David Cameron's new policy chief wants to legalise drugs

David Cameron has hired Sunday Times columnist Camilla Cavendish to head-up his Downing Street policy unit.

The journalist, campaigner and author studied PPE at Oxford and worked as a management consultant before joining the Times in 2002. She won a Paul Foot award for campaigning journalism in 2008 in recognition of her investigation into closed family courts and moved to the Sunday Times in 2013.

Her recent columns have focused on the need to close bad hospitals, tackle the welfare bill and the need to ban trans fats. Most interestingly, in a June 2014 Sunday Times (£) column, Cavendish focused on the need to legalise drugs, writing:

Legalising production, supply and consumption could put paid to the whole, vile industry. Putting the market in the hands of licensed sellers would make the supply safer. And going into the corner shop, rather than sidling up to someone on the street, might make the whole act of purchase less glamorous.

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