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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

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Personally what really infuriates me is cocaine users acting like they have no responsibility for gang violence in London.

Stopping the use of cocaine by respectable middle class people in London would be easy, just have the police raid high end clubs, posh pubs in Chelsea and Clapham and a few private parties in affluent neighborhoods and search (and charge) everyone with the drug, and do so persistently every weekend for a year or two and the issue would solve itself. But they prefer to go upstream.

Middle class people know their situation is extremely precarious and would usually be ruined by criminal conviction; that they use cocaine so openly is a testament to the fact that the British police almost never prosecute or even arrest hard drug users unless they’re extremely visible or otherwise annoy them.

Agree completely. I once had someone pretty high up in the Met (London Metropolitan Police) proselytise me for legalising hard drugs. His argument was that they caused too many problems with blackmail.

Obviously he has the right to his opinion but I think it’s a pretty bad look for a senior police officer. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been taking something himself.