You wrote:
Mo Mowlem, former Cabinet office minister and Northern Ireland secretary, has
       come out in favour of legalising all currently-illegal drugs, and taxing heroin and
       cocaine.
Nice to see common sense breaking out all round, once the ideological iceberg of
       institutional politics begins to break up.

Well, one would hope this would lead to drug addicts getting access to a regular, relatively safe supply of their drug, causing less havok, and being able to quit more easily. OTOH, giving how our existing highly addictive legal drug is marketed and sold, it could just replace Joe Camel with Junkie Monkey...