a serious disincentive to torture. If people cannot be forced to make statements or to give evidence, the authorities have much less reason to use torture to make them incriminate themselves. The police in many countries, including ones where torture is banned, have used bullying, intimidating techniques, and what amounts to psychological warfare to secure 'confessions' of dubious value – people will do anything to stop the oppression. The right to silence was an important part of protection against that kind of treatment. If people cannot be required to testify against themselves, it throws suspicion on 'confessions' which might have been extracted under duress.

This right to silence has now been modified to allow prosecutors to invite juries to draw inferences about it. In other words, if people choose to remain silent, it may count against them in court. It crucially modifies the presumption of innocence which has been a cornerstone of justice. By remaining silent, an accused could demand that the prosecution must prove their guilt. Now a jury might be asked to hold it against an accused that they did not choose to prove their innocence.

It also increases police powers to subject innocent people to questioning. Even if they have done nothing, a refusal to answer police questions might subsequently be used against them in some future charge laid against them.

I spoke at the Oxford Union on Thursday against the idea of positive discrimination or affirmative action. I rested my argument on three pillars. The first was that to discriminate in favour of some inevitably involves discriminating against others. Those who have worked to qualify for university or to gain a job are rightly affronted if the place goes to someone with lower qualifications but who happens to belong to an approved group.

My second point was that to treat people in groups rather than as individuals diminishes them a little, even dehumanizes them to a small degree. We should not be concerned with what groups people come from, but with where they might go. It is somewhat patronizing to demand high standards generally, but to lower the standards for people from certain groups.

The third pillar of my argument was that those who lose out when others receive positive discrimination have done nothing to deserve it. Why should people be punished for deeds which some of their ancestors might have been involved in? None of mine were likely to have owned or traded slaves. Indeed, in ancient times they quite possibly were slaves themselves. I doubt if any joined the redcoats in conquering continents. And even if any of our Roman ancestors might have mistreated Gauls or Carthaginians, is that a reason why less qualified Gauls and Carthaginians should be given favoured treatment today.

To my surprise and pleasure, positive discrimination was voted down by a large majority.

49. "It's quite right to make racist or homophobic remarks illegal."

It's certainly not acceptable to make racist or homophobic remarks, or to let people get away with making them in your company. The question is whether it should be against the law, with police involvement, fines and possible prison sentences, or whether we should rely on social pressures. Times have changed, and attitudes with them. An older generation callously and carelessly felt free to abuse and stigmatize others for their racial background or sexual orientation. Now there's more sensitivity to the hurt this can cause, as well as more tolerance. This is particularly true among most younger people.

Despite these welcome changes in attitude, parliamentarians still feel the need to criminalize such remarks. They use the pretext of "incitement," and call even ill-mannered abuse or poor taste humour a hate crime if it mentions some minority. Thus someone was questioned by police after saying humorously on radio that they disliked Welsh people. A shop was visited by police for displaying antique gollywog dolls in its window. Often the person complaining is not of the minority allegedly being derided or mocked, but someone else who thinks that they might be offended.

The point here is that most of us don't want to live in a society where abuse of people in some way different is regarded as acceptable, but nor do we want to live in a society which allows self-appointed thought police to seize on thoughtless but harmless remarks and have criminal proceedings taken against those who utter them. Not everything which is social unacceptable has to be illegal.

Tolerance is best where it is felt, rather than where it is enforced. It works best when people are easy-going about each other's differences and backgrounds, and more concerned with what they are like as individuals than about which groups they can be pigeon-holed into.

46. "Getting everyone's DNA on file would allow us to track down criminals and protect society."

If we wanted simply to track down criminals and protect society in the most efficient way, we would watch everyone all the time, listen in on their every conversation, constantly record all their movements, and know everything about them it was possible to know. Criminal activity would be difficult, given this approach, but no doubt clever criminals would find news ways of concealing their activities.

Even though it would undoubtedly be efficient, we don't allow it because we don't want to live in that kind of society. We want a private domain in which we have space that is only for ourselves and those we choose to share it with. The state has no business in that domain.

We treat people as innocent until proven guilty. We do not start with the assumption that all people are criminals, if only we had enough information on which to convict them. Only those who transgress the law, or who give grounds for reasonable suspicion, forfeit the right to that private space and prompt the state to enter it to protect the rest of us.

Our DNA is private information. It not only tells uniquely who we are, it can be used to tell where we have been, and in some cases what we have been doing. The state has no right to such information without good grounds for suspicion. It is more information than it can be trusted with. DNA tells even more than that, however, it tells of our genetic traits, something of our abilities and potential, and the conditions and diseases to which we might be prone. There is no way we want this information in the hands of a body we put in place to serve our interests. It would give it more power than any authority can be trusted with.