Boris’s Latest Brainwave!! Indoor Alcohol Ban!!

[Smowball]

Life after lockdown: Alcohol could be BANNED from pubs in Apri - this was last night.
He’s now decided, since last night that he WILL now allow pubs to open in April and sell alcohol , but still wants a ban on indoor alcohol!! Why?? And now on earth is he going to implement this??
We can’t get our hair cut, can’t get our nails done, can’t go to a restaurant, cafe or pub, can’t go clothes shopping and he now wants to do this? Has he completely lose plot??

[andy-hughes]

pixie - //
Out of interest, andy- why would you ban all alcohol, but legalise drugs? //

No, in my utopia, there would be no drugs at all.

But back in the real world, i would address the constant and vastly expensive failure of the nnsensical 'War On Drugs' that various government use to please their voters.

It sounds great - 'we are going to war' on nasty horrible drugs that are outside your comfort zones of alcohol and tobacco - but it's utterly meaningless, as has been proved by the sheer passage of time, and not even a scratch on the surface of the problem.

Since we as a culture like, buy and enjoy drugs, let's make sure we treat drugs evenly and effectively.

We don't have a choice about whether or not we have drugs in our society, we only have a choice about how we manage them.

Instead of allowing unlicenced drugs, with the attendent crime and absent revenue, why not licence drugs, tax them, and make them available in the same way that alcohol and tobacco are available.

We will have to put up with overdosers and irresponisble users, but we manage that perfectly well with alcohol users, and the attendent income from tax revenues would more than fund the necessary medical and social facilities to deal with the problems.

The endless bleating I read when I mention banning alcohol is the 'punishment of the many for the sins of the few'.

That's fine - but if you look at it dispassionately, that applies to illegal drug use in exactly the same way.

Drug OD's are caused by impure drugs adulterated to increase profits. If you buy a pack of Paracetamol in Cornwall, you'll get the same as if you bought it in Edinburgh - because production is liscensed and controlled.

If you buy alcohol in your supermarket, it has the potential to kill if misused in exactly the same way illegal drugs kill, but the perception is, it is used in moderation for enjoyment. Exactly the same is true for the majority of drug users - only our perception needs to be adjusted, and education put in place to make the changes.

Of course this will never happen.

To be in a position where you can change something, you have already had to prove that you are fine with things exactly the way they are. A 'legalise drugs' manifesto would be political suicide, but if it worked, it would end the mistery and cost of illegal drugs in a generation.

Worth thinking about - even if not hoping for ...

[pixie374]

Thanks Andy, you had already convinced me it might be better to legalise drugs. I just wondered why you seemed to be so much against alcohol. But that makes sense.

[andy-hughes]

pixie - // Thanks Andy, you had already convinced me it might be better to legalise drugs. I just wondered why you seemed to be so much against alcohol. But that makes sense. //

My bugbear with alcohol is the hypocrisy with which it has inveagled itself into an utterly undeserved level of acceptance in society, when it causes so much crime and misery, and 'unacceptable' drugs are outlawed and prey to gangs and criminailty, causing even more crfime and misery.