Errr....

Hope everyone realises the last post was tongue-in-cheek.... (cheesy grin!)

You won't find that I post much about politics here, but the present row in the press about cannabis has irritated the heck.

A quick summery. The UK govs chief advisor has been asked to resign, because he said that 'ecstasy', cannabis and LSD are less harmful than alcohol or cigarettes. Mr David Nutt wanted a classification by harm approach to substance abuse - fair enough.

But, and quite rightly, the chap is a scientist, and a good one. So he deals with the evidence he discovers and gets hold of and analysis in a sterile environment. So the evidence that leads to his conclusions is empirical, and expresses it mathematically. It has to be, it's the nature of the job.

But like most scientists, he misses the point. People aren't data points. They can't be assessed statistically, because there are other factors that don't on the surface, seem to directly apply in a an assessment of harm. It'd make life more complicated, and more importantly, more expensive, and clinical studies are driven by cost grants.

I'd argue, that his arguments ignore the supply chain. The guys that supply LSD, Cannabis, illegal alcohol and cigs share a common trait, and that is they are violent, ruthless, businessmen. They'll do what they have to do to make money, and that money is reinvested to make more money, no matter what it takes. Prostitution, slavery, illegal substances, vat fraud.

If you smoke cannabis or skunk, they may well import 50-100% pure substances, but by the time they hit their target audience, it being diluted by tobacco, garden weeds and brick dust. They'll be lucky if they get 1% purity.

Max Profit doesn't give a monkeys bum about the human cost and debris in the pursuit of profit, and whatever government or it's advisor expect of them, even if you legalise it, whatever 'it' may be, there's always going to be an underground trade in cheap products for quick profit for the supplier.