Re: Ford/Firestone, Concord and canabis

[Roger Key <roger.key@onet.co.uk>]

 Bob wrote
>One pleasing response from the debate has been a willingness to recognise
>that when things go wrong we need to look to the cause of the problem rather
>than try and find SOMEONE to blame. Maybe we are starting to see a readiness
>to accept that we will only get improvement if we start problem solving and
>stop blaming .
>I only hope that the media can be encouraged to realise that the public good
>is better served by changing the system, rather than getting cheap copy and
>sensationalism that drives honesty and openness underground. Which will only
>increase the likelihood of a similar occurrence happening again.

This rings true with another debate that has hit the headlines of the
British press, canabis.  For those who do not know one of our senior
opposition polititions suggested that if the Torys get back in at the next
election they wold bring in a policy of £100 fixed penalty and a criminal
record for anyone caught in possession of any quantity of canabis, and this
included possesion in the blood stream.  Ii guess that the woman is a
bright person but she showed a total lack of understanding of the fact from
her statement.  However the senior police officers came out very quickly
against the idea and the Tories did a rapid revision of history - had not
learnt that it is OK to make a mistake as it one of the ways you learn.  We
had a round of re-writing of what was said - unfortunatly it had been
transmitted live on TV and recorded so this was a bit hard.  HOWEVER  as an
up shot of this we have had eight senior Tory MPs admit to usinf canabis
inthe past.  When it was 7 it was interesting that they all admited to
'inhaling' - taking a toke and not inhaling is now a Bill or a Clinton.....
but none of them enjoied the experiance.  Number 8 however admitted to
using and to enjoying.  We now seem to have the emergence of an adult
debate on the use of drugs in a mature society.

However there is a big argument against the decrimilisation of canabis as
there is evidence that using canabis leads to the use of harder drugs.
Well it does in the UK and the US and other - as was described by a
Professor from the University of Amsterdam - immature democracies.  Using
the more mature democracy of the Netherlands as an example on the drugs
front (and potentially Switzerland) and similar results can be found for
pornography in the Nrtherlands and Scandanavia - The Netherlands sees a
less than 5% of users cross over from Canabis to hard drugs.  This is much
lower than that found in the U, US etc.  HOwever in the Netherlands where
access to canabis is much easier there is only a 14% of the population have
ever used - down from similar levels to the rest of Europe and US before
the mid 70's when they de-crimalised.  In the UK the proportion is
something like 30%.  Simulaly the "evidence" for cross over from canabis to
hard drugs in the UK is about 15% and is used as the argument for keeping
canabis illegal.  However the proportion of people who have used alcohol
and moved onto canabis is approaching 50%....

I know that the stats masters out there will be shaking their heads (as am
I) but they serve to illustrate.

Back to Bob's message - is the UK entering a period of mature politics?
Are we entering a phase where the old right/left divides are meaningless?
The mature approach to medical mistakes is apolitical, the question of GM
crops is apolitical and the open evaluation of canabis is apolitical.
Mature democracies are typified by a more open and consensual mode of
government, maybe we are heading that way???

One small thought, in the UK we have the potential top move to this more
mature government having three major parties and four other parties plus
one independent represented in the House of Commons.  My understanding is
the choice in the US is Republican or Democrat....



	Roger.

---------------------------------oooOOOooo--------------------------------------
Roger C. Key 				 mailto:roger.key@onet.co.uk
Prescient - The Whole as One
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