Teach your self Pot smoking from LibDems

This is just plain potty and down right irresponsible, Liberal Youth were seen distributing a flyer “Lib Dems on Drugs” outside the City and Islington College in Goswell Road advising on cannabis usage and even going so far as advocating buying the high strength form of skunk.

Lib Dems have always been clever at damage limitation and blaming somebody when caught out. It's reported that these were old flyers taken from the Liberal Youth's office at party headquarters to attract attention. That maybe so but they should have been destroyed long ago. Islington's Lib Dem councillors may claim to be embarrassed and have distanced themselves from the issues but it's still a Federal Party policy document.

Some years ago at a Party conference there was a vote on the issue. The flyers were to be part of the publicity campaign. Whether they were distributed I don't remember. .

As a then party member and an Islington conference delegate I refused to vote for it. The motion was passed but caused an uproar at the time. It upset many grassroots party members who were horrified at what happened. Media reports then claimed it to be a historic vote - the Liberal Democrats were the first major political party in the UK to back the legalisation of cannabis, as part of a wide-ranging review of drug laws in general. Ever since then the party has been tagged as being 'Soft on Drugs'. I'm not aware there has been any conference amendment to the policy since then so it's still part of the party's policy archives.

I have been asked many times why I won't vote for Brian Paddick the Liberal Democrat London Mayoral candidate. It's his past association with drugs when he was Lambeth's Metropolitan Police Borough Commander and the controversial drugs policy he introduced into the borough that I'm uncomfortable with. I wasn't surprised when he joined the party with this mindset. It's the controversy surrounding the issue that has given him the so called London "High Profile status! the party always refers to. It may not be a media hot topic at the moment but it's still in the background.