Claws Out for Miaow
The Tories had the chance to redeem themselves for their science-denying backing of the government over the sacking of Professor Nutt, but have fallen back into old authoritarian ways. Incidentally Nutt acknowledges these new designer drugs cant be stopped and should instead be produced to pharmaceutical quality for peoples safety.
Given they knew nothing of something this morning, the fact the government could move so quickly and so determinedly is quite chilling. What ever happened to a considered decision based on evidence and research? Mandelson says he will look into the drug speedily.
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6 comments:
We should employ expert advisers to advise and then weigh that advice before coming to a decision I agree. However what you seem to be suggesting is that we contract out whole areas of policy to the advisers.
What exactly would you say if we contracted out environment policy to those scientists in hock to climate change?
Interesting that all three parties' grassroots get angry about science denial at the top (Lib Dems have fewer occasions for it, with Evan Harris in charge, but we're far from perfect). I wonder if it's a generation thing. Maybe in thirty years this whole policy-based evidence problem on science and medicine won't exist any more.
Mandelson says he will look into the drug speedily.
Typo.Correction.
Mandelson says he took the drug speed.
The only answer is legalisation. Simple.
What this feline drug has (once again) shown is that legislators are locked in a cycle of catch up. They will forever be on the back foot. You can't ban something if you don't know it exists.
Alix, your last sentence is the stuff of nightmares. That said, this approach has become more and more common in respect to public health policy for years. I try not to think about it too much...it scares me.
Other reports online seem to suggest the unfortunates who died had also been drinking lots of alcohol and taking methadone, a surefire way to check out of life's hotel pretty quickly. Whether Mephedrone had anything to do with it seems entirely unproven at this point.
It seems from online forums that amusingly only the press call it 'Meow Meow' as well, everyone else seems to call it Meph.
I believe it is a generational matter, and the trend will inevitably lead, one day, to the end of prohibition. Prohibition, as a drugs control strategy, has failed - has tragically failed, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives shattered and ended by the catastrophic consequences of the state attempting to legislate against the preferences of a vast swathe of the population, with all the malignant consequences that always brings.
Will the Millennials be the generation finally to throw off the shackles of this disastrously failed policy? We can only hope, but to achieve it we've got to promise ourselves, and each other, never to give up on it. Too many more lives are at stake.