quote:Originally posted by Dara bhur gCara: I think this deserves a post of its own, so I'm going to respond to it separately.
[snip]
But, of course, none of this can happen without a general recognition that the War on Drugs is over, and Drugs won it. Which is political suicide in the UK, I would imagine.
Thank you for a very thought-provoking and, if it isn't patronising of me to say so, well put, post.
I recall us debating drugs in the context of Pete Docherty not long ago, and I think we discussed the issues around total liberalisation of the drugs market. In short, I expressed concerns that this would lead to fundamental shifts towards drug-taking which I fear would prove to be of incalculable harm to society.
The more nuanced approach which you discuss here sounds like a reversion in principle to the enlighted system used in the UK until the late sixties. I understand that it was abandoned at the time because users were selling their prescription drugs to people who then became addicts themselves, although I have also heard it said that US political pressure was brought to bear. The re-sale problem could, perhaps, be controlled by a more regimented approach to distribution of prescription narcotics. The foreign political issue, if real, might be thornier.
I am not sure that these days, it would be political suicide for any party in the UK to call for, say, a Royal Commission to look into your proposals. You can sometimes be surprisingly conservative in your outlook, you know.
When did they abandon the prescriptions for heroin? And how many registered users were there at that time?
(I've tried to look this up without success)
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Dara bhur gCara
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posted
quote:Originally posted by Zachary Fizz: The Swedish model seems to come perilously close to the assumptions regarding exploitation which Llewtrah was warning against, Dara, and I infer from your own admission of its flaws that you would not defend it as a logical or moral basis for law reform in England.
Well, although Llewtrah does warn about assumptions regarding exploitation, I don't think she's given any really satisfactory alternative assumptions, or indeed explain why these assumptions are to be avoided, other than referring to sex workers she has known. There are certainly enough sex workers who are the victims of abuse and exploitation for it to taken as the norm, rather than Llewtrah's entirely unsupported rose-coloured view of the profession and clients.
That said, I'm not sure if I would be in favour of the adoption of the Swedish model, to be honest. There are aspects of it I like, and aspects of it I dislike. But certainly it has more of a logical and moral basis behind it than the current legislation in this country, and doesn't have as many unpleasant consequences as total legalisation.
quote:It also seems to be addressing symptoms, rather than causes.
If you want to address the causes of prostitution, you probably want to look at the way in which women are still economically and politically weaker than men. The way in which women are much more at risk of extreme poverty and marginalisation. The way in which girls are more at risk of sexual abuse while children than boys. The way in which women are encouraged to rely on their attractiveness to achieve goals in the media and in their upbringing. The way in which sexual pliancy is seen as a favourable characteristic in women by men. That's a fairly big ask, don't you think?
We're highly unlikely to be able to mend these gender divisions in society overnight, and indeed we may never do; perhaps some gender roles are innate, perhaps the way in which society is ordered by gender is immutable and fundamental.
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't bother trying to address the damage done.
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posted
[URL=Interesting article in today's Guardian]http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1975732,00.html[/URL]
Ipswich proves how badly we need Tory libertarians
quote: If the Conservatives want a free society, they could start by getting rid of counter-productive bans on drugs and prostitution
-------------------- I shall baffle you with cabbages and rhinoceroses in the kitchen and incessant quotations from "Now We Are Six" through the mouthpiece of Lord Snooty's giant poisoned electric head. So there! Posts: 802 | From: London, UK | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Dara bhur gCara: If you want to address the causes of prostitution, you probably want to look at the way in which women are still economically and politically weaker than men. The way in which women are much more at risk of extreme poverty and marginalisation. The way in which girls are more at risk of sexual abuse while children than boys. The way in which women are encouraged to rely on their attractiveness to achieve goals in the media and in their upbringing. The way in which sexual pliancy is seen as a favourable characteristic in women by men. That's a fairly big ask, don't you think?
We're highly unlikely to be able to mend these gender divisions in society overnight, and indeed we may never do; perhaps some gender roles are innate, perhaps the way in which society is ordered by gender is immutable and fundamental.
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't bother trying to address the damage done.
I was thinking more in terms of addressing the drugs issue first, which of course you did in your next post.
Now we've solved that one, I can't see why you don't address the marginalisation of women too. It's not like you have to move away from the laptop to do your own shopping right now
Tarquin, I think Archie2K and I are doing our best. But you need to have a word with Cinnamon, IMO.
Posts: 2370 | From: Arabia | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Tarquin Farquart: When did they abandon the prescriptions for heroin? And how many registered users were there at that time?
1971. Here's a helpful link, which has some more helpful links on it.
Posts: 2370 | From: Arabia | Registered: Feb 2002
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Richard W
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
quote:Originally posted by Tarquin Farquart: When did they abandon the prescriptions for heroin? And how many registered users were there at that time?
(I've tried to look this up without success)
I think it's actually legal in the UK to prescribe heroin to addicts, but doctors don't often do so.
quote:Get caught with heroin and you face seven years in prison. But not Erin O'Mara, one of 440 addicts in the UK to get a regular fix from an NHS prescription - an arrangement she says has turned her life around.
Erin O'Mara is a bright, bubbly magazine editor - hardly the stereotype of someone who injects heroin four times a day.
...
The downward spiral began with Erin's first taste of heroin aged 15 while in her native Australia, and has included 10 unsuccessful methadone programmes along the way.
To finance her habit, she began working as a masseuse, which led to escort work and then street prostitution. That stopped when she discovered she was HIV positive.
But the prescription has transformed her life. ...
I'm not sure why methadone rather than heroin treatments are more common, either. Methadone is also addictive, and doesn't seem to do much good. (edit - I meant that as a substance it doesn't seem to do people much good in itself, not that the prescription programme doesn't do much good.) And I've known addicts to fight over methadone supplies too. (I had to call an ambulance once at the soup kitchen because of a head injury after a fight when one woman was accused of stealing another woman's methadone supply.) So it doesn't eliminate the problem of people passing on their prescriptions to others.
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Dara bhur gCara
As Shepherds Watched Their Flocks Buy Now Pay Later
posted
Incidentally, do you know that "Heroin" is in fact a trademark, registered by the Bayer corporation who are still one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world? It's real name is Diacetylmorphine.
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quote:Originally posted by Richard W: I'm not sure why methadone rather than heroin treatments are more common, either. Methadone is also addictive, and doesn't seem to do much good. And I've known addicts to fight over methadone supplies too. (I had to call an ambulance once at the soup kitchen because of a head injury after a fight when one woman was accused of stealing another woman's methadone supply.) So it doesn't eliminate the problem of people passing on their prescriptions to others.
I was under the impression that methadone is slower-acting so you don't get such a hit from it.
-------------------- I shall baffle you with cabbages and rhinoceroses in the kitchen and incessant quotations from "Now We Are Six" through the mouthpiece of Lord Snooty's giant poisoned electric head. So there! Posts: 802 | From: London, UK | Registered: Nov 2005
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Dara bhur gCara
As Shepherds Watched Their Flocks Buy Now Pay Later
posted
quote:Originally posted by Richard W: I'm not sure why methadone rather than heroin treatments are more common, either. Methadone is also addictive, and doesn't seem to do much good. And I've known addicts to fight over methadone supplies too. (I had to call an ambulance once at the soup kitchen because of a head injury after a fight when one woman was accused of stealing another woman's methadone supply.) So it doesn't eliminate the problem of people passing on their prescriptions to others.
Because methadone works as an oral medication, so it's safe to let chaotic drug users take it away with them. Oral diacetylmorphine, like many orally administered opioids, can cause terrible bowel paralysis and colonic strictures, to the point of being almost life-threatening. The only reliable way to administer it therefore is by injection. But of course there are terrible health risks associated with long-term intravenous drug use, just as there are with any intravenous medicine use, so it wouldn't be sensible, from a health and safety perspective, to issue addicts with injectable prescriptions.
The only way in which injectable heroin could be administered is through supervised injections, which necessitates several visits a day to either a GP's surgery (unsurprisingly few GPs are in favour of this) or one of a network of specialist drop-in centres, which don't exist at present.
Moreover, an injectable heroin programme would cost about 15 times the equivalent oral methadone programme.
-------------------- This wrinkle in time, I can't give it no credit, I thought about my space and it really got me down. Got me so down, I got me a headache, My heart is crammed in my cranium and it still knows how to pound Posts: 2794 | From: London, UK | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Dara bhur gCara: Incidentally, do you know that "Heroin" is in fact a trademark, registered by the Bayer corporation who are still one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world? It's real name is Diacetylmorphine.
Does this mean we're going to get snooty letters from the Bayer corporation's lawyers?
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Dara bhur gCara
As Shepherds Watched Their Flocks Buy Now Pay Later
posted
quote:Originally posted by Tarquin Farquart:
quote:Originally posted by Dara bhur gCara: Incidentally, do you know that "Heroin" is in fact a trademark, registered by the Bayer corporation who are still one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world? It's real name is Diacetylmorphine.
Does this mean we're going to get snooty letters from the Bayer corporation's lawyers?
I'm not sure it's a protection that they zealously guard.
-------------------- This wrinkle in time, I can't give it no credit, I thought about my space and it really got me down. Got me so down, I got me a headache, My heart is crammed in my cranium and it still knows how to pound Posts: 2794 | From: London, UK | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:the 'Swedish model,' which decriminalises the seller of sex but criminalises the buyer
the system we have now, which criminalises the buyer but not the seller
I know that it's probably some technical legal difference betwen criminalising and decriminalising, but what in layman's terms (words of two syllables or less please ) between the two statements above?
-------------------- Silence should never under any circumstances be construed as agreement. A lot of the time, it's simply a reflection that someone just said something so stupid that no response could possibly do it justice. - Ramblin' Dave Posts: 8528 | From: Nottingham, England | Registered: Feb 2000
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Dara bhur gCara
As Shepherds Watched Their Flocks Buy Now Pay Later
quote:One hooker told how Steve Wright was a regular client who paid her for sex about three times a month but also used a string of other girls.
And a neighbour revealed the 48-year-old sneaked vice girls into his home for sex behind partner Pamela's back - often picking them up after driving her to work.
A heroin addict named Lou, 28, said she last saw Wright three weeks ago when she charged him her usual £40 rate for full sex.
She said: "I'd describe him as a regular customer, someone who has been picking up girls for the last eight months or so.
"I know he uses lots of different prostitutes but I don't know if they include any of the ones who were murdered.
"You often see him driving round in his blue Mondeo looking for girls even if he had picked you the night before. He didn't strike me as weird and never gave me any reason to believe I was in danger.
"He'd just pick me up and then park in the car park at the back of his house. Sometimes we'd go in the front door and other times through the patio doors at the back.
"He'd take me through the kitchen and then upstairs to the bedroom for sex. He didn't want to talk much.
-------------------- This wrinkle in time, I can't give it no credit, I thought about my space and it really got me down. Got me so down, I got me a headache, My heart is crammed in my cranium and it still knows how to pound Posts: 2794 | From: London, UK | Registered: Aug 2003
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Dara bhur gCara
As Shepherds Watched Their Flocks Buy Now Pay Later
posted
quote:Originally posted by Mosherette: Both from Dara
quote:the 'Swedish model,' which decriminalises the seller of sex but criminalises the buyer
the system we have now, which criminalises the buyer but not the seller
I know that it's probably some technical legal difference betwen criminalising and decriminalising, but what in layman's terms (words of two syllables or less please ) between the two statements above?
Or I could have just got 'buyer' and 'seller' mixed up. Or, I know, I could have put a deliberate error in there just to see if people were paying attention. Yes, that's right, that's exactly what I did. Well done Mosh, who gets a gold star!
To clarify, or indeed, correct my earlier mistake:
The current system in the UK criminalises the person selling sex, while the person buying sex is not committing an offence unless they are publicly soliciting sex, ie a man using a massage parlour is not a criminal, whereas the prostitute he is visiting is.
The 'Swedish Model' reverses the two. The client is committing a criminal offence in buying sex, whereas the sex worker is not.
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Richard W
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posted
quote:Originally posted by Dara bhur gCara: The Sun have a very tasteful front-page, as well.
That's revolting - Noel Edmonds has got a date?
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posted
You mean my brain noticed something useful for once? Well done brain!
-------------------- Silence should never under any circumstances be construed as agreement. A lot of the time, it's simply a reflection that someone just said something so stupid that no response could possibly do it justice. - Ramblin' Dave Posts: 8528 | From: Nottingham, England | Registered: Feb 2000
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Dara bhur gCara
As Shepherds Watched Their Flocks Buy Now Pay Later
posted
quote:Originally posted by Richard W:
quote:Originally posted by Dara bhur gCara: The Sun have a very tasteful front-page, as well.
That's revolting - Noel Edmonds has got a date?
I know. I mean, it's bad enough your wife leaving you, but leaving you for Noel Edmonds?
Brr. There but for the grace of God, eh?
-------------------- This wrinkle in time, I can't give it no credit, I thought about my space and it really got me down. Got me so down, I got me a headache, My heart is crammed in my cranium and it still knows how to pound Posts: 2794 | From: London, UK | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
The Suffolk police have just announced that Stephen Wright, the second of the two men arrested, has been charged with all five murders. The man arrested first, who has not been named by the police, has been released on police bail 'pending further investigations'.
-------------------- Andrew, Ware, England Posts: 1709 | From: Ware, England | Registered: Apr 2003
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Richard W
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
In which case, I should probably take back what I said about not being surprised about it being the first guy.
Now it seems that we've got a serial killer with the same name as a radio personality. That's going to be weird.
-------------------- seriously , everyone on here , just trys to give someone crap about something they do !! , its shitting me to tears. Posts: 16061 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2000
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Dara bhur gCara
As Shepherds Watched Their Flocks Buy Now Pay Later
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-------------------- seriously , everyone on here , just trys to give someone crap about something they do !! , its shitting me to tears. Posts: 16061 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
Well, I've just walked into town and back, which takes me part of the way down Portman Road. Up until today there have been two police cars at the crossroads, and both were gone. I also walk past the Police HQ, and the extra cars and vans that have been parked around have gone (except for, bizarrely, a North Wales van, which pulled off as I walked past), but there were about 5 or 6 TV satellite vans and various reporters doing to-camera pieces. It was quite bizarre seeing an Anglia News OB van there, though, as the studio itself is literally 2 minutes down the road.
I also looked at the newspapers while I was in town. It's front page news on every single one of them, except for the Daily Express, which has instead chosen to go with the fact that it's foggy.
-------------------- seriously , everyone on here , just trys to give someone crap about something they do !! , its shitting me to tears. Posts: 16061 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2000
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Perhaps we should say, in the case of Stephen Wright, that he is an alleged murderer. His solicitor said in court today, according to the news report on the Steve Wright in the Afternoon programme, that the media should respect Stephen Wright's right to be presumed innocent.
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