Posts Tagged ‘Theresa May’
Next Time A Young Person Dies From Legal Highs, Blame David Cameron, Theresa May And Jeremy Browne.
See the excellent article in today’s Observer
Legal highs are the product of prohibition. If we made cannabis and MDMA legally available to adults under responsible regulation the market for these new, untested substances would virtually dry up.
We have at least 5,000 years experience with cannabis and for most adults, used in moderation, it is actually beneficial as a supplement to the endocannabinoid system and it helps protect against cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative and auto immune conditions. Each year in Britain we hospitalise three times as many people for peanuts as we do for cannabis and that puts the health risks into proper perspective.
Similarly, MDMA is far less dangerous than aspirin or alcohol and if, as in Holland, we tested and certified the contents of a tablet we would protect people far better than the present inane and self-defeating policy.
The people who are directly to blame for the fact that our children are taking these dangerous, untested new substances are the idiots who run our drugs policy: David Cameron, Theresa May and, shamefully, against his own party’s policy, Jeremy Browne.
These weak, hypocritical, self-serving and cowardly politicians have allowed themselves to be bullied by the alcohol industry and a malevolent, sensation-seeking tabloid press into maintaining a policy that is simply absurd.
This Nasty, Spiteful, Vindictive Harridan Must Go.
The Right Dishonourable Theresa May MP
Home Secretaries come and go. Let’s hope for the sake of everyone in Britain that this one goes soon.
Some are corrupt and idiotic like Alan Johnson. Some are brave and sincere like David Blunkett. Many have “something of the night” about them like Michael Howard.
In my lifetime there has never been one like Theresa May – vicious, malevolent and always ready for cheap, political point-scoring at the expense of the weak and vulnerable. She also demonstrates the most shameful ineptitude and incompetence and she’ll stab anyone in the back to protect her career.
She is authoritarian, anti-libertarian, secretive, oppressive, unjust and represents everything that is bad in politics. She would be far better suited to joining the Assad government in Syria or Netanyahu in Israel. She is the antithesis of democracy, the enemy of freedom. She shames Britain and she has done more damage to the cause of women in politics than anyone. She even makes Harriet Harman look reasonable, personable and relevant.
She is the token woman in the cabinet but she is detached from traditional Tory values as well. One of the few options left to Cameron to regain any credit for himself would be to sack her.
It’s no surprise then that she wants to abandon the European Convention on Human Rights which has its foundations in Britain and in our traditions of liberty and justice. She has no interest in humanity. She does not represent me and she is not fit to represent our great nation.
Incompetence Is Normal At The Home Office
Theresa May
Theresa May and James Brokenshire must go. The absolute disgrace, the shambles over Olympics security should see them both on the dole tomorrow.
Ms May is the most empty-headed minister I have known in my lifetime. Where she came from, why she has reached such high office, what skills or value she has brought to government is a mystery.
James Brokenshire
Brokenshire is the nastiest, most vicious and unpleasant junior minister ever. He’s an ex-banker and has held charge over the government’s delusional, head in the clouds drugs policy with exactly the arrogance and irresponsibility that suggests. He sank to the nadir of his career when he claimed that the adulteration of street cocaine had reached record levels and this was a huge success. This in the full knowledge that the Serious Organised Crime Agency records the adulterants used in cocaine are more harmful than cocaine itself.
If there is a war on drugs then Brokenshire is a war criminal.
Both of them are worse than useless.
When Will They Ever Learn?
Steve Jobs
The man, the genius, the inspiration that the whole world is feting and eulogising; it turns out he’s just another one of those dirty, disgusting, scumbag drug users.
The estate of Albert Hoffman, inventor of LSD, with exquisite timing, has released correspondence with Steve Jobs, a keen advocate for and user of psychedelic drugs.
David Cameron and Theresa May would have him sent to jail like Casey Hardison for 20 years.
Barack Obama would have him renditioned to wherever he wanted him and subjected to special interrogation techniques.
The Daily Mail and these days, to its eternal shame, even The Independent would have him ostracised, demonised, castigated and excluded.
I know who I think is smart and I know who I know is stupid.
A great man and a great example. The contrast between his intelligence and the ruling oligarchy is startling.
She Did Make It Up. She Is A Liar. She Is Unfit To Be A Minister Of the Crown.
Theresa May
How to make a twat of yourself over a pussy.
Ms May really is the most dimwitted, out of touch dinosaur, eclipsing even historical relics like George Osborne or Alan Johnson.
Quite how she ever became Home Secretary I do not understand. She appeared from nowhere and was immediately elevated to high office. The most obvious explanation isn’t credible because, without wishing to be unkind, she’s not exactly a honey trap is she?
The Human Rights Act is, in any case, very much a British creation. It is simply false to blame it on Europe. It was drafted by British legislators and, in general, is a proud and noble achievement. The very last thing we need is to abandon it on the say so of some third rate politician. It isn’t going to happen anyway. Ms May is just being used as a stool pigeon to appease the Tory right. She’s a muppet – sorry, I mean a puppet. Actually, I mean both.
PM MP
Originally Published In Homegrown Outlaw's Blog
By Jason Reed
To all that support change in current policy, I invite you to take part in: PM MP.
What is PM MP? Well, I am hosting a letter that I am encouraging as many people as possible to post one copy to the Prime Minister, and one copy to your MP. It is through weight and numbers that points are grasped and policy changed.
It is also worth sending to the Home Secretary – Theresa May, and James Brokenshire – Minister for Crime Prevention at the Home Office.
If you would like to add your name and address so as to receive a reply, all the better. If you wish to remain anonymous, then that’s also fine, but please do take the time to send just two letters to the Prime Minister and your MP at this address:
Prime Minister,
10 Downing Street,
London, SW1A 2AA
Your MP can be found here:
And your MP’s address will be:
MP’s NAME, or James Brokenshire, or The Home Secretary Theresa May
House of Commons,
London SW1A OAA
Below you can find the template letter that has been created to address the current law & policy that surrounds cannabis in Britain. It is with a great deal of thanks to the Drug Equality Alliance for directing the wording to address this issue correctly.
Please do support this; please send the letters. Fellow bloggers, please also host the letter and send forth.
Either copy & paste the below text into a letter, or I have provided downloadable links at the end of this blog post. Thank you all. Jason.
Dear
I am writing to state my view that continuing prohibition of all private interests in cannabis is not in the best interest of society or the individual. Current policy is in many regards counter-productive and a drain on the country’s resources. The administration of Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 is mandated to be under constant review & evidence based; it’s concern is solely to reduce social harm caused by drug misuse. I submit that there can be no justification in law for the blanket ban on accessing a substance that many persons use responsibly, and many use to experience the amelioration of symptoms caused by various medical disorders.
The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 seeks to regulate human action re any harmful drug, it does not provide a mandate for prohibition, indeed when one examines the obligations of the ACMD one can see that the law seeks to make arrangements for the supply of controlled drugs. The legislative aim is to control responsible human action and property interests through the regulation of the production, distribution and possession of any harmful drug; this being proportionate and targeted to address the mischief of social harm occasioned by misuse. I note that the law does not prohibit the use of cannabis at all, and this often ignored fact was Parliament’s way of opening the door to facilitate a suitable and rational regulatory structure. I place it on record that I wish the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to be used properly, and neutrally; specifically; (under Section 1) – “(2) (a) for restricting the availability of such drugs or supervising the arrangements for their supply.”
The prohibition of all private interests in cannabis & the denial of the possibility of responsible use has failed:
- The estimated expenditure of £19 billion on the judicial ‘controls’ over UK drug policy is a large sum that cannot be justified in the current fiscal climate. I do not believe it can be proven to be a valid policy even if the nation could easily afford it; it has a high price on liberty, and a paradoxical effect upon the health of all drug users – it has proved futile in almost every way, save for the government’s blind adherence to the international treaties it chooses to fetter it’s discretion to.
- There is an estimated street value of £5 billion profit going directly to gangs and cartels, and this in turn funds organised crime, human trafficking, and all manner of hard-line criminality.
- Children have easy & ready access to cannabis. Children are dealing cannabis and using cannabis with relative ease.
- There is an estimated 165 million responsible and non-problematic cannabis users worldwide. There is anything from 2 – 10 million adult users in the UK. There is no societal benefit to criminalising such a large portion of society, these are generally law-abiding persons who wish to use a substance that is comparatively safer than many drugs that government choose to exclude users of from the operation of the MoDA 1971 (despite the Act being neutral as to what drug misusers are controlled, the most harmful drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are excluded by policy, but this is not reflected in the Act itself).
- Under prohibition, as in 1920’s America, quality control has suffered giving way to hastily harvested cannabis which acts as the modern day equivalent of the infamous Moonshine & Hooch. The UK media terms this bad product simply as “Skunk”. Cannabis is now being cut with harmful drugs, glass, metal fillings, and chemicals to give false potency, and to add weight for profit motivations.
- To criminalise personal actions that do not harm others within the confines of privately owned property is at best draconian, and at worst futile & irresponsible.
I wish to encourage the adoption of a regulatory system that provides:
- An age-check system to prevent the young and vulnerable from obtaining cannabis with the ease they currently have.
- The partial saving from the £19 billion drug enforcement budget, alongside the estimated street worth of £5 billion potentially collected from cannabis. This would be a considerable sum in aiding the country in fiscal crisis.
- Quality control that can be accorded to cannabis production and sale, thus ensuring that there are no dangerous impurities and that the correct balance of cannabinoids are present (according to the needs of the user) to minimise potential harms.
- Potency & harm reduction information can be provided to adults, ensuring education is the forefront of the regulatory model.
- A restriction on marketing and the creation of designated discreet outlets. As seen in many countries, given a place of legitimacy, the cache of cannabis is lessened in favour of responsibility.
- The freedoms and rights for non-problematic users to be respected.
I do hope that you will give this matter the urgent attention it warrants.
Yours
UK Drug Strategy 2010 – A Plan To Fail
Mother Knows Best
Gone are the days when central Government tells communities and the public what to do.
Rt. Hon. Theresa May, MP, Home Secretary, December 2010
A slim volume of treacle-like and turgid social worker-speak shot through with a few strands of sharp hypocrisy. See here.
A disappointment? Not really, it’s pretty much what I expected – an authoritarian, moralistic smokescreen behind which the government will do what it wants with no regard whatsoever for the views or the welfare of the people. It stinks.
It claims to be radical in that it turns away from reducing the harms caused by drugs and instead aims to force abstinence. In other words, do as we say or suffer the consequences. It is, in fact, a medieval solution to a 21st century problem. It seems that the British government no longer cares about the harm caused by drugs. All it cares about is that you STOP! This is the ultimate exposition of Nancy Reagan’s discredited “Just Say No” campaign because it really is “just” say “no” – no other option exists. This from a government that advocates giving people methadone to “treat” cannabis use. Can you believe it? That isn’t medieval. It’s prehistoric – or perhaps better described as mid 20th century, a sort of Dr Mengele method.
I give Ms May credit for one thing. She mentions alcohol alongside drugs in the first sentence of her foreword. That is progress but from then on there is little of any value. Nothing that you couldn’t have copied from any out of date A level textbook on social work.
The laughable assertion quoted above that the government doesn’t tell us what to do is just absurd. Never has there been a more hard line approach to the drugs issue. See Edwin Stratton’s article in The Guardian here which reveals just how draconian, anti-civil liberties and severe this government is.
In the penultimate paragraph of her foreword, Ms May acknowledges that there were calls during consultation on the strategy for “liberalisation and decriminalisation”. She dismisses these as not “the answer” but fails entirely to consider the enormous harm caused and crime created by existing policies. I will be making Freedom Of Information requests to determine just how much notice was taken of the consultation.
There is a complete failure to understand or consider the harms of prohibition. Britain now stands as one of the most backward and restrictive countries in the world when it comes to drug policy. We now rub shoulders with those countries that execute people for drug possession. There is no civilised country in the world with a more repressive drugs policy than Britain.
Broken Britain
Emphasis is given to the introduction of elected Police and Crime Commissioners. I support this move. Hopefully, these elected officials, being closer to reality and not ensconsed in Whitehall’s ivory towers, will mitigate some of the damage that this strategy could cause. They will have the impossible job of trying to implement these ideas and will surely give Ms May and her protege James “Broken Britain” Brokenshire some lessons in reality and common sense.
The statistics and figures quoted in the strategy are manifest nonsense. Apparently the economic and social costs of Class A drug use are £15.4 billion per annum while the equivalent figure for alcohol is £18 – 25 billion. Supposedly the total illicit drug market in Britain is worth just £4 – 6 billion per annum while the market for alcohol is £30 billion. There are just 320,000 heroin and/or crack cocaine users but tens of million that use alcohol. These figures just don’t add up. Maybe that’s part of the reason this strategy is so badly conceived and directed.
It’s only part of the reason though. The main problem is that the government’s approach is based on prejudice and an arrogant, moralistic, proselytising stance. See David Nutt’s article here on what the government would do if a completely safe alternative to ecstasy was developed. Prohibition is immoral and evil in itself. When will our politicians wake up to what most of the rest of Europe and the USA already knows?
Powerful Medicine. Gentle Pleasure.
Cannabis, the most widely used illegal drug by a factor of at least 10 barely gets a mention except in passing. This, in itself, exposes the inane content of this strategy. The government apparently intends to deal with cannabis in exactly the same way as it deals with heroin and crack. The medicinal use of cannabis, now a burgeoning industry and source of hope to people all over Europe and America isn’t even mentioned. The crass stupidity of this strategy is almost beyond belief.
So the battle lines are drawn. Every other civilised country in the world is coming to terms with the fact that the war on drugs is unwinnable, even lost. Theresa May, like some mad first world war general, is blowing her whistle and urging on millions more to go over the top into certain death, or at least misery and degradation. Her slightly fey, sweet boy, Colonel Jimmy is hiding behind her, determined to gain credit for something but definitely not doing anything worthwhile, “Crikey! Not me. I’m staying safe.”
This could be a deeply depressing day but at least now we know where we stand. David Cameron and Nick Clegg have completely turned around on the progressive and liberal ideas they have advocated in the past. Nothing is a better indicator of the integrity and intelligence of a government than its drug policy. Britain is shamed by this effort which will inevitably cause more harm, cost more money and ruin more lives.
Broken Promises. Broken Britain. Brokenshire.
Mad? Bad? Or both?
The most important principle espoused by David Cameron and Nick Clegg in the election campaign was fairness. They promised us that their government would be fair and by extension that the policies it pursued would be based on facts and evidence, not on prejudice, misinformation or distortion by vested interests.
This promise is broken and in the most crass, blatant and disgraceful fashion by the attempt to remove scientists from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). Never has a more corrupt intent been revealed by a British government. Never has a minister, James Brokenshire, demonstrated his intent to misinform, deceive and lie more clearly. Dr Evan Harris, the former LibDem shadow science and health minister, explains the intricacies of this attempt to subvert the law here.
The Misuse Of Drugs Act 1971 was progressive legislation in that it created the ACMD and required government to seek its expert scientific advice before criminalising the use of drugs. Because, increasingly, the government does not like the ACMD’s advice, it is now seeking to remove the Act’s requirement that there must be scientists on the council. Is it possible to conceive of a more ridiculous or corrupt idea?
In fact, the government takes no notice of the ACMD anyway. When ministers wanted to ban mephedrone earlier in the year they ordered the council to provide the advice that they wanted and banned it despite there being almost no evidence at all. More members of the ACMD then resigned and the Home Office is now trying to recruit replacements. That may be the truth of what is happening here. The government simply can’t find scientists prepared to sit on the council. I wonder why?
James Brokenshire says: “Scientific advice is absolutely critical to the government’s approach to drugs and any suggestion that we are moving away from it is absolutely not true.
This is simply a bald faced lie and self-evidently so. If scientific advice is critical, why does he wish to remove the obligation to have it available?
James Brokenshire regularly speaks untruths or dissembles on behalf of the government. The facts prove that beyond doubt and his reputation is well established. For instance, the Home Office claims that there are no medicinal benefits in herbal cannabis and that this is based on advice from the ACMD. No such advice has ever been given. Furthermore, Professor Les Iversen, present chair of the ACMD is also a founder council member of the British Medicinal Cannabis Register (BMCR) and next week lectures on the subject “Bringing Cannabis Back into the Medicine Cabinet”
James Brokenshire is in the vanguard of this contemptible and corrupt behaviour. He may be put forward as cannon fodder by more senior ministers because the nonsense he speaks and the positions he takes are so manifestly ridiculous. When the truth is out and his shame is revealed he will easily be dismissed by Theresa May. If, as Minister for Crime Prevention, he had any real interest in preventing crime he would be resisiting this attempt to subvert the law.
Anti-Social Police Behaviour
Out Of Control
The British police are out of control. Far from becoming a politically correct “service”, they’re moving more and more towards the “force” ethos, promoting their own self-interest and resisting all attempts to be subject to democratic control. The sooner we get elected police commissioners the better. Those presently in charge of the police increasingly place themselves above the law and regard the public as the opposition, not the people they are paid to protect and serve.
They’re even trying to frighten us over the spending cuts, suggesting that any reduction in police budgets will lead to increased crime and disorder. What other public service with its budget under threat uses direct fear of violence as its response? I call that scaremongering. I call it precious close to a protection racket, to blackmail and extortion.
The police are very, very good at road accidents. There are brave and clever men and women in anti-terrorism and serious crime. But we lost the British bobby sometime ago now. I’d say it was in the 1990s. Dixon Of Dock Green had retired to the other side of the world. Jack Regan was supposed to have gone but he returned disguised as Gene Hunt. The TSG continued its long tradition of brutality providing a career path for violent thugs. The term “institutionalised racism” was coined. The cars got faster. The uniforms got sexier in a Nazi stormtrooper sort of way. Meanwhile, in parallel, the gay rights, politically correct, sociology graduates and new Labour bureaucrats gained influence and these two factions, fundamentally incompatible, consumed huge quantities of police time and procedure, and eventually created a perfect storm of bureaucracy, corruption and laziness. The police lost touch with the people completely.
The police don’t want to be accountable to anybody. Even when they assault members of the public, even when innocent bystanders die at the hands of police officers in disguise, they close ranks, obstruct justice, lie, cheat and dissemble to avoid the consequences. Now, Sir Paul Stephenson, not content with the way his officers pervert the criminal justice system, wants some sort of immunity from the civil courts. His secret letter to Theresa May, seeking protection against officers being sued for brutality or wrongful arrest is a disgrace. See here. It reveals his true intentions only too clearly. He even wants to charge for requests under the Freedom Of Information Act, further tightening the police culture of secrecy and concealment. It is truly terrifying that Britain’s most senior police officer should even contemplate such ideas. It is the very opposite of responsibility and conclusive proof that he is not a fit and proper person to be any sort of policeman, let alone commissioner of the Metropolitan police. Theresa May should dismiss him immediately. He is a power hungry, manipulative, enemy of justice. No sort of protector or champion or servant of the public at all.
When it comes to the brutal assault by Sergeant Delroy Smellie on Nicola Fisher or the death of Ian Tomlinson, clearly caused by PC Simon Harwood, most of us would be prepared to accept the “bad apple” argument. Yet somehow, in the Nicola Fisher case, District Judge Daphne Wickham was persuaded to refuse to hear Ms Fisher’s statement in court. Somehow, over a year and a half after Ian Tomlinson was killed, PC Harwood has still not been called to account for his actions and is still suspended on full pay. Neither have his colleagues who blatantly lied and tried to cover up what had happened. The truth is these men are not bad apples. They are the deliberate product of the Met’s Territorial Support Group (TSG). In hiding their identification and using brutal, disproportionate violence, they are entirely consistent with the culture and training that their senior officers have designed.
Hero
Of course, there are still good cops, selfless, conscientious heroes like PC Bill Barker who genuinely seek to serve the public. He gave his life while protecting people during the Cumbrian floods. See here. He deserves every honour that we can bestow on him. He shames all those corrupt, cowardly bullies that infect our country, that hide in their offices and cars, that display their vile and despicable attitudes on the Inspector Gadget website. Officers like PC Barker are now in the minority, in full scale retreat, ridiculed and excluded by a wannabe Gene Hunt culture that has attracted more and more borderline psychopaths to the paramilitary uniform and fast car culture.
Role Model
Now they don’t even think that anti-social behaviour is police work. It’s not exciting or glamorous enough. In the early noughties in North Kensington, I saw how the police completely lost control of the Avenues, the terraced houses between the Harrow Road and Queens Park. The police from Kilburn and Paddington Green stations were in full scale retreat, absolutely impotent and useless in the face of gangs of kids aged 10 – 16, on the streets at all hours, abusing people, keying cars, throwing eggs and laughing at any authority or discipline. Those hooligans and yobs are now breeding and the police are reaping what they’ve sown. I expect their solution will be violence and “fit-ups”. They’re no different from the lowlife, layabouts themselves. They’re just two sides of the same coin.
Illegal Weapon
The Raoul Moat affair revealed how the police have lost the plot. While some officers proved their courage and worth, others indulged in an orgy of technology, expense, hiding behind their procedures and precautions. Others used banned super-Tasers, illegally obtained from their cronies in the arms industry and undoubtedly caused the death of the mad nutter. Not a bad result but achieved in a dreadful way. It was a dismal and demeaning epsiode for all concerned. See here.
Corruption is endemic in the police. It starts at the beginning of every shift and continues off duty. At its worst, it’s the disgusting spectacle of PC Stephen Mitchell in Newcastle, who inflicted his sexual desires and drug appetite on those he arrested. See here. At the everyday, commonplace level, it’s the copper who confiscates a bag of weed and takes it home to smoke himself, or who brutalises a wheelchair bound medicinal cannabis user. It’s the thugs who think it’s acceptable to terrorise and batter an old man over a motoring offence. See here.
Elected police commissioners are our only hope. I applaud the coalition government for bringing forward this proposal and acting on it. I see no other way of rolling back the Stasi-like culture that the Labour party has allowed to flourish. Beware though, those that put themselves forward for election as a commissioners are in the front line. They risk the attention of the police establishment in ways that we cannot yet know. I wonder how many candidates will have their personal lives investigated and possibly fabricated? Any prospective commissioner who wants to disrupt the comfortable life of the police may find himself in the firing line. All sorts of inconveniences, stops and searches, investigations and embarrassments may be just around the corner.
The police want us to believe that if they are squeezed in the spending review we will face danger, disorder and violence in the streets. Instead, what we must do is paralyse the police bureaucracy, starve it of the resources it needs to promote its self-fulfilling prophecies and force officers back onto the streets. We will pay for shoe leather but not for air conditioned limousines. We will support bobbies on the beat but not poseurs in flashy SUVs. We will not tolerate any sort of discrimination or favouritism. No officer may be a freemason or belong to any secret organsation. We must fight for the soul and integrity of our police service against the corrupt thugs that have infiltrated it.
The British people deserve police officers they can be proud of.
Peter Reynolds 