Monthly Archives: July 2006

The logic of prohibition

Posted on by

There’s a report on the BBC which says “a senior police officer has joined calls for heroin to be made available on the NHS to help tackle an explosion in crack cocaine use. Cleveland Police Det Supt Tom Stoddart said heroin is a “gateway” to crack. He said by prescribing heroin in a controlled environment on the NHS it would destroy the market for dealers.”

This has been criticised by the director of the National Drug Prevention Alliance Peter Stoker as like giving alcoholics more drink in order to stop them going on to take drugs. Well, superficially that’s a compelling argument. But surely what the police officer is saying is that by prescribing heroin, that is taking its control out of criminal gangs. Second, sure giving out heroin may not stop you go onto use heroin, but examples of drug control like prescription have worked such as the coffee shops in the Netherlands in reducing drug use, so why not trial the suggestion and evaluate its benefit? Thirdly, the comparison with alcohol is false because alcohol is a legal drug. Maybe we should to be scientific though, ban alcohol, and see what happens?

Under Brazilian law..

Posted on by

Under Brazilian law I am all but married to Shirley; just a few more months of co-habitation. And the English think they are so advanced.

Meanwhile in the Menezes case:

Criticisms aimed at the police are expected to include:

* That a written log of events was changed afterwards by an officer, but not signed

* That Met Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair delayed the IPCC investigation. The watchdog said if it had gone in earlier it could have stopped the log being changed, although Scotland Yard denies this would have made a difference

* That the firearms unit arrived so late to the incident, by which time Mr Menezes was underground. As police radios do not work on the Tube they then lost communications with base.

Now I see the importance of shift handover systems. But as I reported to Jason Seigal at Traction Software it’s an under-explored area. But I have a new line of research to explore, the research arm of the Health and Safety Executive, called the Health and Safety Laboratory.

And in fact the BBC report today says that Menezes prosections may in fact have to be brought under health and safety laws.