When I first read this, there was a sense of the biter bit. However, by raising the subject, Blunt is simply highlighting the hole below the waterline that has always existed in UK drug legislation. And that is the fallacy that making drugs illegal reduces the urge for people to dabble.
Poppers have been legal since whenever. I have been offered them on occasion in the 80s and 90s and declined each time. I simply didn't want to try them legal or not. At the same time I was smoking copious quantities of cannabis because I wanted to regardless of the illegality.
The key plank of the illegality of certain drugs (with alcohol and tobacco carefully ring-fenced) is it supposed to signal that something is dangerous ...
Anyway, successive governments have demonstrated they have no intention of working towards a rational drugs policy, just as successive generations of citizens have shown the government exactly what they think of their idiocy.
The shame of it all, is that the 1971 Misuse of Drugs act is actually an incredibly well thought out and carefully written piece of legislation (back in the days when such things were to be aspired to). However successive generations of Home Secretaries playing to the gallery have devalued it to nothing.
Meanwhile, Colorado is raising millions of dollars from legal marijuana.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/21/colorado-marijuana-tax-revenues-2015
I wonder what services people are happy are being cut, so we can continue the War On Drugs (c)? Although, interestingly, things seem to self-balancing anyway. You can't ramp up the War On Terror (c) whilst cutting police resources and expect things to continue as is.
Lot of people applauding Blunt. I disagree. He's a hypocrite who is only serving himself, and who gave no regard to his constituents views on other substances, and would have been quite happy for them to continue to be penalised for their choices whilst he continued his whiffle life with his drug of choice still legal. Generally I am a libertarian. But in this case, I hope poppers are banned (by the way, what is their "benefit" ? Remember marijuana has "no benefit" which is one reason why it's banned) and he can get to live like a sizeable minority of his constituents, abiding by a law he is suffering under. Or he can live like another sizeable minority of his constituents, and break a law he believes is stupid (he said it would be) with all the risk that entails.
Luckily, unlike anyone with a real job, criminal convictions are no bar to remaining (or becoming) an MP. In fact, if you look at how many MPs do have criminal records, you might think it was obligatory.