I’m a Pundit

In Britain we have the NHS, a sytem envied by many other countries.  It’s shiny public face however covers huge defecits.  Today they are debating a key decision which will allow people to top up their NHS treatment with drugs that the NHS would not normally provide.

This sounds a good idea till you look at what happened with our road taxation system not so long ago.  Road/Car tax was initially brought in to cover the cost of our roads, meaning car owners footed the bill.  But wait a second when we buy fuel on petrol around 80% of that is tax, the government said this tax was to cover road upkeep, but wasn’t that what car tax was for?

Now just to rub salt in the wounds the governmetn is implementing Tolls on our roads, why is this? To support our road infrastructure of course.

So with this NHS top up fee to increase availablity to drugs outside the NHS I am severely worried that the number of drugs available on the NHS will steadily decrease and more and more people will be forced to pay for their own drugs while we still pay a huge amount of tax in other ways to support our NHS system in the first place.

I really do think the UK tax system needs a shake up, with huge across the board simplization and removal of ‘duplicate taxes’ where possible.

I do not think that NHS top ups should be allowed on the NHS I do however think that the NHS should be provideing life saving drugs, rather than letting people die because their life saving drugs are too expensive.

Currently human life in the Uk is valued at less than £30,000, fan-fucking-tastic.

written by Oli \\ tags: Drugs, Medicine, NHS, NICE, Top Up, UK

Cannabis is one of the worlds most readily available and commonly used illegal drugs on the worldwide market.  Most people have at sometime tried it, and if they havn’t they will almost certainly know someone who has.  Last year cannabis was lowered from a class B to a class C drug at the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs or ACMD.  Their reasoning was that cannabis was a  relatively none harmful drug and that more concentration should be focussed on the more hardcore narcotics available.  This year Gordon Brown asked for a review of this, since he has always been against the drug, the ACMD reiterated their statement however and in a rash move Gordon Brown, someone who is meant to listen to the advice of the boards he set up, decided to ignore their recommendation.  This is coming from a man who has half a cabinet admitting they have tried marijuana.

Now who is the real dope.  Cannabis has a relaxing effect, and while scientists have claimed its use can incerease the chance of schizophreniaby 40% the total number of cases related to Marijuana smoking has not topped 800 cases in the UK, out of around 60.5 million people.

Now compare that to the number of drinking related incidents and issues caused by cancer, not to mention fatty food problems, and the estimated thousands of deaths of starvation in third world countries caused by loss of farmland to ethanol fuel consumption which is being mandated by US and European Laws and suddenly you ask yourself, is the risk really that high?

Put ontop of this the medically proven benefits of cannabis (Which they are constantly trying to recreate without the pleasure for medicinal purposes) and the health problem part seems to become a bit suspicious.   especially when you consider the thousands upon thousands who regularly use Cannabis as pain relief.  I personally didnt think this was such a big thing till my mothers doctor actually suggested she find a dealer to supply cannabis for her back pain.  The truth of the matter is that it is being suggested as pain relief because it is bloody good at it!

Now the government, anti drug lobbys and those with an analy high moral code can all complain as much as they like about how bad cannabis consumption is.  But I will, and always will maintain that the average bod on the street needs something to escape, be it be a cigarette, alchol, low key drugs or even, heaven forbid, religion.  People are willing to risk a little bit occasionally for a bit of fun, you could risk a broken ankle playing football or a broken neck off-piste skiing, but without these things life would be boring.

So why is Cannabis banned apart from the health side effects?

The two main reasons are crime and its role as a step onto harder drugs.  Both I think can be argued.

Crime.  The crime part of this has two aspects, first the money made goes to crimanals (Which wouldn’t happen if it was legalised) and second it drives people to steal for their fix.  Now this I would argue against, sure some people get heavily hooked on cannabis, but I would say the percentage of people stealing for a cannabis addiction is significantly lower than that of alcohol.

Then there is the step onto harder drugs question.  Now this is in some cases true, but in my experience the people who go from cannabis to harder druggs would have done so soon enough with or without cannabis.  While it certainly increases a persons exposure to the world of drugs this would become much less apparant if it was legalised.

It has been announced in France that they will not arrest or even caution anyone smoking cannabis in the upcoming football games. They will however be out in force actively breathalising fans and reusing them entry if they are believed to be drunk.  This to me is a clear indication that neither health nor crime is the real issue, since here marijuana is being used to reduce violent crime in the streets of Paris.

God damn the English system is screwed!

written by Oli \\ tags: Cannabis, Drug Laws, Drugs, Gordon Brown, Marijuana