Oh G-d, it just never stops (4)

From the BBC:

Doctors treated 894 people in England for a "cocaine-induced health emergency" in 2007/8... More than one million people regularly use cocaine in the UK - more than any other European country - according to the UN's latest report...

[Cocaine] is increasingly cut with other chemicals - according to the charity* DrugScope. That could make a line more dangerous as people either react badly to the cutting agent or get used to the low purity making them more vulnerable if they accidentally come across a strong batch.

Hey, hang about here ... that means that despite all the crap they put in it (precisely because the supply is not legalised and regulated), less than one in a thousand users ends up going to hospital every year. By reverse logic, if you could buy reliable quality cocaine, the number of admissions might drop to a few dozen a year, or something. Ooh, I'm terrified, not.

* Ahem.

"UK could be wine region by 2080"

What sort of a f***ing stupid headline is that?

Monday's FT cheerfully reproduced the press release for a book entitled "The winelands of Britain: past present and prospective", full of words like "could" (used three times), "forecast", "in future", "according to", "climate models suggest", "by as much as" and "by 2080".

Yeah, and by then, pig-bat hybrids might fly.
............
In the same section (bottom of page 2, print edition), they summarise the press releases from:

1. Druglink Magazine as did The Sun, but without the breathless headlines, or indeed, the useful comparative figure for total admissions relating to legal drugs. So that's The Sun - one, FT - nil. Drugscope seem honest enough, but a glance at their accounts shows that they are (disappointingly, but predictably) largely state-funded.

2. Hometrack, under the misleading headline "House prices fall 1.9% in May". Wrong, house prices fell 1.9% in the year to May. In any event, their prices are based on the contributor's opinion on the achievable selling price for each of four standard property types in every postcode district. So that means pretty much f*** all.

3. The Local Government Association, titled "Calorie warnings sought for drinks". The summary contains the outrageous claim "drinkers do not realise the contribution of alcohol to getting fat". Er, are we not familiar with the expression 'beer gut'? Have we never watched darts on the telly? Least said, soonest mended on that one, I think.

4. Last but not least, "Personal carbon trading favoured". Yeah, favoured by deluded MPs ... Oh God.

In summary, a crock of shit.

Quote of the day

The government listens to advice. And then ignores it.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said that, as their advice had been disregarded, ministers should disband the advisory council of experts and replace them with an advisory council of "tabloid newspaper editors".

It's good to see the BBC turn to the gummint-funded 'charities' Addaction and DrugScope* for comments.

I also like this, possibly the most f***witted comment of the day:

The committee ... also voiced concern about the prevalence of domestic cannabis farms supplying the market and the involvement of organised criminal networks.

If it were legal, we could:
a) import it from the Middle East or Jamaica, thus reducing our 'carbon footprint' (those domestic 'farms' use a scandalous amount of electricity) and possibly reducing the trade deficit as well (depending on what's cheaper, wholesale cannabis or oil),
b) make 'criminal networks' superfluous, obviously, and
c) collect a shed-load of tax (assuming cannabis were taxed at similar rates to tobacco and alcohol, we are talking several billion pounds a year)

* Whose funding will now no doubt be severely curtailed for daring to question whether tractor output really is increasing.

Cost of the war on drugs

I'm not sure if they calculated it the same way as I did, but the figure of £16 billion per annum in the UK matches my own guesstimate of £1.6 bn x 2 x 5.

Addaction describes itself as a charity, but its accounts show that nearly all its income comes from the state, via local councils, grants and the Big Lottery fund.

DrugScope also describes itself as a charity but gets nearly all its income from government grants as well, of course.