Posts Tagged ‘politician’
Smoking Weed and Watching the West Wing
It’s my new favourite thing
I’ve watched it before, of course but then it was sporadically, just as I managed to catch it. This time, though, I’m going through religously, episode by episode and there are more than 20 episodes in each season.
It’s hypnotic. The characters are wonderful. It’s production values stand up very well for a show that is 20 years old. It has that great appeal of being about real life, real issues and events that I remember clearly but all woven into a gripping fictional narrative. The TV equivalent of a ‘page turner’.
But the thing that has really hit me, assisted by the insight that cannabis facilitates, is that this is a fantasy. A wild, outrageous fantasy that has very little relationship to real life. It portrays politicians and those who work in politics as noble, with great integrity, high ideals, wonderful ambitions, most of all, principled. And this, of course, is nonsense.
It’s taken me more than 40 years working with politicians, mostly in the UK but the last seven or eight in Ireland as well, to finally accept the truth. With a handful of exceptions from the hundreds that I have met, they are sordid, self-serving and worthless. Our political system in the West is a waste of time and resources. It has created terrible wars, injustice and achieved very little. Any good that mankind has achieved is despite politics, not because of it. I see this more clearly now than I ever have before.
Ireland’s Best Chance Ever for Effective Drugs Policy Reform
As the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use meets for the fourth time (2nd, 3rd September), it is at a crucial point which will determine its usefulness. Either it will move on to examine the broad range of drugs use and wider policy or it will continue to ignore and exclude 90% of its subject from consideration, focusing only on problematic use and treatment services.
Whatever recommendations the the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use makes, it is up to the government to decide on them. Same-sex marriage and abortion rights achieved legislative reform through this route but response to the recent Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss has been very different. The government and our political leaders have failed to implement any its 150 recommendations to protect nature. It was almost certainly a mistake to make so many recommendations and this has given politicians the excuse they need to turn away and fail to act. It could well be the same on the difficult and controversial issue of drugs.
Yet nothing demands more immediate and urgent action. All the violence, disorder and anti social behaviour about which there is so much concern is driven by criminal drugs markets. Demand for drugs comes from within our communities. It is our families, our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers that are the customers of these criminal gangs. While in 90% of cases their drug use causes no harm to themselves or others, they enrich and empower the gangsters and government has done nothing to regulate these markets to reduce all the harm they cause.
While politicians refuses to acknowledge and provide sensible and safe legal access for drugs, particularly cannabis, all they do is turn the forces of law enforcement against the communities they are supposed to protect and add to the power and wealth of the drugs gangs.
It is the criminal markets that cause so much harm and only a small proportion of drugs users that suffer health harms. Street dealing, violence, child exploitation, debt intimidation, human trafficking, modern slavery, all these evils stem from the criminal markets which bad drugs policy has allowed to proliferate. And the health harms of drugs are maximised when criminals control their production and distribution, when there is no regulation, quality control, age limits or harm reduction infomation and education provided.
This is Ireland’s best chance ever for effective drugs policy reform and huge responsibility now rests on the shoulders of Paul Reid, chair of the Citizens’ Assembly. In the remaining three meetings, will he encompass the broad agenda which the issue demands or will we continue only to hear about one, narrow aspect?
Clearly, problematic drug use has a terrible impact on those involved and their families but we already know that the answer is properly funded treatment services. Also, problematic drug use drives violent and acquisitive crime as users have no option but to access drugs from criminals at high cost. The answer here is also properly funded treatment services but also regulation of markets, so that legal access is possible but in controlled and safe circumstances.
We need properly funded treatment services, safe consumption rooms, decriminalisation of the user, legally regulated access for adults at least to cannabis, MDMA and possibly cocaine, drug testing services, education and harm reduction services.
Such intelligent, evidence-based and progressive drugs policy will drive the gangsters off our streets. It will stop the violence, the mugging, the anti social behaviour of feral youth, It will reduce health harms, overdoses deaths and all sorts of crime. But it requires courage. It needs politicians to take decisions that will attract the fury of the older, reactionary, authoritarian wing of society but unless we takes these steps then Ireland’s drugs problem is only going to get worse. The demand isn’t going away and unless we find a sensible way of meeting it in safe, regulated fashion then the violent gangsters and everything that flows from their activity will continue.
CLEAR Statement Concerning Cannabis Legalisation Measures In US Election.
“This is marvellous news for liberty, health and human rights. The USA, unlike Britain, has a functioning democracy where the will of the people prevails rather than the bigotry and self-interest of politicians. It is wonderful to see that truth, justice and evidence is winning out over the lies and misinformation we have been fed about cannabis for almost 100 years.
In 1971, the British government abdicated all responsibility on cannabis and abandoned our communities and our children to criminal gangs. Since then all the harms have multiplied exponentially. The laws against cannabis fund organised crime, promote dangerous hidden farms which are fire risks, the destruction of rental property, selling to children, contaminated ‘moonshine’ cannabis, gang violence, lives ruined by criminal records and the cruel denial of safe, effective medicine that can relieve pain, suffering and disability.
Donald Trump has supported access to medicinal cannabis all along. Many British politicians who consider him to be an unreasonable person should now look to themselves and ask whether they are being reasonable by supporting prohibition, even for medical use.
It is time for Theresa May, Amber Rudd and the UK government to take responsibility for the £6 billion pa cannabis market. The tide of legalisation is now unstoppable and it would be deeply irresponsible for them to fail to act. They must grasp this nettle now!”
Peter Reynolds, president of CLEAR Cannabis Law Reform
Vote For Independence On 23rd June. Vote For The Broad, Sunlit Uplands.
The stitch-up between big business, politicians, civil servants and bankers should be crystal clear to anyone with eyes and ears. It is vital to the future of our children and grandchildren that we vote to leave the EU in a month’s time. The alternative is that we subsume ourselves forever under the yoke of transnational business, self-serving, corrupt governments intent on widening the divide between ‘us’ and ‘them’.
Intelligent people, including, to my amazement, fellow members of the Liberal Democrats, are intent on relinquishing all principles of liberalism and democracy – and for what?
All the Project Fear scaremongering, the ganging-up of the CBI, the Bank of England and all the rest of the establishment flunkies, reveals exactly what is going on. Just as we were lied to and deceived over the need for war in Iraq, we are being led by deception and falsehood into an ever-closer union that will fill the pockets and enhance the power of corporate political interests.
This referendum is not about the economy. It is about much bigger and more important principles of self-determination, democracy and freedom. I believe that such principles will also, in the end, bring us more prosperity.
Leaving the EU is most important for our children. Young people themselves must vote for opportunity. Be for Europe but not the EU. Be for co-operation but without a straightjacket. Be ourselves
The political elite wants it. The parasite outsourcing companies that suck up billions in taxpayers’ money want it. The civil servants in 28 countries want it. When you see David Cameron, Harriet Harman, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, George Osborne, Michael Heseltine all want it, ask yourself why?
It’s a stitch-up! You’re being lied to, intimidated and deceived. Independence Day is 23rd June. Make sure you make the right choice.
The Disaster That Is UK Drugs Policy.
The more harmful, dangerous and addictive a drug is the more important that its availability should be legally regulated, otherwise, inevitably, a criminal market is created with massive consequential health and social harms.
In the UK, before the Misuse of Drugs Act was introduced in 1971, we had around 3,000 problematic drug users. We now have 350,000. Yet successive governments carry on in the same direction.
The vested interests of Big Booze have been supported and encouraged by weak politicians, leading to lighter and lighter regulation of the most dangerous drug of all. Meanwhile, relatively harmless and beneficial substances like cannabis have been abandoned to street dealers and organised crime, blighting communities and involving children in both dealing and use – just as happened with alcohol prohibition in the US.
All the evidence is before us and the most effective policies for reducing harm from drugs are very clear. What we need to do is sweep aside outdated, out of touch organisations like the Home Office and dinosaurs like the present Home Secretary, Theresa May. Yet since 1971, there have been a few intelligent and progressive ministers in the Home Office. Surely it is the irresponsible and obstinate influence of senior civil servants that has prevented governments from moving forward with reform?
Drugs policy must be based on evidence, not pressure from tabloid newspapers, the alcohol industry, scared and ignorant politicians and self-serving civil servants and quangos.
Parliament is now obligated to debate Caroline Lucas’ e-petition formally to evaluate the effectiveness of current policy. We must move rapidly and radically thereafter towards a solution that will work and put aside the idiocy of the last 43 years.
Vote ‘YES’ Scotland!
If all the people, politicians, institutions, banks and monopoly businesses who are responsible for the terrible injustices and inequalities in our society are so desperate for a ‘NO’ vote, what should that tell you?
That Cameron, all his disgusting, self-serving cronies, Miliband and Clegg are terrified, scared and panicking, what should that tell you?
When all the members of the Fleet Street Mafia: dishonest, manipulative, gutter press editors and seedy proprietors want Scotland to vote ‘NO’, what should that tell you?
When the UK parliament does all it can to prolong the sick perversion of democracy that is Britain in the EU, what should that tell you?
Please vote ‘YES’ Scotland!
Why I’d Be Voting Yes If I Lived In Scotland.
I think it will be a tragedy of immeasurable proportions if Scotland becomes an independent nation. As a proud Briton, I am first and foremost a Welshman but Britain is a great nation and I would not argue for independence for Wales.
The Scottish referendum though offers an opportunity which must not be missed. The corrupt, out of touch Westminster elite must be brought down. This is a chance that we may not have again. The alternative of guillotines in Parliament Square is tempting but unlikely.
Cameron, Miliband and the exclusive tribe of privately educated, independently wealthy politicians have seized this country for themselves. They have conspired with bankers and the Fleet Street Mafia to create an oligarchy which deprives the people of any real or effective say in our nation. Together they set the news agenda and control what we say, do and think.
They enact policies that suit them irrespective of public opinion. They deny science and evidence at a whim. They deceive and misinform as a matter of course. When it suits them they use the modest threat of international terrorism to terrorise and subjugate us. They are traitors to Britain. The United Kingdom has become their vehicle for repression, oppression and an ever expanding state that keeps the proletariat under control.
So, it would be with great regret that I would vote ‘Yes’ to Scottish independence. Not that I want to split Britain up but I see no other way of rolling back the self-serving, authoritarian enemy that has destroyed our democracy and taken control of both Parliament and Whitehall.
I’m Back. Six Months Early.
In January I took my website offline because it was being used to focus destructive attacks against CLEAR.
That was a mistake. I should have kept it up. The haters and hypocrites continue with their lies and smears irrespective of truth or anything that I do. I am proud of my writing here. That is not to say that my views don’t develop and change over time but I hold true to fundamental principles of justice and against prejudice and discrimination. It is ironic that those are the charges that have been levelled against me.
Here you will find strong opinions, powerfully expressed. My views are essentially libertarian and I repudiate hate against anyone, despite the spite and abuse that has been levelled at me. There is evil in the world though and I make no apology for my condemnation of the Israeli state, of the wicked extremes of Islam, the crimes of all organised religions and the corrupt oligarchy of politicians, media and bankers that run the Western world. These evils must be fought against.
Let me be very clear about CLEAR and my role in it. It is a single issue party and I will work with anyone, whatever their political allegiance, race, religion or philosophy in order to end the prohibition of cannabis. I was elected leader in February 2011. I won a vote of confidence with a 70% majority in April 2012. Under my leadership CLEAR will continue its evidence based campaign for responsible reform of the cannabis laws.
I am back. And I will have my say.
Britain Needs Leadership
I know the junction in Clapham by Debenhams like the back of my hand. I have queued for hours in the post office that the armoured police vehicles were rolling by last night. It was my home and it makes it feel very close, very real. Two, three mornings every week I used to go through that door at Debenhams and buy myself a pasty from their snack bar for breakfast. I couldn’t help but weep just a little as I watched events unfold.
The scumbags need to be rounded up, caged, sent to bootcamp for six months, then two years enforced community service, 40 hours per week, cleaning toilets, real hard work.
Our politicians are responsible. They have denied our youth a future and deserve disgrace, condemnation and loss of office.
On Mark Duggan, he had a gun so he should have expected to be shot.
We desperately, desperately need leadership. Cameron falls so far short that it is embarrassing.
Britain Is Burning
The police are taking backhanders
Our MPs are fiddling their expenses
The media break the law without compunction
The bankers have looted our economy
Our politicians are sunning themselves in luxury
How do you expect young people to behave?
Peter Reynolds 