Posts Tagged ‘Crispin Blunt’
Priti Patel on Poppers Demonstrates How Corrupt and Irrational Is UK Drugs Policy
Priti Patel wants to legalise ‘poppers’, a drug with dangerous effects on the heart and eyes, in order to help the sex lives of gay men who account for around 3% of the population. Yet she refuses to legalise cannabis, a drug that is generally very safe, even though it can provide real medicinal benefits for 100% of the population.
‘Poppers’ is the well established street name for alkyl nitrites, a type of drug that is inhaled, producing a massive and almost instantaneous ‘hit’ by relaxing ‘smooth muscle’ which results in the dilation of blood vessels in the brain. This leads to a drop in blood pressure which the heart immediately responds to by increasing its rate and so a huge amount of extra blood surges into the brain. Crucially, another smooth muscle that is affected is the anal sphincter and so the gay male community has found poppers a useful aid to anal sex. They can fairly be described as making anal sex safer and more pleasant, preventing ruptures or tears.
It would be a good thing to legalise poppers and to regulate their production and supply so that use of them is as safe as possible. Alongside legal regulation, information on harm reduction could be offered and the whole environment surrounding their use could become much more sensible and civilised. It would be a even better thing to legalise cannabis. All the same benefits of safety and the environment would result but they would affect many millions more people. In addition, the £6 billion criminal cannabis market, which feeds violence, gangsterism, county lines, hard drug dealing, modern slavery and much more serious crime, would be dealt a terminal blow. It wouldn’t stop immediately but it would be the beginning of the end and it would transform many aspects of British society. I believe the benefits would be much wider and more far reaching than we can even imagine.
So what can possibly explain this move? Why would such an irrational policy be proposed by the Home Secretary?
Priti Patel is quite possibly a very pleasant woman and she is to be admired for rising to dizzying heights in political life despite the prejudice towards both her gender and race. She has an unfortunate manner and glint in her eye that seems to appeal to to the authoritarian side of the ‘nasty party’, probably exactly why Boris Johnson made her Home Secretary to appease the hard right, for he is essentialy a libertarian. Why is she so keen to move on poppers but not on other drugs where reforming their legal status is far more urgent and would deliver benefits on a far greater scale?
It’s instructive to recall what happened in Parliament when it first seemed that poppers would be banned under the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. Crispin Blunt, the Conservative MP and a prominent advocate for drugs policy reform, declared himself a user of poppers and sure enough, within a few weeks the Home Office had found a way to exclude them from the Act.
I expect no one would agree more with me than Crispin Blunt on the urgent need for cannabis to be regulated and, indeed for other drugs, far safer than poppers, such as MDMA (ecstasy). Present policy maximises the dangers of all drugs and while a fatal cannabis overdose is impossible, people do die fom MDMA overdoses because in an unregulated, criminal market no one knows the strength of what they are taking.
There can only be one reason why Ms Patel is making this irrational move on poppers and it’s because she has been subject to lobbying, probably from other MPs who hold the same position as Crispin Blunt.
So while I welcome the legal regulation of poppers, cannabis and MDMA should come first. It’s no surprise that once again our politicians pursue drugs policy that is irrational and corrupt.
The Drugs Policy Debate. House Of Commons, 18th July 2017.
This debate was held in Parliament following the publication on 14th July 2017 of the ‘2017 Drug Strategy’.
The debate may be watched in full here. It starts at 13:17 and finishes at 19:00.
Highlights include:
Crispin Blunt Asks Parliamentary Question On Medicinal Cannabis, 22nd November 2016.
Q. To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether (a) his Department and (b) the Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has reviewed the latest evidence, including evidence on different regulatory approaches in other jurisdictions, for the use of medical cannabis.
A. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) reviews evidence submitted by a company seeking a marketing authorisation for a medicinal product in the United Kingdom. One product containing extracts of cannabis, Sativex, has been licensed as a medicinal product by the MHRA. However, no such application has been received in respect of herbal cannabis, and therefore the MHRA has undertaken no review of the evidence for its medicinal use. Outwith the MHRA licensing process, the Department has not conducted or commissioned a review of herbal cannabis or its regulation in other jurisdictions.
‘Poppers Are Not Psychoactive’. The Arrogant Madness Of UK Drugs Policy.
If you want something slightly less psychoactive than poppers, I suggest you try a crack pipe.
Seriously, poppers produce an instantaneous high as powerful and intense as anything I have ever known. Cannabis, alcohol, even cocaine are mild and gentle compared to the rush that you get from inhaling the vapour from a bottle of poppers. Maybe crack or crystal meth are stronger. I don’t claim knowledge at that extreme end of drugs experiences.
It’s well established fact that successive UK governments are dishonest and corrupt on drugs policy. You cannot trust anything the Home Office says about drugs. The reality of the policies of both Labour and Tory governments is that they maximise harm and cause enormous damage to our society as well as individuals.
The announcement today that poppers are to be excluded from the Psychoactive Substances Act because they are ‘not psychoactive’ is as ludicrous a statement as ever made by any government anywhere. See minister Karen Bradley’s announcement here.
The Psychoactive Substances Act is universally recognised as the most ridiculous and scientifically-illiterate legislation ever passed by Parliament – universal that is with the exception of the slippery fools that sit in the House of Commons. Most of them have no idea at all of what they are doing on drugs policy and their only concern is to appease the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and the hysteria drummed up by the prohibition lobby. However, when one of their own, Crispin Blunt, MP for Reigate, complains about his drug of choice being banned, in record time the Home Office has obtained fake scientific advice and reversed its decision to ban poppers. Meanwhile, benign, largely beneficial, mild and virtually harmless cannabis remains banned, even for those in desperate need to relieve their pain, suffering and disability.
Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t think poppers should be banned. They are known as a sex aid amongst gay men as they relax the anal sphincter, enabling easier ‘backdoor’ sex. There’s a good argument that this helps to prevent injury and therefore infection but they are also an intense sexual stimulant. I can confirm they are great fun for straight sex too.
I’m very pleased that Crispin Blunt will continue to have access to his drug of choice and I have no argument with him at all. He is an MP who is on the record as supporting cannabis law reform, particularly for medicinal use. It’s the sickening, dishonest and corrupt conduct of Home Office ministers that must be condemned.
I’d like to see the craven fools at the Home Office take a big whack off a bottle of poppers and then say they aren’t psychoactive. Black is white and pigs fly over Marsham Street when it comes to drugs.