Before the ‘War on Terror’ became the most popular way for incompetent and dishonest politicians to cower idiots into voting for them, there was another, similar campaign.

Like the ‘War on Terror’, the ‘War on Drugs‘ was not a war, did not target all (or even the most harmful) drugs, did nothing to stop the drugs it did target, and chiefly involved taking very poor people in extremely fucked countries and making them even worse off. It also involved suspension of the rule of law, indefinite detention of people who’d done little or nothing wrong, and (least importantly, but still rubbishly) imposing futile restrictions on western people’s ability to live their lives.

As fat gaylord Johann Hari points out, although John Kerry is likely to be slightly less appalling than Dubya in War on Terror terms, he’s a big fan of the War on Drugs. This is worrying and bad, especially given the deranged puritanism that’s taking hold on this side of the Atlantic.

Nonetheless, it seems reasonable (if distasteful) to endorse drug stupidity over blowing-up-the-entire-world stupidity.