This is really the same issue as hate crimes.

I personally feel that there should be a clearly defined line between laws which punish physical behavior and laws which punish speech and inferred intentions.

We should stay on one side of that line.

In the US, drug laws are already almost on the border of violating it. Consider that if I get caught with a gram of weed, I'll be charged with possession if anything happens at all. However if I have a scale or spare baggies on me then I can be charged with intent to distribute. In this case, it's still technically on the right side of the line (despite it's terrible name) because it's criminalizing having, e.g. a scale, in addition to weed rather than purely intent. However they're also blurring the line by attempting to infer intent from behavior.

With hate crimes and this anti-hate-speach law in the UK, they're clearly crossing the line. They're adding severity to the punishment for intentions that the person had. So if I murder someone, I get one punishment. If I murder someone and a jury is convinced that my intentions were formed because I didn't like the race or sexual orientation of the person, I now have additional time. Murder and the punishment for it are already extreme enough to act as a deterrent for most people.

This is a stupid class of laws.