The War We Never Fought

The War We Never Fought

Author	Peter Hitchens
Subject	Drugs, prohibition
Genre	Polemics
Published	27 September 2012 (Continuum)
Publication place	United Kingdom
Pages	304
ISBN	9781441173317
Preceded by	The Rage Against God
Followed by	Short Breaks in Mordor

The War We Never Fought: The British Establishment's Surrender to Drugs is the sixth book by the British author and Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens, first published in 2012.^[1]

The book is intended as a rebuttal of what Hitchens sees as the widespread acceptance of drug use and the weakening of drug prohibition in Britain since the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, when a Conservative government adopted a Labour Party policy to implement the Wootton Report. Hitchens believes that there is de facto decriminalisation of drugs in the UK, especially of cannabis, contrary to claims of drug "prohibition" from "Big Dope" (name he gives to the cannabis legalisation lobby). Hitchens contends that it is only through much harsher and more stringent punishment – for both consumers and dealers of drugs – that any war on drugs can be successful.^[2]