Legislating to send a message

Simon Jenkins in the Guardian:

Next week, we are reliably told, Gordon Brown will reclassify cannabis as a class B drug rather than a class C. This obscure decision, taken in defiance of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, is a vignette of modern British government. Brown has no evidence to alter what is a pharmacological classification, but is happy to abuse science to “send a message”.

Politicians have an annoying tendency to use legislation to “send a message” and, as Jenkins, points out, the real recipients of the message are not those who don’t abide by the law but newspaper editors.