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See, it's still one rule for them and another for the rest of us...

In order to try to get extra work out of our squaddies we send to fight and die on our behalf, defense contractor Quinetiq has been testing "zombies" for use in combat situations...

UK army tested 'stay awake' pills:

A controversial drug which can keep people awake for days has been tested by the UK military, MPs have been told.

Modafinil pills - known on the drugs scene as "zombies" - are used to treat the rare sleeping disorder narcolepsy.

The Ministry of Defence has previously denied testing the drug on troops although it reportedly bought thousands of pills ahead of the Iraq war.

Defence contractor Qinetiq told the commons' science committee the drug had recently been tested for military use.

So we have American pilots downing speed so they can fly further and kill Canadians and now this. Who took the major shareholding in Quinetiq when our government flogged off the Defense Establishment Research Agency? Carlyle Group. European Chairman at the time...Rt Hon John Major.

After Eggwina you'd have thought Mogadon was more likely his drug of choice though, wouldn't you.

There is lots of mention today about Laurie Draper and his "cannabis induced" instant psychotic episode (in the Telegraph), or is it, as the Guardian says "hypomania" in Soldier killed friend's father in drug attack that supposedly led him to kill a friend's father with whom he had been sharing a pipe of cannabis.

There is no denying that his victim is dead, and that Draper killed him. But I would be intrigued to know what the medical evidence was. Because certainly the media coverage either cannot get it right or is reporting some cod science used to get someone off the greater charge based on the prejudices of people against drugs and their symptoms.

First off, which is it - psychotic or hypomania? The latter is specifically not the former. Hypomania is actually defined as a mild form of mania without psychosis - presumably the defense team thought, correctly as it turns out, that the prefix "hypo-" would sound as if it meant "severe" - the exact opposite of what it does mean. Further, contrary to what the Guardian reports, the medical definition specifically states that hypomania is only hypomania if the symptoms, none of which involve violent outbursts of the kind that would create a killer, are not related to substance use!

Second, why would being under the influence of the alleged effects of a drug be a defense against murder? Does someone who kills after getting drunk get let off murder because he or she was drinking?

Unless it was forced on him unwillingly (a paratrooper?) even if one could prove a direct and instant causal link between getting stoned and the "frenzied outburst" why would it constitute any kind of defense except by playing on the fears and prejudices of everyone involved in that legal process?

One attempt to get off a higher charge by blaming it on the skunk when even the reported scientific terms used are medically inaccurate does not constitute "proof" of a link. It only constitutes proof that in a world of suspicion and prejudice engendered by the "war on drugs" people, even lawyers, are only too willing to accept it as yet more evidence of the utter depravity and dangers one puts ones-self into by using such substances.

Will the CPS appeal the downgraded conviction? Will they hell. It suits their agenda. As the Guardian says the "case may stir debate over downgrading to class C (of cannabis)".