The Deputy Prime Minister joined 20 academics to endorse a London School of Economics study condemning our war on drugs as a costly failure and recommending ‘rigorously monitored’ regulation of illegal drugs. It said countries should be encouraged to conduct experiments in legalising cannabis, as long as they kept the price of the drug high and controlled its use by rationing. In the state of Colorado, USA, cannabis went on sale at the start of the year at two dozen shops. State residents aged 21 and over are permitted to buy an ounce and visitors a quarter ounce. In March UN officials reported that the commercial sale of cannabis in Colorado had led to increases in drug-driving accidents and drug-related hospital admissions. Mr Clegg has been a strong critic of Britain’s drugs control laws and called for a Royal Commission to examine the law. His repeated calls for drug law reforms have so far been rejected by his Tory Coalition partners