[Christopher Hitchens] Good to see that sanity can sometimes be as infectious as insanity. All it takes, apparently, is one lucid moment on the part of one public figure, and a whole realm of illusion can be dissipated. The Peter Lilley moment on soft drugs, closely followed by the David Blunkett one, gives some reason to hope that the American nightmare is not in our future.

Here is what happened in my hometown of Washington DC during the Congressional elections of 1998. A local initiative was attached to the ballot, proposing the "decriminalization" of marijuana for medical purposes. After the votes had been counted, it was abruptly announced that the result would not be disclosed. The United States Congress, which has ultimate jurisdiction over municipal government in the capital of the free world, ruled that, though it could not prevent a vote being taken, it could prevent the outcome from being made public.

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Published on Wednesday, July 11, 2001 in the Guardian of London