I honestly think that when people like Hitchens claim something like depression, ADHD, addiction and the like are "made up" there should be a huge disclaimer nearby saying something like: "This person has no formal qualifications in any field related to his claims and is predicating all of this nonsense on his own ignorance and insecurity rather than anything that can be reasonably termed 'evidence.'" The idea that some people might take his shit seriously, despite it being quite evident he hasn't got a fucking clue, and therefore not seek proper help for themselves or their loved ones when faced with these problems is slightly distressing.

Yes. To any sane human being. No wonder Hitchens fears psychiatry.

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You may say I'm a dreamer.... but I'm not the only one....

Hitchens has somehow got himself invited to testify before the Home Affairs Select Affairs Committee on drugs.

I just saw him sounding off about drugs getting into prisons as though it were easy to stop. So he'd raise all the permeter walls, ban visits and somehow stop corrupt officers?

Maybe (like the guy on QT) he'll propose a law against it.

If both the prisons and the after care service weren't so garbage, they wouldn't need to get off their face every waking moment. Elements within the system recognise this, and thus permit the supply of 'medication'.

Hitch himself always looks pretty miserable on TV. That must be the years of self-loathing, resulting from knowing large parts of the country despise you, even within Tory circles. Wasted life.

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"...now, with a most inhuman cruelty, they who have put out the people’s eyes, reproach them of their blindness..."

Really? So how high does this shadow policy go?

Isn't it more likely that it's just that it's hard to keep drugs out of prisons?

Has he never heard of prison riots? Prisoners have be be kept relatively happy.

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Sick Left-wing Zealot.

That's what televisions are for.

Hitchens has no actual ideas. All he does in debates is shout over his opponents, smear them, set up straw men and flounce away claiming victory.

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Ten seconds... the pain begins.

Fifteen seconds... you can't breathe.

Twenty seconds... you give up and turn off the Jeremy Vine show.

My ex worked as a drug-councillor in Swansea nick in the late 90s. Prison officers were routinely bringing in drugs then. Senior staff were aware and turned a blind eye. Nothing official, certainly not "Policy", but approved nonetheless. Wrecked prisoners are docile and you can control them with fewer officers - everyone's a winner.

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That subtle admixture of the absurd and the surreally plausible...

It wouldn't be hard to keep anything in or out of these places if they wanted to. Look at these American 'super-max' prisons Mail readers tug themselves off to. Subutex was basically invented for the HMP population. The degree of punishment today is in the state of mind. Doing even a short sentence 'straight', with full association, must be absolute torture.

PH, like the entire Right Minds (aka Wrong Brains) panel, knows absolutely nothing about what he pontificates.

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"...now, with a most inhuman cruelty, they who have put out the people’s eyes, reproach them of their blindness..."

But most prisons in Britain aren't supermax. They're in built up areas and handle a big turnover of prisoners. They have walls you can chuck things over, and they receive lots of visits.

I'd be surprised if that situation were very common, Oboogie. Sure, these prisoners can be kept quiet by drugs inside, but they come out, and in many cases have big drug debts hanging over them. They are absolutely the last people anyone would trust to keep quiet. They'd sing like canaries the first time they got caught shoplifting.

Why on earth does anyone want to waste expensive Select Committee time listening to him? What the hell does he know about it?

There was another similar witness called Kathy Gyngell too. She lamented that skunk is so strong and that herbal cannabis has almost vanished. Nothing to do with being unnecessary hard on that weak herb then. Something else about how legalisation isn't fair on supplier nations (if I understood)- yeah, I bet their governments don't want any revenue themselves and like having gangsters rampaging around instead.

As mentioned in the films "Layer Cake" and "Traffic", the problems with western approaches to drug enforcement are many and serious.

First, there was the disparity in sentencing in the early days - hardened gangsters saw drug smugglers and dealers getting relatively light sentances over serious amounts of drugs, while they were getting put away for long stretches for relatively little money. So they got involved and got serious.

Next was the issue of equal sentances regardless of the drug involved. If a dealer faced life in prison over cannabis or crack, they'd move to selling crack exclusively. Same risk, greater reward.

Then there's the money issue. In some ways the cliche of Labour in the right wing press is accurate - chuck enough money at a problem and it will disappear (or change into a new problem). The drug suppliers - the ones at the very top - they're FUCKING LOADED and have no shortage of people wanting in. Even though dealer economics (see 'Freakonomics') mean you're better off working at McDonalds.

Finally, there's the moral issue - if the government want to make serious inroads, they have to stop treating it as such. It's not. It's an economic one. The real issue around drugs is not the taking of drugs themselves, but the secondary crime (mugging, burglary etc) to fund habits. As you mau know, housebreaking has tailed off in recent years, because people have realised that there are greater rewards (phone, iPad, iPod etc) on an individual person than in a B&E, and the risks of arrest or injury are less.

And that's why Hitchens will always be disappointed. Because he sees the matter as one of personal morality and 'backbone' (no such thing as addiction, if you want to quit, just stop using etc) while it's actually a matter of market forces and economics.

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Ten seconds... the pain begins.

Fifteen seconds... you can't breathe.

Twenty seconds... you give up and turn off the Jeremy Vine show.