Politics is something which Ears To The House accepts we have to dabble in from time to time. The whole roots of dance music are essentially political, so we can’t distance ourselves entirely from it – although you will never find editorial pieces on this site telling you how to vote.

Last Friday, the SNP – Scotland’s ruling party – requested that the British government decriminalise the use of all drugs for personal use. Despite Scotland having its own parliament, the UK ultimately retains control of drug policy – and to the surprise of literally no one, they turned the request down flat.

Now, Ears To The House has no particular view on drugs – we believe that they’re going to be used whether they’re legal or not. Ultimately, it’s an issue that must be decided by those including politicians, scientists, and health officials based on the evidence.

But regardless of any arguments for or against the move, the SNP couldn’t have gone about this in a worse way. For example, sending the request on a Friday – when everyone’s packing up to go home for the weekend – is just cynical. Doing it on Friday also ensures it gets less scrutiny by weekend journalists – hardly an honourable move.

Instead of putting the spotlight on Britain’s long failed drugs policies, it just turns it back on themselves. And when one considers the SNP currently have the police probing their finances – with former leader Nicola Sturgeon recently arrested in connection with the matter – this starts to look like it’s less about trying to make positive change, and more like opportunistic politicking.

This issue deserves to be treated much more seriously than this. Scotland – a country with the highest number of drugs related deaths in Europe – should know this by now…