"What About Alcohol?"

That is a very good question.

I used to be a much heavier drinker than I am now. Not an alcoholic, but even so. A lot of very young men are like that. Now, I still drink, but not like that. Certain undergraduates of my acquaintance are where I was then. By my age, and well before that, they will be where I am now. For good or ill, our culture has been dealing with alcohol for millennia. We know how to do it. That is not the case with any illegal drug; that is why they are illegal. Saudi Arabia, for example, would rue the day if she ever legalised alcohol. So would we if we ever legalised any of those which we currently proscribe.

As a proportion of those who consume, enormously fewer drinkers are harmed by doing so, or harm others because of doing so, than is the case with illegal drug use. The appalling Nutt creature has just told the BBC that not cannabis, but alcohol and tobacco, are the gateway drugs. What, so the clear majority of the adult population in any Western country, just for a start, has ever taken - has ever even seen - heroin or cocaine? But is there a heroin or cocaine addict in the West, at least, who did not start off on cannabis, even assuming that cannabis is less harmful than heroin or cocaine?

I understand the strong abstinence movements in Scotland and Ireland, and their frustration when the English do not realise that they exist, although they are aware of the one in Wales. England has had such movements in the past, and for the same reason. She may well produce, and need to produce, another one soon. That is a major challenge to the heirs whether of Cardinal Mannning or of the Primitive Methodists (John Wesley himself drank wine, but would not have tea because it was slave-grown), since this time the impetus may very well come from, and thus lead to, Islam. Perhaps that was part of how Islam ever started?

But we cannot deny that Jesus Himself turned water into wine and prescribed its use when He instituted the Mass, while Saint Paul commends "a little wine for thy stomach".

Nor can we deny that the law has worked against smoking and against drink-driving, neither of which is anywhere near where it was not long ago in the drink-driving case, very recently indeed in the smoking case. The law could work against drugs, too. If we could be bothered to enforce it.