DONALD, WHERE'S YOUR NEEDLE?

The People's Republic of Scotland has a few dark secrets, and this is one of them...

The shocking scale of Scotland’s drug problem was laid bare yesterday with ­figures revealing over 55,000 addicts and an annual £3.5billion cost to society. Research by Glasgow University found the number of adults on heroin, crack cocaine and methadone increased by nearly 4,000 over three years to reach 55,328. Over 320,000 Scots were found to be using cannabis on a recreational basis, with 100,000 taking cocaine and nearly 90,000 using Ecstasy.

A separate study shows the country’s drug users spend £1.4billion a year feeding their habit. But when costs related to the NHS, the justice system and care are taken into account, the bill adds up to nearly £3.5billion.

That's a shocking cost to fund Scottish junkies of whatever hue and it shows how the NHS has become perverted into providing a comfort blanket to drug users.

Meanwhile the Scottish politicians talk about having new dynamic "National strategies" to solve the problem, so ignoring the inconvenient fact that their current strategies have failed and failed and failed again!

So, what to do? Well, how about stopping feeding their habit for starters? How about the Police adopt a zero tolerance attitude to those who both deal in and take drugs? How about the NHS stops pandering to those with drug habits unless they make real efforts to clean up their act? How about the entire celebrity culture which is awash in drug taking is exposed for the corrupt glitter gulch that is patently has become? How about politicians stop trying to "understand" those who relentlessly consumer illegal drugs and instead leave it to the forces of law and order to punish them?

LEAVE THE DRUG DEALERS ALONE!

It's pathetic, it really is.

"Police should switch their focus away from arresting drug dealers and concentrate on managing the harm they cause, according to an influential report. The UK Drug Policy Commission says new dealers take the place of those arrested and often bring new problems such as violent turf wars. The report calls for the authorities to admit that if they cannot eradicate drug markets they should reduce the damage drugs inflict on local communities."

So - leave those good drug dealers alone lest we get even worse ones and focus on spending taxpayer money on "helping" drug addicts. Perhaps free illegal drugs on the NHS is the way forward? More liberal defeatism and the government using quango appointees to push its own lousy agenda of surrender to the drug barons.

LESBIAN HUMAN RIGHTS...

The human rights jamboree continues...

"A drug dealer is appealing against her deportation on the grounds it will violate her human rights as a lesbian. The Jamaican argues she will be persecuted for her homosexuality if she is returned to her home country at the end of her sentence. She had a boyfriend before her conviction for supplying class-A drugs, but has since had several same-sex lovers in prison."

1. What sort of UK prison allows serial lesbian activity? More liberalism in action.

2. She's a dealer - drugs ruin lives - send her home to Jamaica on the next flight.

If Jamaica really IS "the island of homophobia" it sure as heck ain 't OUR problem and the UK taxpayer is not here to subsidise this. One could ask why Jamaican culture is so brutal. 

Next flight - put the drug dealer on it....one less supplier in the UK.

COKE IS THE WORD....

Looks like our government's anti-drugs campaign is going swimmingly...

Britain is the cocaine capital of Europe with more than one million users while one in 20 school children have tried it, according to the United Nations drugs report.

If ONLY we had more education progammes that would solve the problem. Or then again, I suppose we could lock away dealers for life.... or hang them. 

Goodbye Sam, Goodbye Samantha?

I visited Singapore as a young teenager in the mid-1980s.  After passport control we (my parents and I) ventured into the carousel hall  at Changi Airport to collect the family baggage.  Above each carousel was a disturbing image of a person suspended from a hangman's noose with a bag over his head.  The caption below the individual read, 'This is what will happen to you if caught if attempting to smuggle or sell illegal drugs.'  Whether or not such a stark image survives in these more emotionally feeble times remains to be seen (I haven't had the chance to go back to Singapore), but it wouldn't surprise me if it has.  Singapore, like almost every other country on the Malay and Indochinese peninsulas (the notable exception, for obvious reasons, being Cambodia), has a zero tolerance/capital punishment policy towards the trafficking and distribution of illegal narcotics.  Anyone traveller who is not aware of this in today's media and technological age is either very stupid or just very, very stupid!!

So what are we to make of the apparent leniency promised by the Loatian authorities towards Samantha Orabator, the young British woman caught with a pound and a half of heroin at the country's principal airport, last October.  In a clever play on words, they have said they would not 'sentence a pregnant woman to death'.  There is nothing there which precludes them from delaying the trial till after the child is born and then sentencing her for execution.  I'm sorry, but I have no sympathy whatsoever for this woman.  Aside from the fact that smuggling heroin across international borders is evil in itself, she is bound to have been made aware of Laotian attitudes towards heroin and the like.  Why should there be any exceptions to their laws?

A line from the excellent 1998 movie 'Return to Paradise' sums up my attitude towards this matter.  As the Malaysian judge sentences Joaquin Phoenix's character to the gallows he says, 'You people in the West don't understand out attitude towards drugs.  But WE don't understand yours! Your cities are decaying and the souls of your young people are taken from you.  To you our laws may seem harsh, but our streets are safe.'  So who are we, we people of the West, to travel to other countries, blatantly disrespect their laws and customs, and then expect mercy from them ,and plea-bargaining from our own governments who have long since given up any pretence of enacting harsh laws in their own jurisdictions?

BRITAIN LEADS THE WAY!

It's good to see that Britain under hard Labour can still show johnny foreigner a thing or two...

"In 2003, the UK was joint third in Europe, alongside France, for the proportion of 15 to 16 year-olds who admitted taking cannabis at some point in their life - at 38 per cent. However, by 2007, the level in the UK had risen to 44 per cent making it the most prevalent in Europe. Oddly enough this growth coincided with the downgrading of cannabis from Class B to C in 2004, suggesting the softer stance led to an increase in use by school children. (I mean WHO would have anticipated that?) In comparison countries such as Norway, Sweden and Greece found less than 10 per cent of their youngsters used the drug. (Wonder what drugs they use)"

And it's not JUST the kids - it's the adults too!

"It's use by adults in the UK is also among the worst in Europe, with up to a third admitting taking the drug..."

Perhaps all these mind expanded users of cannabis may explain why people voted Labour in 2005 - they were out of their heads! 

ON A SWISS ROLE

Odd people - the Swiss.

"Swiss voters today overwhelmingly approved a move to make permanent the country’s pioneering program to give addicts government-authorised heroin. At the same time, voters rejected a proposal to decriminalise marijuana. Of the 2,264,968 voters casting ballots, 68% approved making the heroin program permanent. It has been credited with reducing crime and improving the health and daily lives of addicts since it began in 1994. Some 63.2% of voters voted against the marijuana initiative. On a separate issue, 52% of voters approved an initiative to eliminate the statute of limitations on pornographic crimes against children before the age of puberty."

I am convinced by the writings of Theodore Dalrymple that giving addicts heroin is the worst thing that should be done.

THE CHAMPAGNE OF DRUGS..

Interesting to read that British cocaine users helped finance the kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt, Colombia’s Vice-President claimed today, as he travelled to the UK to warn that its consumption of the drug was destroying rainforests and funding terror in the Latin American country.

Far from being a “victimless crime”, use of the illicit drug was supporting paramilitaries who terrorise the Colombian population with kidnappings and landmines, Francisco Santos Calderon said. Some middle class Britons who might otherwise pride themselves on their green credentials thought nothing of indulging in this so-called “champagne of drugs”, the Vice-President said. Yet every gram of cocaine snorted in Britain caused the destruction of 4.4 square metres of valuable rainforest, ultimately exacerbating global warming.

Calderon was speaking at a conference held in Belfast. I wonder did the local terrorist groups such as the UDA and UVF - prime dealers in illegal narcotics - get to hear any of this? Or do they get a bye?

COKE IS THE WORD.

Well, religion has fallen away here in Northern Ireland and people no longer turn to God for comfort. They have found a much more convenient, less judgemental alternative.

"Northern Ireland faces a cocaine “epidemic”, after new figures revealed that its use has tripled in just four years. And of even more concern, the figures — compiled by the Drug Use in Ireland and Northern Ireland: 2006/2007 Drug Prevalence Survey — show that five times as many women are now using cocaine compared to 2003. The news comes as over £400m of the drug was seized in a major Garda and Irish armed forces operation on Friday. Security say gthe massive if the massive the haul had not been seized, then a significant amount of the drug would have been smuggled into Northern Ireland.

And the statistics have prompted one Belfast community worker to warn that drug use has now reached epidemic levels and that heroin is now being seen on our streets.

Another drug worker said she has seen a 40% rise in the number of drug users seeking help with their addictions.

The report revealed that more than one in 20 adults in Northern Ireland, between 15 and 64, have used the drug compared with just over 1.5% of the population four years earlier."

Clearly the way to solve this is to legalise cocaine, right?