Monday 16 March 2009

Sunday 15 March 2009

Drug Pusher

There's a great summary at the Idle Pen Pusher of this interesting editorial in The Economist on drugs policy.

Like both of them I am in favour of legalisation.

However, there is one issue I’m still nervous about and haven’t yet seen a decent discussion of. When we talk about legalisation do we mean the legalisation just of all current drugs, or do we mean that we are legalising the development of all new drugs as well?

I would be nervous about saying to the Pfizers and GlaxoSmithKlines of the world that they were now free to use their multi-billion pound R&D and marketing budgets to develop and sell the most addictive (and potentially health-damaging) substances they can. This would then create a ongoing burden on the taxpayer to either: create treatments for each new ever-more-powerful drug (if the state is offering treatment); or to deal with the cost of any acquisitive crime by addicts (if the state is not offering treatment).

If the tax raised on sales of these new drugs were enough to offset these costs, then that’s fine; but with the drug companies incentivised (through ongoing sales) to create more addicts, and the govt incentivised (through cost pressures) to cure them, wouldn’t we be in danger of creating an ‘arms race’ between drug companies and the State?

Does anyone have any views on this?

Cheers

WF

Friday 6 March 2009

March Stat Pr0n



Read it and weep motherfuckers!

3 things the Greening of Mandelson tells us about the police state


1. It
doesn’t prove we aren't living in a police state

People are claiming that the greening of Count Mandelson proves that we are not living in a police state. They say the fact that Leila Deen could do this without major repercussions shows that we are still free.

This is a strawman. The point that most people make is not that we live in a fully fledged police state now, but simply that we have built the apparatus of a police state. And it would only take a small adjustment in the attitude of this or a future government for that apparatus to be used to oppress citizens much more vigorously than it currently is.

It also ignores the counter cases – just because there was no excessive response this time does not mean that there have not been many excessive responses in other cases.

Martin Kettle in the Grauniad claims:

"Deen might well be lying dead in the street as gun-toting security guards reacted to the assault"

She isn’t, but Jean Charles DeMenezes is

"Or she might have been whisked away to a secret police centre to be tortured and locked away"

She wasn’t, but Binyam Mohamed and others have been.

"Cameramen who witnessed the incident would have been rounded up, their video confiscated and their cameras smashed"

They weren’t in this case, but there are well documented cases of the police attempting to do exactly this, and recent legislation making it illegal to photograph a copper will make it easier to do in the future.

Excessive responses, of the kind that you might expect in a police state do happen. They may not happen in all cases, but they happen too often, and we have all the structures and laws in place for them to happen more.



2. It will be used to move us closer to a real police state.

People on the BBC are asking ‘what if it were acid?’, ‘what if it were a bomb?’, ‘if someone can get to a cabinet minister that easily, surely we need more security?’

This is exactly the kind of thinking that set up the apparatus of the police state, and will allow it to be used with more vigour. Taking a relatively minor event, examining what the worst possible alternative outcome of that event could have been, and responding as though that worst possible alternative had actually happened is a very dangerous way to make policy. It treats minor events in the same way as the worst ones, and casts moderate people as potential extremists.

I’m certain that one outcome of this will be that Mandelson’s security will be increased, as will that of other ministers. They will be more suspicious of the public in general, and protesters in particular, making them even more remote and detached from us that they already are.


3. It shows the importance of scrutiny and free media

That this happened in full view of witnesses and the media cannot have escaped Madelson’s and the police’s notice. Any over-reaction or attempt to suppress the incident would have been politically damaging. Had this happened away from the media’s gaze, can we be sure the response would not have been more robust? This is why any attempts to restrict freedom of the media, photographers, bloggers, or any of us to scrutinise those in authority must be strongly resisted. That scrutiny is one of the few things that prevents the apparatus of the police state being used to excess.

Thursday 5 March 2009

Lorem Ipsum

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi vitae nunc. Aliquam venenatis libero vel libero. Donec pulvinar. In tristique, leo porttitor tincidunt sodales, tellus libero porttitor ipsum, pharetra pellentesque metus erat vel neque. Duis rutrum turpis ut ipsum. Donec elit. Aliquam erat volutpat. Donec eget mi consectetur sem blandit vulputate. Nam aliquet. Donec est. Sed ut nibh eget est egestas accumsan. Ut porta, neque elementum pulvinar tempor, nisi nibh imperdiet erat, viverra mattis sem neque non ante. Praesent sodales, ipsum id consectetur feugiat, nisi diam faucibus mi, consectetur vulputate erat neque nec purus. Nam a ante. Sed rutrum fringilla nisi. Aenean vitae orci. Mauris urna. Vivamus placerat, nunc ac convallis blandit, augue magna rhoncus urna, vitae faucibus odio leo sit amet ligula.

Pellentesque posuere, velit non malesuada ultrices, diam quam congue tellus, et aliquet libero lectus id mauris. Curabitur ac mi. Vestibulum mi purus, eleifend at, lacinia in, auctor eu, ante. Nulla facilisi. Sed at leo. Fusce molestie eros mattis lectus. Nunc feugiat dui sed est. Fusce adipiscing, mauris id hendrerit ullamcorper, nisl ipsum fringilla tellus, eget bibendum turpis urna at dui. Proin sit amet dolor. Aliquam erat volutpat. Etiam sollicitudin felis sed tellus. Nunc faucibus, est vel placerat pretium, elit erat eleifend mauris, ac dignissim sem purus eu nulla. Sed lorem diam, aliquet vitae, auctor sit amet, gravida vitae, dolor. Donec sem felis, blandit non, ultrices in, elementum ac, dui. Nulla scelerisque. Aliquam congue consectetur risus. Fusce vulputate, eros at aliquet ultricies, felis quam aliquam turpis, in consequat ante nisi non mauris. Morbi ultricies, tellus eget faucibus cursus, leo ligula facilisis lacus, sit amet lobortis nibh neque at metus. Duis augue ligula, consequat mollis, sodales facilisis, iaculis eu, sem. In vitae eros.

Vivamus sodales sagittis eros. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Morbi ac justo. Nunc in mi. Quisque at odio. Vestibulum faucibus. Aenean lacinia. Vestibulum augue elit, dictum eu, bibendum in, sodales ornare, nibh. Etiam elit. Curabitur rhoncus imperdiet nunc. Suspendisse tincidunt est dignissim magna. Nulla varius massa ac libero.