You're a drug addict? Here, have an iPod on the government!

"DRUG addicts are to be offered gift vouchers and prizes on the National Health Service under plans by the government’s medicine watchdog to encourage them to stay clean.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) will recommend the system of inducements, which could enable clinics to offer televisions and iPods as prizes, to tackle the burgeoning drugs problem..." (Sunday Times)

Why should drug addicts get any financial incentives to stop? If they don't want to stop for other reasons, this will only keep them off the drugs for as long as the money keeps on coming in. This is totally wrong.

Supporters claim that the money spent of giving addicts iPods will be "recouped" through them making fewer demands of the NHS. Despite the fact that the money won't be "recouped" but just not spent on it, they may be right. But that doesn't support the idea that financial incentives will make addicts quit. Beyond the problems of cost, it is morally a bad thing to do. It is effectively rewarding people because they have broken the law and have now stopped. It's like giving a burglar money because he hasn't robbed your house this week - utterly absurd.

Those who don't take drugs and get addicted are effectively being screwed over by this because they haven't broken the law/got addicted beforehand. If these addicts want to get "clean" then they don't need financial incentives to do so. if they can only stop tasking drugs in return for iPods and the like, as soon as they stop getting given them, or have what they want, then they will just revert to their old state, costing the NHS double. If addicts want to quit, they don't need to be given money to do so. If they don't want to quit, all the money in the world won't make a difference.

The revelations are coming thick and fast today on cabinet ministers and their "youthful" drug use. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary started this off by admitting that, when asked whether or not she had ever smoked cannabis, saying:

"I have. I did when I was at university. I think it was wrong that I smoked it when I did. I have not done for 25 years."

This has now been followed by revelations from Alistair Darling that he had smoked cannabis "occasionally in my youth", Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Andy Burnham, who had smoked it "once or twice at university", Hazel Blears who tried cannabis "once or twice when very young," and, surprisingly, Ruth Kelly as well.

And my comment, as I said when David Cameron was accused of smoking cannabis, is: So what? Who cares? So you smoked cannabis when you were at university? Many people do. Politicians can have pasts too! It may have mattered in the past, but not any more.

It is all due to the government wanting to reclassify cannabis back to a Class B drug, and being able to point the finger at David Cameron for not having answered whether or not he has smoked cannabis in his past. This sort of mass "coming out" will protect them all from any negative repercussions from these "revelations", but also makes them wide open to the sort of joke I have used as the title of this post. By doing this, they don't necessarily win or lose anything, except for maybe a bit of disgruntlement from some especially anti-drug campaigners.

It is amusing that all the politicians who admit having tried cannabis also all say that they didn't enjoy it, or that it didn't do anything for them. What a load of bollocks they're talking! People wouldn't do it if it had no effect, and be refusing to admit that they liked it even the tiniest bit gains them no points back from the anti-drugs squad or wins them any from those who have or do smoke cannabis.

Reclassifying cannabis back up to Class B isn't going to work very well, and their justifications for it on the grounds of fears that its use is linked to psychotic illness, depression and suicide among young people are pretty slim. I've pretty much come round to thinking that cannabis should be legal, since it barely seems to have any worse effects than drinking alcohol or cigarette smoking, and being legal would cut down the extent to which it is a "gateway drug".

Morning has broken - and it broke without warning whilst I was standing outside waiting for an ambulance. Last night (and this morning) I was on duty as a St. John Ambulance first aider on my university campus during the event known as "The End" - the night after all exams have finished.

Thus we started on duty for 10pm, having been there earlier for briefings etc., and almost immediately started receiving casualties of the type that were to be by far the most common over the night - cuts, specifically to the feet. Most of these were caused in girls who were wearing, of all things, sandals and flip-flops on a night known for the amounts of broken glass that litters the ground of the "squares" in the university. Idiots.

Another common cause of patients was sheer drunkenness, usually accompanied by vomiting and other leaking of bodily fluids. Lovely, indeed. For the vast majority of these there was little we could do except wait with them until they sobered up enough to go home alone, or friends willing to look after them were found.

And this continued all night, with injuries of various degrees of seriousness, 26 over the night, six of which went to hospital by ambulance, plus several others who were advised to make their own way. With the eleven first aiders we had on duty, we just about had enough - there were, however, situations when a couple extra would have been useful. This can be contrasted with the six first aiders which the Students Union Ents team had originally only wanted us to provide (because they would have to pay for them) but eventually a compromise of nine had been arrived at - still below what we provided and which would not have been enough for the number of injuries we received, especially considering the cupboard-sized first aid room we are given to use [literally, it fits one stretcher and two chairs in it. And that is all.].

Eventually we finished at around 3.30am, having finally got to a stage where we could finish. But the night was not over yet - for as a few of us made our way off campus, we were called to yet another patient. This man had quite obviously been taking a lot of drugs, although he absolutely refused to admit it - it was obvious through his mannerisms, huge pupils, and constant teeth-grinding. But there was nothing that we could do for him, although he was eventually sent off in an ambulance, that was more due to there being no way that he could get home than due to any real medical need.

One of the most annoying things about being on duty surrounded by drunks is that there is always at least one or two who approach offering "help" with providing first aid cover, citing a course taken in school or Scouts and the like several years previously. Like the idiot today who approached a drunk we were dealing with - despite there being three of us standing around her in bright green jumpsuits and hi-vis jackets. People like that annoy me.

Eventually I got home, at around 5am or so after a very long day - and whilst we had been treating our extra patient, the sun had dawned and night had turned into day. So instead of going to bed when I got home, I had a bath to remove the almost-certainly lingering smell of vomit, shit, dried blood, sweat, and stale beer. And now I feel much, much better. Though tired - but I can't go to bed because I'll sleep the entire day away!

Morning has thus broken - even though I haven't actually got to bed.

Well, my Students Union seems to prefer tackling speed limits. They want to lower the speed limit on one part of a dual carriageway from 70 to 50mph because two people have been killed crossing the road there in the last ten months, and some beforehand as well. They also want a foot bridge to be built over the road. Yet there is an underpass, lit and with CCTV, just a hundred yards or so away - and a zebra crossing just a bit further up the road. Pretty much all of the students killed there were either drunk, high on drugs, or both. As far as I am concerned, they have only themselves to blame.

The SU has set up a petition, most recently signed by both the local MPs - Lib Dem Bob Russell (Colchester) and Conservative Bernard Jenkin (North Essex) [both pictured above] - to call for the changes they wish made. The MPs are just doing what MPs do best - self-publicity.

It is ridiculous. The road is perfectly safe. I myself have crossed it hundreds of times, and so long as you are sober there is no problem, since you can see hundreds of metres in both directions as it is a nice straight road.

There is also a far far larger problem which they and previous SU administrations have ignored - drugs on campus. Bouncers at the entrance to the nightclubs are not allowed to search people, and even those caught taking or even dealing drugs inside a venue are not properly dealt with, and soon allowed back into SU premises. They haven't even dismissed a bartender who was caught with drugs.

They ignore the drugs and violence (as well as under-aged drinking by kids from the local estates) on campus in favour of making ridiculous publicity stunts on road safety and speed limits. If they put even half the effort they have into this stupid campaign over lowering one speed limit into tackling drugs, the problem would be far far lower than it is. This is just part of the reason why I hate student politics.