There was a respectable turnout for today’s launch of Crispin Blunt’s Conservative Drug Policy Reform Group. Guido spotted Dominic Raab and Andrew Mitchell in attendance, former Civil Society minister Rob Wilson is the CEO. The group got a front page pasting from the Daily Mail this morning for being funded by Canadian cannabis corporations. Nevertheless the fact is that prohibition has failed and the case for medical cannabis is a strong one, as this emotive video evidences:

The group plans to advance an evidence-based change to policy. Guido thinks that the main obstacles to a humane drugs policy are not the police or even most Conservative politicians. It is the outdated stance of the Daily Mail, and commentators like Peter Hitchens and Tim Montgomerie. Meanwhile we have a prison crisis, the needless criminalisation of untold people, with the profits of the illegal drug trade driving violent crime to horrific levels. Needless carnage…