Sir: Mr Waugh is either being excessively stupid or excessively
disingenuous (Letters, 14 February). I challenged him to produce evidence that I had 'cried out for ever more savage penal- ties.' In reply he establishes that I made two direct quotations from the Wootton Report which seeks to reduce the maximum penalties, and quoted them with favour (though I rejected their proposals), and one (which he does not recognise as a quotation) from the UN resolution which asks us to 'increase our efforts to reduce the use of the drug' and not to increase the penalties.
The other set of quotations from my speech which he makes are indeed mine, though cer- tain words are characteristically omitted. But I asked him to justify his statement that I vied with Mr Callaghan in expressing my `abhor- rence of pot-smokers.' He ,has succeeded in establishing that I regard pot as a dangerous
drug which should not be legalised because it is associated with socially undesirable behavi- our. He then goes on to suggest that I described it as a 'new vice'—when my speech pointed out that it had been well known for rather more than 2,500 years, though it was of recent intro- duction here.
Mr Waugh really must attempt the elements of accuracy or return to the writing of fiction (if he has ever abandoned it).
All Souls College, Oxford
Quintin Hogg
Auberon Waugh's point was that Mr Hogg con- sidered pot-smoking a vice. The phrase 'a new vice' was quoted simply because those were Mr Hogg's own words (Hansard, 27 January, column 957, line 24).—Editor, SPECTATOR.
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