Starting with ABCs鈥�
GRADE inflation is an issue usually reserved for the summer months, when British newspaper editors are furrowing their brows over the latest round of A-level results. But Feedback finds similar trouble in the debate at Westminster tabled by South Thanet MP Craig Mackinlay to discuss drug harms in light of the US opioid crisis.
Mackinlay painted a bleak picture of the current UK situation: broken homes, addled minds, young people running amok, not to mention the revolving door of drug-related crime he presided over for 12 years as a magistrate. Something, it was clear, had to be done, and Mackinlay鈥檚 suggestion was a new tier in the classification system, AA, for fentanyl and similar opioids.
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For those unfamiliar with the murky world of UK drug legislation, the classification system attempts to categorise 鈥渞ecreational鈥� drugs on a sliding scale of criminality, from A to C, so that judges might know how slowly the door between prison and the street should rotate. Yes, even politicians like to score, and in this case reached for an A star grade for especially naughty chemicals.
Feedback would have thought that being familiar with the UK鈥檚 broken drugs policy, Mackinlay might have focused on a harm-reduction strategy. But perhaps when all you have is a gavel, every drug user looks like a criminal.
鈥淭he Pentagon has told reporters at MuckRock that a list of information exempt from FOIA request is itself exempt from FOIA request. Are these Rumsfeld鈥檚 famed unknown unknowns?鈥�
It fell to Norman Lamb, MP for North Norfolk, to point out that no drugs debate is complete without alcohol (鈥渦sed very heavily within these buildings鈥�, he quipped). Given the current regime imposed by the Psychoactive Substances Act 鈥� which makes selling any chemical capable of affecting the mind an offence 鈥� Feedback is worried there aren鈥檛 nearly enough letters in our .
Throwing the book
IN HIS opening remarks, Mackinlay praised the House of Commons library, 鈥渨hich has considered data from a huge variety of sources鈥�. Perhaps he ought to have paid attention to one document in particular, a report drafted in 2014 that showed 鈥淸no] obvious relationship between the toughness of a country鈥檚 enforcement鈥� and .
And from what patchouli-scented den of liberal hippies did this conclusion emanate? Er, the Home Office, when it was under the directorship of Mackinlay鈥檚 boss, Prime Minister Theresa May.
Fight them on the benches
SURELY the woman who produced this report would stand by its findings? We had a chance to find out last week when Crispin Blunt, MP for Reigate, asked the prime minister to comment on the global failure of drug prohibition policies, and whether alternatives would be considered.
鈥淲hen I was Home Secretary, a piece of work was undertaken which did look at a number of countries and the different ways in which they approached this issue of drugs,鈥� May replied promisingly. 鈥淚 am sorry to say I take a different view [from Blunt]. I think it is right that we continue to fight the war against drugs.鈥�
Which makes Feedback wonder, with such compelling intuition to guide them, why do politicians bother to commission these reports at all?
Casualties of war
LOOKING on from the sidelines, the drug policy charity Release tweeted stats showing that in the past five years fighting this war, 鈥渢here has been a 44 per cent increase in drug-related deaths鈥�, in the UK and a 109 per cent increase in deaths related to heroin and morphine. Perhaps the government hopes that given time, there will be no addicts left alive to confound their policies and clutter up their prisons?
Zoom with a view
SPEAKING of people whose opinions remain stubbornly at odds with reality, Feedback is delighted to learn that Flat Earth theorists are planning to launch their own fact-finding mission, quite literally.
Mike Hughes is a 61-year-old limousine driver from California who has constructed a steam-powered rocket in his garage. Hughes aims to one day reach an altitude of 110 kilometres, a vantage point from which he hopes to see through the lie of the spherical Earth conspiracy.
Using a ramp built into an old mobile home, Hughes had planned to jump 550 metres over the ghost town of Amboy, California, last week, an effort sponsored by the Research Flat Earth group among others. Sadly, the launch was scrubbed after the Bureau of Land Management 鈥� clearly agents working in the capacity of the shadowy spherical world order 鈥� refused Hughes permission to fly over the historic town in his .
鈥nd ending on Zzzs
MULTIPLE news sources couldn鈥檛 resist the sweet nectar of a recent press release from supermarket Asda, announcing that it would soon be selling pineapple plants that .
Naturally, Feedback is sceptical that a spiky fruit can silence a noisy bedmate unless thrown at them. But what is the 鈥渘ew research鈥� claimed to support this medical marvel? Alas, the papers are less vocal on that particular detail. Feedback suspects an oft-quoted study with which common houseplants could remove volatile organic compounds such as benzene, trichloroethylene and formaldehyde from the air.
Important for astronauts, but maybe less so those of us who can crack open a window for some fresh air.
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