Two hours of Nutty-slacking

Well, Monday night was fun. I spent it at this (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/health/relaxing-cannabis-law-could-benefit-isle-of-man-claim-1-6589370 ) and, as I said elsewhere, enjoyed the rare pleasure of seeing a genuinely knowledgeable person speaking in a Manx public building. As far as I can recall, that has only happened three times in all my years on the island.

Media reports of the event are a little sketchy, because reporters on a topic which, eventually, was all about personal freedom and enjoyment and not “serious” moral issues were only ever going to get space to pick one sound-bite and play it up. Personal reports will vary enormously, and considering that even within a row of me were folk ranging from sixties burn-outs and semi-pro tree-huggers to conservative clergy and hardcore UKIP groupies that is no surprise.

So, for the record, if you have already seen David Nutt on, say, that live Channel Four Ecstasy experiment last year or read his book then there was nothing new. He ran through his routine in a manner calculated not to frighten elderly ladies, hung together with a jokey slide-show, and finished by politely answering questions from mostly middle-aged, middle brow types who had, quite reasonably and with admirable public spirit, turned up to find out what they could about illegal drugs from someone who ought to be able to tell them. The questions from the public were fair enough, and he answered them objectively and in comprehensive detail.

Actually, I did clarify a couple of my own local suspicions from these questions.

Firstly, that the only real drug threat on Manx sink estates is the latest generation of prescription drugs (the ones which were supposed to replace benzodiazepines, AKA “mother's little helpers”).

Secondly, that those who set up and have benefited from the Chief Minister's Task Farce on Drugs and Alcohol still pan-handle for cash and tell whoppers without shame. These whoppers would be immediately discredited the moment our Public Health professionals have the courage to publish - in full- all the surveys they have conducted at public expense into drug and alcohol “abuse” exactly as they were published in peer-reviewed journals, including the methodology and the true parameters and numbers of the survey groups. They never will, because even the two examples I was able to obtain from university libraries via friendly academics clearly show that neither the experiments nor the findings bear much resemblance to the 500 word press summaries (and, sadly, even they went unread by the local media once a couple of shock stats had been quoted, wrongly and out of context).
The more serious question posed by Nutt on the night was if the island could and should profit from the problem caused back in 1971 by a UK government which, in ensuring cannabis must never be legally available, simultaneously ensured that university research could never explore any medicinal benefits because to possess it was a common crime and even to cultivate it under licence was prohibitively expensive. Since the 1980's research in other countries has begun to open up some amazing possibilities (just check the excellent and extensive Wikipedia entry on cannabinoids to get a sense of these). Meanwhile UK scientists, once world leaders, are now reduced to reading other people's research and begging knee-jerk politicos to look beyond the next focus group and ballot box. With just a little of the horse sense that saw us develop the TT and the finance sector, we could develop a niche pharmaceutical industry to fill the gap when both of those vanish – as they must within a decade or two at most.
But the only real question is do you trust mature adults to take decisions over their own lives, and then be responsible for the results? Just that.
If so (and as a libertarian my obvious answer is ”Yes”) all that remains is how you organise things (legally, socially, economically..) so that the mature and responsible are free to get on with it, those who refuse to take responsibility will find it too much hassle and those who cannot (the young and otherwise vulnerable) are not going to be capable or exploitable. The question itself should be no different when it comes to other adult pleasures, such as cigarettes and alcohol.
Nutt half addresses it with the comparative risks of rock-climbing, horse-riding etc. and the way that pleasures enjoyed by the relatively powerful never seem to get restricted while working people's cheap relaxants do, but then screws up by setting up alcohol and tobacco as alternative folk panics to dope. He starts off by correctly pointing out that alcohol is also a drug, but then it all goes rapidly downhill, and he ends up peddling a variation on “reefer madness” about currently legal (if increasingly socially proscribed) substances in order to advance his own special interest.
Those who follow the debate seriously (rather than with one hand on the bible or the bong) know about Nutt's shortcomings already. He causes defenders of drinkers or fag smokers in particular to grind teeth in despair as the “evidence” of his prattlings is taken up by dopey Guardianistas and neo-puritans alike. When he should be identifying and seeking common cause with all who oppose a prohibitionist industry which out-prudes the Victorians (and lacks even their genuine social concern for the dispossessed) he hands it half-truths to shoot down all opposing views (including his own expert opinion).
For a real attempt to put the wider picture in context, try Chris Snowdon's excellent little book The Art Of Suppression: Pleasure, Panic and Prohibition since 1800. Towards the end, in assessing current threats to liberty of the responsible adult, he comprehensively covers the wrong done by government and tabloids to David Nutt, but also Nutt's unfortunate habit of shooting himself and potential allies in the foot. If you cannot find time to read the book, at least check out some of the short and pertinent blogs on Snowdon's website (Velvet Glove, Iron Fist) and those of a few endangered fag smokers ( Dick Puddlecote is a prime example). If you cannot then begin to see the bigger picture, then maybe the liberties you are losing are just liberties you never deserved.

David Nutt talk - be there or stay misinformed

A couple of weeks back I hit a particularly rich and interesting research seam for another project. For that reason alone I cannot blog much until I find time to read through and start processing it.

Still, I can at least point anyone who hasn't yet heard towards the David Nutt lecture at the Manx Museum on Monday 28^th April. It's a co-production between Isle of Man Freethinkers and the Positive Action Group: no tickets or seat-booking and free entry/contribute what you can towards costs, so best be there at 7 PM for a safe seat. You can find more at http://positiveactiongroup.org/index.html.

And before anyone asks, no, though I have banged on about such topics regularly, I am not an organiser. If I had any influence on the decision to set up such an event, it is quite marginal, stemming from a proposal I floated to some of the older Freethinkers a few years back.

Following the death of my good friend Patrick Kneen, the Manx assisted death campaigner, and once a misguided attempt to prosecute his widow had gone away, I thought it would be a shame to lose the Manx public's new willingness to explore controversial topics in an open and civilised way. The Kneens' brave campaign opened the floodgates on an island where I had almost given up hope of seeing social change or even temporary relief from Theo-fascist twaddle. For once, local religious bigots and control freaks were caught on the back foot (despite their considerable government influence), as was also shown later by the way one homophobic legal or governmental barrier after another fell quickly in just a few years.
I tentatively put it to Mrs Kneen that it would be nice to remember Pat by setting up an annual lecture in his name. The general idea would be to bring over a knowledgeable, high profile speaker on the kind of topic locals might quietly have strong feelings about but no means to start a debate and keep their jobs. She was very keen, but as she moved away to rebuild her life and died just a year or two later, the idea got no further. I did then put it to the Freethinkers that, as possibly the only local grouping interested in social change but unlikely to ever beg public money, we really ought to give it a go.
I can hardly wait for the rare experience of entering a Manx public sector building to hear someone with expert and highly specialised knowledge willing to engage with the general public. Someone who is neither looking for nor seeking to perpetuate a public handout (and even if he was, not willing to lie or suppress vital research or evidence in order to do so). This may explain why it took two groups of enthusiastic, public-minded folk rather than a QUANGO or civil service body to set the night up. It also explains why nobody with a serious interest in the topic should miss it, and why I doubt anyone involved in the Chief Minister's Task Farce on Drugs and Alcohol or their ludicrous policies will be there.

Sleep, work, drug, work, drink, sleep (repeat until dead)

Someone from the most grounded (albeit with less government friends with imaginary friends) of the ‘local drug charities’ is saying we need more research into where the increasing demand for drugs comes from (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/details/58550/reasons-for-drug-demand-needs-to-be-researched).

I can save them lots of time and money. The answer is ‘work’.

I suggested before that island employers who run call centre set-ups, like their UK equivalents, have turned a blind eye to substance abuse for years. Got to have all those phone-jockeys hyper-alert if the profits are going to keep rolling to the shareholders. 

Funnily enough, I gather that one HR consultant, formerly paid handsomely by a major industry player to either keep overwired employees safely away from NHS clinics or dispose of the burn-outs quietly, has changed tactics with a new employer.

The new emphasis is on ensuring caffeine-based (i.e. strictly legal) stimulants are on tap to fire them up in the morning and cheap alcohol at team-bonding celebrations to end the day.

Ever wondered why commuting car-drivers behave so erratically in the evening rush home?

Another day, another Manx drug SNAFU

I see from the government website ( see http://www.isleofman.com/News/details/55367/methoxetamine-mexxy-classified-as-a-class-b-illegal-drug) that the island is to extend a temporary ban on various quasi-legal chemical substances and is also – at least in theory – offering advice to those who might like to be surer what they’re taking.

Except, of course, that this is not what is happening

In a nutshell, the tabloid-addled know-nowts up in the Wedding Cake who ‘advise’ on drug policy are trying to pretend their paranoid fantasies have been verified by UK government ‘expertise’. But as anyone who followed the David Nutt affair knows, the UK government does not actually have an expert panel of objective, independent drug advisors.

The chief advisor was sacked for giving evidence based advice rather than being prepared to rubber-stamp baseless nonsense and the principled members of the council resigned in protest. They now offer the objective research the UK government doesn’t want direct to interested members of the public instead (see http://www.drugscience.org.uk/ ) while a ragbag collection of pseudo-independent scientists, professionals and academics produce what reports and findings they’re told, when they’re told, and which fool nobody.

Except, of course, for a class of politicians and civil servants who are even less educated or honest - such as ours.

Meanwhile, a Manx drug advisory service which used to - at least - be guided by information from dependable (if sometimes self-serving) sources in the drug-control cottage industry lost government funding because it did not have enough religious friends there.
‘Advice’ now comes from a clueless consortium which does, and which having absolutely failed to give advice on its core area of inexpertise, ‘alcohol abuse’, now fails to give advice on topics it knows even less about while living off ‘sin taxes’ extracted from the industries which sell such products.

Some days I wonder what would happen if the Manx government sought advice on potential social problems from objective, knowledgeable professionals and tried to put in place coherent and realistic policies to deal with them (if they exist, which is sometimes also debateable). It would be a waste of time, because it has never happened, and will never happen.

Manx government culture just does not work like that, and its policies and ‘solutions’ just do not work. Period.

SNAFU!

This (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/details/52897/charity-plans-adult-drug-survey) gave me a few laughs this week.

So, let’s see now……

A pseudo-charity that failed to supply the basic service suggested by the old working name relaunches as a private enterprise (though actually totally dependent on government work that should be done by skilled professionals - but won’t be - and that also won’t be put up for tender from any genuine private sector qualified professional).

It got the last contract thanks to a pseudo-academic survey which, in theory, identified the drinking patterns of locals. In reality, it was based on the responses of a random group of adults who stepped in when the government sponsors of the project could not even round up an involuntary cross-sample for the researchers to ‘survey’. This is revealed in the original version of the survey, as published in a (presumably) peer reviewed academic journal and so required to outline the methodology in order that other academics could attempt to replicate it. Curiously, that is no longer available, and the version that briefly appeared on a Manx government website at the time had all such relevant details removed in favour of a simplistic ‘shock/horror’ format that could be spoon-fed to the obedient press.

Aforementioned pseudo-charity/private enterprise fails to secure funds to continue failing to provide the original service, so broadens the provision to include services it is equally unable to provide (one also handily underwritten by a ‘sin tax’ from the trade, another coincidentally depriving a fellow pseudo-charity (which used to be a vital ally) of guaranteed government funding).

In order to ‘prove’ the 3^rd service is needed it is calling on government to sponsor another pseudo-academic survey (I’ll take a wild guess that either University of Bath or University of Western England will have already been approached again), citing a Europe-wide survey of teenage drug habits which…….

Oh wait…….. wasn’t that the one which the Chief Minister’s Task Farce on Drugs & Alcohol said was inaccurate when the UK press got hold of Manx results? And wasn’t that also the survey which that very Task Farce actually underwrites again every five years in order to validate policies, committees and QUANGOs which have never, ever, worked and are never, ever, supposed to do anything except perpetuate pseudo-responses by faith-frazzled prodnoses and the public employment of their ineffectual amateur churchmates?

Sorry, laughing too hard by now to continue poking fun, but I think you get the general picture.

SNAFU!

(Bless you)

Little white li(n)es

Ever since the story broke on Energy FM (see http://www.energyfm.net/cms/news_story_221814.html &http://www.energyfm.net/cms/news_story_221807.html) I’ve been laughing at the mess the local semi-pro temperance industry has got itself into.  Now, those whose very income derives from a scam pulled by a few evangelical panhandlers a decade ago are joining in the ‘condemnation’ (seehttp://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/un-s-drug-slur-on-the-island-1-4712555), which has me rolling round the floor one again.

I particularly loved: “The spokesman added: ‘If the Isle of Man had the highest level of cocaine use in the world per head of population, as suggested by the World Drug Report, drug-related crime would be extremely high to enable addicts to feed their habits.”

Why? Because the cocaine cult hit the island in the early 1980’s as a fashion brought here by young financiers and those in related trades. I even remember the wife of one up and coming legal professional sporting a cute little gold plated fingernail – which baffled her elders but was considered very amusing amongst her peers. By comparison, over-the-hill rockers came here to get away from such temptations.

 Coke just isn’t a housing estate kiddiewink sort of drug – even when international prices started tumbling. The only Class A which ever caught on locally outside wealthier circles was Ecstasy (which serious drug prevention professionals agree should never have been a Class A anyway) and even that only for a short period.

So, just to fill in the missing links here …..

Early in the last decade Manx evangelical klingons (who depend on government for handouts) were looking for a new scam at about the same time UK tabloids were kicking off about underage drinking, as well as dredging up that ‘silly season’ staple, D-R-U-U-U-G-G-S-S-S! “Bingo”, said aforementioned klingons (thought they couldn’t say that now, of course, as their latest scam is gambling addiction). Out of this came that panhandling pantechnicon we know and laugh at, the Chief Minister’s Task Farce on Alcohol and Drugs.

Almost every local professional directly involved with young people or health couldn’t keep a straight face around these wowsers, so they needed hard ‘evidence’ to justify their continued existence – not to mention the public subsidy of their church buddies. The answer was for the island to join ESPAD (European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs), which sets a Europe-wide questionnaire every five years, carried out by ‘proper academics’ according to the same format in every participant country, then publishes the results.

 As I’ve mentioned before on here, for numerous reasons known to social science researchers ESPAD surveys have to be taken with  a large pinch of salt, and certainly cannot be taken as a ‘stand alone’ statement on youth drug use. For years, as it did not suit their purposes, neither the Manx temperance industry nor their civil service friends have acknowledged this. They still will not on other moral panics (alcohol, gambling…), and still deliberately choose badly structured ‘surveys’ by bargain basement academics well past their sell-by date to justify their continued, totally pointless, existence and claims on the public purse.

But I do not include David Quirk in my dismissal of total drivel produced by hardcore parasites. He came to his role well after all this dishonesty, and played no part in setting the original scam up. I’ve had a few dealings with him, and know him as an old school Labourite – a working man who went into politics to do the right thing for his community, and to my certain knowledge in his own time, unpaid, he still puts the skills of his old trade to use for old dears in emergencies.

David takes people at their word unless given hard evidence not to do so, and will be taking the word of government advisors - people who are supposed to be professionals - as true here. But as the ESPAD survey which the ‘new, improved’ DHA takes issue with is actually the second in which the island took part, and has been the basis of government expenditure on drug and alcohol ‘education’ and prevention for a decade, it is interesting that the DHA (without whose participation neither survey could have taken place) now dismisses the findings. On that basis, shouldn’t DHA executives – for example –offer to pay back the money given to the Drug Squad during those years?

I wait with amusement to see what ‘alternative’ survey the Manx amateur ‘substance-abuse-prevention’ industry will come up with now that they’ve shot their own golden goose. It has to (a) sound impressive (b) be comprised of statistics nobody can check and (c) according to parameters which can only conclude that we need a handful of clueless, god-bothering wasters who would be otherwise unemployable to run the ‘prevention industry’(rather than, say, qualified professionals with a background in medicine, nursing or pharmacy) . It also has to be produced in such a way that the findings can never reach academic researchers who might take an informed interest in comparative drug use in communities around the UK or world and the reasons behind that, who would immediately pull the methodology and stats to pieces and cause the Manx government further embarrassment.

Tough job, but I’m sure some bible-touting chancer can be found to do it.

Release your Inner Llama

By now I’ve got used to the Isle of Man College running ‘spiritual’adult education nightclasses with titles on the lines of ‘Release your Inner Llama’. It’s not as if Manx college tutors are actually capable of teaching adults anything these days anyway. In fact their current range of ‘vocational’ courses illustrates exactly how low government expectations of the current and future workforce are.

But as the college brochure was chucked through the door today I had a quick glimpse to see and giggle at what wacko delights were on offer. And as ever, tucked amongst flower arranging and ‘how to turn-a-computer-on’ type offerings was the now usual quasi-Buddhist emptyheadedness for bored rich thickos, plus a sprinkling of other new age psychobabble such as Reiki. A new departure was giving over to numerous, equally ill advised (not to say imbecilic), explorations of ‘Celtic Christianity’ the chapel that came with the premises for the now disgraced ‘business school’.Um… yes…. quite!

So far, so stupid. Far more serious is the involvement of Care for the Family, puppet of infamous christocentric UK hate group CARE, in a course on ‘Alcohol Awareness’ run by a governmental advisor on that very topic. I have little doubt they will also poke their homophobic noses into another course, theoretically on drug awareness. I also doubt if either course, even without CftF’s ‘help’, would stand up to critical analysis. After all, nothing else produced by the Chief Minister’s Task Farce on Alcohol and Drugs has.
That might be because the Christian fundamentalist careerists who first proposed the project to a previous Chief Minister would never allow anyone who might have an academic or professional background in such topics to get involved in the first place. Apart from anything else, an informed person with even a modicum of social responsibility would be obliged to tell politicians what a dumb idea it is to give public money intended to prevent drug and alcohol dependency to those who deal in nastier alternatives.  Alternatives which screw up families and make weak people socially and financially dependent on free-loaders for far more years than bargain basement vodka or heroin.

Putting the real dealers out of business

I was stunned when I read this (http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=43818), though not for the reasons DASH want me to be. But when I read this (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=43808) I actually cheered, then laughed when I realised that also isn’t all it seems.
What stuns me is that the Manx government has been putting over £100K annually (a sum roughly equivalent to 80% of Swithinbank’s basic salary) into an organisation which struggles to achieve what any motivated volunteer on any island housing estate could do in their spare time if they wanted to. In addition it presents itself as having ‘specialist expertise’ yet relies on inaccurate, biased and out-of-date information pumped out by UK ‘dependency specialists’ rather than objective (and by any comparison cutting edge) information readily available to any rank but engaged amateur with access to the internet. Until now I honestly thought DASH’s government funding would be closer to the sum we know they still receive (i.e. around £27,250), and even that seems about £26,250 more than any voluntary group operating at this level needs.
It was tempting to believe that the Department of Anti-Social Careerism had finally come to its senses, until you consider that the money ‘saved’ is, by remarkable coincidence, about the same annual sum it needs to put aside to cover Swithinbank’s pension. This was the point at which I burst out laughing. Knowing that Swithinbank was employed in the first place because of his ability to cut costs, source off-island funds and put in place structures whereby ‘independent’ charities do the social care and philanthropic trusts provide the money and materials, yet government pulls all the strings, it makes sense. Perhaps his final juggling act was to fund his own retirement.
Interestingly a follow-up misinformation plant from DASH (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/health/govt-funding-bombshell-for-drug-charity-claims-service-under-used-1-4303761 ) was quickly removed from the IOM Newspapers website, then reappeared heavily re-written and minus all but the most innocuous public comments. To be fair, most of the comments on the original version were so bonkers they might have come from prospective DASH clients. They certainly showed a lack of social engagement, some distancing from reality and a blinkered knowledge of current affairs peculiar to those fuelled by only the most down-market tabloids.
But it will be interesting to see what that ‘alternative service model’ will be, and especially if a ‘reformed’ cokehead now functioning as a quasi-pastor for an evangelical ‘drug charity’ will have anything to do with it. To my knowledge this outfit have friends within at least two relevant government departments, and the backing of other evangelical outfits who draw money for the (non) provision of Manx ‘public services’, in at least one case paid directly to an off-island parent which in turn acts as little more than a clearing account for ‘donations’ to a major church. As these venal, self-serving parasites, though worryingly under-informed (and under-educated in either the formal or professional senses in their fields of ‘expertise’), also featured prominently in the setting up of the Chief Minister’s Task Force on Drugs and Alcohol we can anticipate a smaller, but equally useless, public program which claims to be tackling drug abuse but actually just underwrites the activities of a shady business community which rots more minds and wrecks more families on this island than heroin dealers ever did.
Bottom line – we don’t need the ''alternative service model' either, because professional drug prevention agencies don’t work, and the best thing government could do is stop pretending it knows what it is doing and just butt out. The only thing that works is when a community decides if it wants neighbours and workmates dealing or taking currently illegal drugs or not, then what it wants to do about it. The only models I have ever seen over the decades that work are informal ones run by relatives and friends of those affected. They got people off stuff that was killing them simply by being around until they stopped taking it, and if they didn’t think the drug dealers should be there they just closed down the estate to them. It’s not rocket science, just compassion and taking an old fashioned pride in what you do and where you live and work.
The only thing government can or should do is deal with the strictly physical and medical aspects of drug dependency. They can provide adequate medical care, and if they are really serious they can (a) deal with the poverty and social inequality that makes the weakest people most dependent on drugs and (b) consider if the illegality of the drugs is a bigger problem than the physical damage they may cause.
As no-one else will say this, I will. If a cheap and easy local supply of Class A drugs dried up on the island tomorrow, the call centre operations which form the backbone of the offshore finance industry would close within weeks. Call centre workers get through days of battery chicken existence at a frantic pace by necking illegal stimulants or, if they can’t get those, semi-legal steroids which they obtain under the pretence of being dedicated gym bunnies. Their employers know and turn a blind eye to this, with the better ones offering professional counseling to employees whose habit gets out of hand and the worse ones constantly replacing staff (always at entry level wages and on short term contracts) who they expect to burn out within a year or so.
Maybe a better answer to the real problem is to legalise some of the substances, and let the market do the rest. Faced with a choice between reasonably priced merchandise of certifiable quality from reputable high street stores and the current options, the skanks selling milk and baby powder cut with knock-off East European pharmaceuticals whose name and provenance (never mind chemical construction) nobody can be sure of will go to the wall.
Of course government and local employers (even the wisest, bravest ones) are not going to go with that. Which is why all anyone can do is decide for themselves, and, where or if they think a problem exists, to get together with a few friends and sort it out.
Forget politicians, forget social services and any other government employees after a steady income and a good pension, and especially forget evangelical shysters. Like the smack dealers, they are just out for an easy living, and if we deny them that they will eventually get off our backs – or at least find a scam with less risk.

Poor judgement should not excuse poorer new law

You can always tell when the local professional prodnose industry thinks next year’s government subsidy might be trimmed because fact-lite scare stories like this (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=40829 and http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=40838) appear.
Two immediate and awkward questions arise: just who are these government ‘drug advisers’ who apparently believe “stricter laws, more research and greater awareness are all needed to curb the spread of such drugs”, and do any of them have any professional expertise?
Knowing that the Chief Minister’s task force on drugs and alcohol was set up by individuals and organisations whose main reference point is the Bible, and who do not have so much as one basic qualification in medicine, psychology (or indeed the ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ sciences in general) between them, I do hope it is not them. Actually, what I really hope is that this idiotic ‘Advisory Council’ is disbanded pretty sharpish, because, on this evidence alone, none of them are capable of interpreting something as basic as a medical report to a coronary hearing.
No, I have not read the medical report either, but I do know that it does not say this teenager was killed by a legal high, and I do know, just from reading local newspaper reports, that that teenager had also consumed quite a lot of alcohol, and I do know, from reading many more reports over the years of inquests into ’drug deaths’, that with the possible exception of purer than usual heroin it is never a single chemical substance (legal or illegal) that kills the victim, but a particular chemical reaction caused by the combination of various substances, plus the victim’s particular medical history and the particular social circumstances of the death event.
I would also have thought that in this particular case other questions which might need answering include why a 17 year old had such easy access to alcohol (which unlike the MDAI really IS illegal -and supposedly the subject of very high profile tough legislation and social control which this case alone proves simply does not work either) and why she was apparently openly having a close relationship with a man twice her age yet nobody personally or professionally related to her thought that was odd.
Again, one of the conditions demanded by and granted to Manx evangelical homophobes for the lowering of homosexual consent to 16 was a clause preventing the ‘grooming’ of anyone under the age of 18 by an older adult. In practice, as UK gay organisations have pointed out, this type of legislation is only ever used to block same sex relationships, and never against the organisations whose employees are most likely to groom teenagers for sex, i.e. religious ones.
You can also tell how close the links are between the court services and the evangelicals who live off such moral panics because, coincidentally, there will always be a high profile case for a helpful coroner or judge to use to call for tougher legislation.
Just think about it. Why would a legal professional call for weaker or better legislation, or for people to take personal responsibility for their lives, or neighbours to look out for each other …..or indeed anything which people in the real world would recognise as common sense? That would be like turkeys voting for Christmas.
Of course, the other thing we can rely on is that either the Manx press were not at the coroner’s hearing, or did not find time to read such evidence as was on public record or the judgement in full, or just chose to concentrate on juicy morsels which ‘prove’ what their bigoted readers always want to think rather than doing their duty as journalists to report the fullest facts and best informed (though probably conflicting) opinion to us so that we can make informed judgements.
Considering the seriousness of some of the issues here, this ragbag conspiracy of self-serving idiots really does need to be treated with utter contempt. And we really should, as their employers, dispatch most of them to the Job Centre as soon as possible.

Spot the real social problem

I was laughing today at an old Auberon Waugh article in which, apropos of nothing useful, he complained that care of the handicapped was becoming a UK boom industry for the hard of thinking.
I laughed first because at the time the article was written (being younger, idealistic and still unwilling to live off laundered crime proceeds in the Finance Sector) I was being interviewed for a Manx job working with the disabled. Thankfully, the Manx public and voluntary sector was then being run by even thicker, more faith challenged dimwits than now, so I was turned down in favour of some superstitious village idiot, who probably now advises the Manx government on matters they know even less about. I shudder to think what a mess I might have made of my life if 'managed' for years by people handicapped by both religious delusion and severe myopia regarding the outside world.
Which brings me to the other reason I laughed, and a more serious matter.
From a story where, with government encouragement, local media wrongly reported (see for example http://www.energyfm.net/cms/news_story_150964.html ) that a girl died solely because she took the ‘legal high’ MDAI, to the first precautionary amendment (see for example http://www.energyfm.net/cms/news_story_150914.html) by the Coroner, along with admissions that investigations were incomplete, to the first intervention by the government body which bears the major irresponsibility for such futile deaths (see for example http://www.energyfm.net/cms/news_story_151355.html ) we see a perfect example of the nonsense ‘Bron’ warned us about.
The sad, totally avoidable death of a Ramsey teenager points up everything wrong with Manx drug and alcohol policy, and that it is wrong because the Manx government (in itself a major source of ignorance) chose not to seek any expert or informed advice, and instead pandered to the whims of a bunch of cretinous, unemployable, faith-addled numpties who need to be kept off the streets.
Like the UK government (and governments elsewhere wasting resources in an unwinnable ‘war on drugs’) the Manx government could learn from criminal drug dealers, who are models of social responsibility by comparison.
For example, it was drug dealers and the better drug advisory bodies who enabled an informal ’drug testing’ information service in the 1990’s (known to clubbers and even distributed by clubs) by which rival ‘brands’ of Ecstasy were evaluated for content and purity, and rogue batches blacklisted and put out of circulation. Bear in mind, ‘E’, then as now, was illegal, so those involved risked both further arrest and loss of profit.
And also bear in mind that it was when clueless government drug czars made ‘E’ a Class A that, in the circumstances, both kids and dealers turned to older Class A substances which were cheaper and more deadly, on the basis that you would spend just as long inside if caught dabbling in either.
In those circumstances, is it surprising that Manx kids turn to ever more bizarre ‘legal’ variants of an illegal drug which, alone, has never killed anybody (because all the deaths credited by tabloid hysteria to Ecstasy, when properly examined by anyone with the patience to read autopsy reports fully, turn out to have been due to a mixture of substances – some, such as alcohol, legal – or simple dehydration, or a pre-existing medical condition)?
And is it surprising, in a social situation where their only ‘expert’ drug and alcohol advice comes from ‘professionals’ who rely on free handouts written by superstitious simpletons who, in turn, probably couldn’t scrape through GCSE Chemistry, never mind Sociology, that they turn to ever more bizarre suppliers?
‘Bron’, in typically black humour, went on to worry that the supply of handicapped people might run out before all the chumps can be found jobs negating the opportunity for such already put-upon souls to get on with their lives. Similarly, maybe the real reason we appear to be reading so many Manx tabloid scares about drugs, alcohol, homelessness, prisoners who cannot fit back into society, sexually transmitted disease and family breakdown is not because they are on the increase. Maybe, on any close analysis, the population percentages suffering such problems are the same as they ever were, or even declining.
Maybe they are just more prominently reported, and, knowing that few (if any) Manx reporters now actually find stories, go to events or even ring round contacts to flesh out the PR releases they are sent (predominantly from business and government) there is also another intriguing possibility.
Maybe a superstitious, previously privileged minority is terrified of people who take control of their own lives, and terrified of losing their ability to leech off social misery. So maybe, rather than the ‘great and the good’ dominating social care in order to abolish poverty and attendant misery, they are determined to dominate it in order to ensure it continues – or is at least seen to continue.
Oh tragedy of social tragedies, that vacuous godbothers might no longer find enough drunks, smackheads and other victims to pay the mortgage and subsidise their church expenses.

More government mugs on drugs

Ah well, even as the UK and Manx governments introduce a pointless ban on one ‘legal high’, the market has moved on (see, for example http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/apr/18/drug-replace-ban-mephedrone).
For the benefit of public sector drones, I think you’ll find that’s called ‘market research’. Businesses in the real world do it all the time. What’s known in marketing as ‘SWOT analysis’ (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). Basic FE college stuff for business studies kiddies, but harder than rocket science, apparently, for bumbling public sector and ‘third sector’ parasites who live off the taxes of others.
There’s a really, really simple point here which the clueless anti-drug industry is missing. Drug dealers weren’t flogging legal highs, innovative and quite legal small businesses were.
The folk behind such initiatives are well used to thinking on their feet, for example to avoid being overtaxed or burdened with long term liabilities. They spot new trends and jump on while they’re rising, they jump off well before flat-footed government employees create obstacles or the market in last year’s novelty item collapses. These are not thugs sleeping with a sawn-off beside the bed to see off competitors; they’re embryonic Richard Bransons.
Which makes it all the funnier to see our local drug czars continuing to pimp the fundie product of Christofascist ‘family values’ cults (see
http://www.gov.im/lib/news/education/freedrugandalcoh.xml) under the pretence of ‘educating parents’.
Can I just make another simple observation on this?
In my entire experience of life - in numerous UK inner cities - I have never heard of a drug dealer brazen enough to claim his product offered life after death. And I have never heard of a junkie dumb enough to believe it.
Evangelical Christianity? Now THAT is a drug industry that needs some serious investigation if civil servants and small town politicians need a point to their lives. A scam run by the totally unscrupulous, patronised by the totally clueless.
And while we’re looking at ‘government mugs on drugs’, try
http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2010/04/absolute-non-surprise-of-week.html for some views from the UK libertarian community.
Even wilder is http://www.cnbc.com/id/36267220/ , where I saw something I wouldn’t believe possible. A Texan Republican talking sense about drug issues.

Mephedrone madness

Our misgovernors put out their latest twaddle on mephedrone recently at http://www.gov.im/lib/news/dha/police/newoffencesconce.xml , though curiously it took until yesterday to make it onto local community news bulletins like Manxnet.
As a committed libertarian it goes without saying I ignore such nonsense on principle. I never take a blind bit of notice of any law concerning matters that responsible consenting adults should make their own minds up about.
Never have, never will. Period.
What annoys me more is the stupid, tabloid and drug czar career-driven panic around it. Yet again, in a Guardian piece by a former UK government drugs advisor yesterday (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/09/flawed-thinking-mephedrone ) it was pointed out that, contrary to the growing tabloid hysteria, nobody has died directly from Mephedrone use.
They have died from other health problems while taking it, or from the combined effects of drug and alcohol cocktails including it. As with Ecstasy, where people die of exhaustion or lack of water in a nightclub where the bottled variety costs more than a pint of bitter in one of those old-fashioned pub thingies (which the young no longer go to because they don’t exist or are full of geriatric Torygraph readers).
In other words, dumb, unhealthy people do dumb things and drop dead afterwards. Their choice. Sad, cruel, Darwinian even, but not my business, not your business and definitely not the state’s business. Another drone didn’t turn up for underpaid drudgework on Monday, another student failed to graduate and spend decades paying off a student loan working in a call centre.
And the government’s problem is…....... a written off investment?
Well it wasn’t their investment, or their choice, it was ours, and as far as I can see the only folk creating about it are (a) people with a career interest in a moral panic and (b) people who live off public money and never even tried to better themselves. Same thing really.
What makes it worse is that criminalising what was, previously, at least a substance available from high street retailers in relatively standardised form means it will, in future, be controlled by criminals. Who will cut it with any white powder or cheaply available illegal drug to hand and….. well, kill people.
In other words, as a result of government incompetence and careerist anti-drug specialists, kids who previously experimented with something dodgy to play the rebel without high risk now have to go to the criminal community. And if they’re offered something cheaper, but nastier, they will probably take it.
Wow, aren’t you glad the folk we pay to look out for our kids are so bright!
Actually, when it comes to the Chief Minister and his numbskull ‘drug task force’, I’ll be glad if they ever learn to walk without scraping their knuckles.

Lies, more lies and Manx drug legislation

As from today, so-called ‘legal highs’ become ‘illegal highs’ on the Isle of Man.
OK, we knew that was coming from articles likehttp://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Health-minister-to-outlaw-legal.5927819.jp in what passes for a Manx press.
But interestingly, and following the new practice of various ‘Freedom to Fester’ partners, the DHA chose to release the official news today on Manxnet first at http://www.manx.net/default.asp?id=18&articleid=9630 . The press release is misleading from beginning to end, but then local reporting has also been a wee bit.....minimal?
Thing is, Manx hacks were invited to a ‘confidential’ briefing in the Chief Minister’s bunker a few weeks back. It is interesting to see how all have since happily trotted out the party line. Even Radio Cowshed’s resident dissident, Stuart Peters, from whom I’d expect at least a token sixties flashback. No queries, no supplementary research, not even words from medical experts to explain the alleged need for a further infringement of personal liberty.
The first two we can put down to the government playing games with the media over their tightened PR budget, and the threat of reduced income from government notices in the case of Johnston Press - AKA IOM Newspapers (who only set up shop here to get that income) or direct government subsidy in the case of Radio Cowshed.
The lack of medical comment is easy to explain too. The Isle of Man Drug & Alcohol Strategy Team contains no chemist, no medical expert, no psychologist or psychiatrist, or indeed anyone who could, in the real world, be regarded as an authority on the subjects under discussion. When they want ‘evidence’, they just download it from the UK’s Home Office.
Which is where they have a particular problem, because, as the UK press were reporting happily last month, most of the academics Gordon Brown relies on to excuse tougher drug policies and placate Daily Mail readers do not think the laws need to be tougher, do not think the current drug classification system is correct, and do not even think some of the substances previously illegal should be so.
Oh, let the cat out of the bag there with that word ‘previous’ did I? Well, see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/latest-national-news/39Legal-highs39-ban-comes-into.5933741.jp elsewhere on the IOM Newspapers website under ‘national news’ (as in UK national).
Oops, did some lazy sod at the DHA or one of our ever busy Manx newshounds forget to tell you? The entire Manx program was lifted from the UK Home Office, who ‘coincidentally’ introduce exactly the same measures today, having (unlike the IOM) at least done something that passes for research and consultation.
I say ‘passes’ because it wasn’t a proper exercise either. But for one typical example of expert parties who entered into the spirit of the thing, tried to look at the thing properly and make a submission to that process, look at the Transform briefing at http://www.tdpf.org.uk/Policy_General_Piperazines.htm.
The difference in quality is, I politely suggest, staggering. Which makes the entire Manx travesty even more of a nonsense.

DHA dummy blows smoke in our eyes - again

Energy FM, the only Manx radio station staffed by anyone young enough to understand the issues, reports today on plans to ban Mephodrone over here. Sometimes known as ‘plant food’, it’s an iffy legal ecstasy synthesis flogged by mail-order firms via adverts in the kind of mags still read by semi-retired hedonists and alternative types.
I see at http://www.energyfm.net/cms/news_story_79687.html that: “In the House of Keys today, Adrian Earnshaw revealed that 22 people here have been referred to drug services because of Mephedrone.”
This is misleading – not on the part of Energy staff, who have higher standards and simply report what state sponsored layabouts say in the Keys, but by the DHA, who don’t.
It’s misleading because as Earnshaw and his nasty little cohorts know, people don’t get referred to ‘drug services’ because they have problems, but because the police or other powerful busybodies found them with miniscule amounts of substances which would be legal or semi-legal in more civilised countries. In order to avoid prison sentences they must then ‘voluntarily’ submit to being monitored by the state and bored stupid by fundamentalist retards who get public money by passing themselves off as ‘substance abuse counsellors’.
And Energy also have a story (see http://www.energyfm.net/cms/news_story_79752.html ) on a 20 year old who faces jail for £300 worth of bush.
Now, bear in mind that Manx prices are double the UK and that police routinely put a nought on the ‘street value’ of drugs. Then the waste of court, police and the 20 year old’s time becomes more apparent.
He could go to jail for having a Tesco-bagful of what would be a Class C drug in the UK, but isn’t on the Isle of Man because the Chief Minister has no expert drugs & alcohol advice. There, like around 80% of the jail inmates – many yet to actually face a court because they’re not prepared to pray every day (so can’t get bail) – this young man will waste taxpayer money, be prevented from doing a decent day’s work instead of staring at the walls and being lectured on his morals by certifiable cretins, and have difficulty finding another job when he leaves.
I have no particular interest in these substances, be they legal or not, but I’m ashamed to live on an island where the government is so ignorant, and special interests so corrupt and powerful, that we’re going bankrupt and sentencing a generation to poverty and unemployment.
And all because a few godbotherers looking for public handouts can’t bear for others to organise their own lives and pleasures. Even when those lives and pleasures do not bother anyone else.

How do Manx politicians stand on drugs and alcohol?

So, a scientist gives impartial expert advice to the UK’s Prime Minister, just as his job requires, and what does the Prime Minister do?
The opposite, to suit the prejudices of the uninformed herd most likely to vote for him.
Well there’s a surprise.
Actually, reading some typical summaries of Professor David Nutt’s sacking for giving inconveniently sensible advice on relative dangers of illegal drugs and other risky substances and activities (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/31/david-nutt-drugs-adviser-sacked and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8335189.stm for example) I did wonder idly.
What would happen if the island’s Chief Minister – also a Mr Brown – were to get expert advice he didn’t like from his own Drug & Alcohol team? Would he also ignore it for cheap political gain, or would he have the courage to do the right thing?
Then I remembered. That situation cannot happen over here, because the D&A strategy team doesn’t include experts.
No scientists, no medical professionals, nobody with a qualification in psychiatry or psychology…. No bodies, no expertise, just a random bunch of evangelicals and temperance nazis looking for a public handout and a police department trying to avoid cuts.
There is one other funny coincidence though – that quote about the Prime Minister’s ‘absurd stance’ on drugs.
From what I hear, our Mr Brown's absurd stance after a few drinks at the President of Tynwald’s Christmas Lunch is bad enough, while politicians and staff from the Department of Home Affairs often can’t stand at all after some of their departmental outings.
Then there’s the time, a couple of years ago, when senior politicians and church figures were invited to a Fair Trade wine tasting. Well, it was a good cause, so we shouldn’t blame them for tasting as conscientiously and thoroughly as they did.
And they certainly did.
Police gossip says they were taken home in the van from the cop shop a few doors down from the venue, thus leaving the entire south of the island without police cover until 1 AM.

Enough to drive you to drink

There’s more evidence of the car crash that passes for government drug and alcohol policy today on the Manx government website. Apparently we’re about to have a ‘Focus on Alcohol Awareness’.
I’d never have guessed from all the ‘coincidental’ poorly placed PR shite in the papers, honest. Just as I’d never guess that it’s the time of year when ‘Third Sector’ parasites compete for government funding in next year’s budget.
All those talks to community groups? What a coincidence.
Now I could go and explode the myth straight away by pointing you straight to a relevant webpage, but that would be no fun. So indulge me by following this trail and you’ll see something interesting.
First, go to http://www.gov.im/fsc/ViewNews.gov?page=lib/news/dha/ceo/focusonalcoholaw.xml&menuid=11570 for the standard announcement written by Daphne Caine, the DHA press officer, (which, by the way, I suspect you will read under another journalist’s byline later this week). Then follow the link to the ‘be alcohol aware IOM’ website and watch the warning as you leave the DHA page.
Got that? It’s an ‘independent’ website the Manx government take no responsibility for.
Now click on the website.
Hmm, looks like standard Freedom to Fester maintained Manx government stuff to me, with a link to the Education Department. How would our charity sector survive without them and the half million quid the Manx government shells out for their services?
Now go to the contact page at http://www.bealcoholawareiom.com/Contact.aspx and have a look at the sad collection of know-nowt amateurs they think can help you. I count three nasty cults, and I’m not even trying to look for them.
Firstly there’s the genuinely scary news that Care for the Family are sole partners to the D of E Drug & Alcohol Liason Officer for ‘Education’. In other words, the Education Department has no professional help and the homophobic fundamentalists who gave a job to a previous Education Minister’s unemployable daughter are still getting public handouts in return.
You can read more about the nasty links between the Manx education department and fundamentalists at something I posted last October (see How To Win Government Friends And Screw Up Kids , but I’ll explain again briefly.
Care for the Family started meddling over here via links with their Scottish and Northern Irish operations, which have a similar record for stealing public funds in return for truly cretinous ‘educational intitiatives’.
John O'Brien, a Care for the Family trustee, is also a trustee of CARE (‘Christian Action Research & Education'), which as I said before is:
“notorious for favouring Section 28, opposing civil partnerships, counselling registrars how to plead 'conscience grounds' for not registering civil partnerships, and generally inflicting christofascist crap on anyone with the temerity to read books.”
The daughter of the last Manx education minister got a Westminster internship with CARE just after graduating, and Care for the Family's links with the Manx education system curiously enough began at about that time. Last year a third rate bunch of bible floggers posturing as a ‘theatre company’ got a nice gig at Ballakermeen School’s new ‘community art’ space. One of their trustees, Norman Adams, is another CftF trustee.
Small world.
Leaving aside a group of retards who nobody who cared for their family would let into the house for a second, let’s also consider the ‘Treatment & Support Services’ section.
There we find two more cults with nastier methods than the Scientologists or Moonies,
Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon.
One of them only gives a London number. This is so that you won’t recognise the local contact as one of the most fundamentalist churches, notorious for numerous scams to part the vulnerable from their cash, and not averse to covering up a bit of underage sex either.
You see, while the public image of these ‘twelve step’ groups is twaddle we pick up from bone-idle tabloid writers, the reality is quite different. Their record on creating new dependencies to replace the ones they’re supposed to tackle, and exploiting money and sexual favours from ‘clients’ for example.
The thing is, in order to progress through the ‘twelve steps’ you have to volunteer personal information, much of which could get you divorced, jobless or imprisoned if it gets to the wrong person.
You think you’re ‘safe’ in an AA group? That isn’t what any number of folk who contact cult helplines say.
You think you can go to the police and get the rapist or extortionist arrested? On what evidence? The word of a self-confessed alkie against a ‘respectable’ charity worker, more than likely attached to a wealthy evangelical church? Get real!
You think alcoholism is a disease and AA is a recognised treatment based on well-established psychological methods? That isn’t what any reputable medical textbook says. If alcoholism is a medical illness, what is the World Health Organisation number?
Do yourself a favour. If you or someone you care about has problems with alcohol look up the Stanton Peele website on the sidebar. Learn to drink responsibly instead of having an irrational fear of alcohol that plays right into the hands of cults and parasites.
And stay well clear of fundamentalist nutjobs like the ones our government sponsors. They are the real health hazard.

What's worse - Jesus or heroin?

There’s a story on Energy FM’s website which sums up the Manx government’s total disinterest in dealing with an underclass it created, and which is now seeking ever more desperate means to get by.
To summarise, a 28 year old smackhead carries out a string of burglaries, gets caught, and instead of help (or even a prison sentence) is fed to evangelicals so they can remove any shred of hope the poor sod had.
That’s not the way it’s reported at http://www.energyfm.net/cms/news_story_74175.html, of course, but that’s the truth of the matter.
What depresses me more is the section which reads:
'Deemster Doyle heard how Parker’s time at David Gray House had been positive.
’He ordered Parker to spend a minimum of three months at the probation and bail hostel, and placed him under a two year supervision order.'
Why?
Read Holy Innocents and work it out for yourselves. If he’s not dead in a month he will wish he was.
Let’s balance the options, shall we?
Heroin – usually kills you within a decade, during which you’ll spend your life robbing any old tat from any insecure place to pay for more heroin from other criminal lowlife, who also get caught and jailed fairly regularly.
Inconvenient for those with vulnerable property, and some drain on the NHS.
Christianity – usually involves you paying over a large portion of any income you have for many decades to lowlife whose ‘profession’ is protected by legal privilege, and with so many government friends in on the racket they are never put out of business.
Inconvenient for everybody, as the addicts can live well over half a century, the lowlife not only pay no tax but claim massive public subsidies to keep their business premises going, and the law won’t touch them.
Relative numbers of both type of addict?
About the same, but, if I had to choose, give me the ones who only live a decade and would never be stupid enough to believe the drug gives them everlasting life.

A case for legalisation

If
(a) you’re as bored as I am by pointless self-congratulatory pieces in the local press written by Dept of Home Affairs staff about the ‘success’ of the Drug Squad and the Chief Minister’s Drug & Alcohol Strategy and
(b) you’re as irritated as I am at the way Manx government agencies play to redneck ignorance or ask dimwit faith groups for ‘advice’ instead of researching and discussing drug issues properly…..
you might want to look at some proper research on the topic.
Transform Drug Policy Foundation (you can find them on the sidebar) have just commissioned and conducted the first proper report into the likely results of legalising most of the stuff currently banned by the Misuse of Drugs Act. It was published yesterday.
TDPF considered four possible scenarios, ranging from no increase to 100% increase in use of currently illegal drugs under conditions which would see them legalised, taxed but well controlled, rather than continuing to waste police and other resources just tracking down and arresting users and sellers.
Working mainly from Home Office and No. 10 Strategy Unit reports, Steve Rolles , Head of Research at TDPF, came to some suprising conclusions. In effect, a regulated drugs market could save between £4.4 billion and £13.9 billion in England and Wales.
He also finds that the UK government have done their own quiet research and, contrary to the public stance, their experts agree legalisation makes sense.
For example, Rolles uncovered an Independent Drug Monitoring Unit survey which considered how to raise taxes amounting to £1 per gram on cannabis resin and £2 per gram on skunk. He also discovered that the UK government has carried out at least two major surveys into such a scenario, but neither are available despite Freedom of Information Act requests.
The report ends:
“The conclusion is that regulating the drugs market is a dramatically more cost-effective policy than prohibition and that moving from prohibition to drugs-regualted markets in England and Wales would provide a net saving to taxpayers, victims of crime, communities, the criminal justice system and drug users of somewhere between within the range of, for the four scenarios, £13.9 billion, £10.8 billion, £7.7 billion and £4.4billion.”
You can read the report for yourself at http://www.tdpf.org.uk/TransformCBApaper.pdf or a summary of some main arguments by Danny Kushlick of TDPF at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/07/transform-drugs-prohibition .
And the funny thing is, rather than the increasingly conformist liberal press, it is the business press that backs such moves.
Who would have thought it? Touchy-feely hippie types gang up with evangelical ignoramuses to condemn hedonism or tout their dubious therapies, while pinstriped bods think it would make better economic and social sense if you could just buy skunk at Boots.
I kid you not. Even The Economist concluded last month:
“Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution”.