empathy and solidarity. From absurd drug laws, to the refusal to embrace restorative justice instead of prison, to the simple stupidity that imagines that kids need a slap instead of a hug and a chat when they step out of line,.....the attempt to blur together two profoundly different things -- obedience to rules and respect for others -- is broadly disastrous. Especially so as the moral underpinnings of the status quo have never, in modern times at least, looked more thoroughly corrupt and hypocritical, and less animated by fairness, than they do today. Even more true as more and more people have reason to feel themselves left out in the distribution of society's rewards . The state has always dealt in punishment, leaving it up to communities to instil the sense of solidarity that is so much more effective in preventing antisocial behaviour. The answer to the decline of the community and community values can't be to simply crank up the punishment. The moral vacuity of the policy is self-evident in the criminality it doesn't prevent. If all recreational drugs for personal use were decriminalised, how much would this save the police and prison services? I believe the technical term is 'an official metric fuck-tonne.' Good luck getting it to happen, however. As with the rest of our policy on crime and punishment, including prisons and sentencing, drug policy isn't designed to actually remedy the problem. This is why government scientific advisers are fired or asked to resign when they