Just a quicky about a couple of tweets from Nadine Dorries.
From the surrounding tweets, Nadine is arguing against the governments drugs policy, and how effective it is. I don’t know the exact argument but you don’t need to here as the statements made by Nadine are absolutely ridiculous and even I could do better.
http://twitter.com/NadineDorriesMP/status/6168531952
Lamb made the point that based on statistics, alcohol is more serious than drugs. I’ve never seen anyone selling booze at a school gate.
Can you guess the reason Nadine has never seen anyone selling booze at a school gate? Could it be something to do with shops and pubs? Kids aren’t stupid, why would they be risk getting into trouble by buying booze from a dodgy bloke outside school in full view of the authorities (teachers and other people that will report them) when they can just as easily get lashed on drink bought by themselves or their older looking mates from an off-licence?
http://twitter.com/NadineDorriesMP/status/6168961615
I’ve never heard of anyone stabbing or murdering someone or trafficking for a drink and our Prisons aren’t full of alcoholics.
The MP for Mid-Beds has never heard of drink dealers stabbing and murdering each other because the criminal element has been taken out of the system. The business of selling alcohol has been put into the hands of proper, licenced business men. The role of contraband booze has been left with the the small guy that does a booze cruise and sells to his mates or the big criminal gangs that make counterfiet vodka. The role of the nasty vicous bastards you get in the middle of the drugs trade is non-existant because you either need lots of equipment and time and an investment and the demand for hooky booze is negligible and so not enough money in it. Drugs are easy money.
Prisons also may not be bursting at the seams with alcoholics, but you can’t walk around a prison for very long with out bumping in someone with a problem…
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what estimate he has made of (a) the number and (b) the proportion of prisoners diagnosed with alcohol problems in each prison in England and Wales, in each of the last 10 years. [265702]
Mr. Hanson: A number of studies have provided a picture of the alcohol-related problems experienced by those entering prisons:
Research(1) carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in 1997 stated that 63 per cent. of sentenced males and 39 per cent. of sentenced females reported a hazardous drinking pattern in the year before coming into prison. This figure rises to 70 per cent. in the case of young adult offenders. The numbers who are physically dependent on alcohol, which can be defined as those who need alcohol detoxification (Tiers 3 and 4 of Models of Care for Alcohol Misusers (MoCAM)), are much lower at around 8 per cent. of females and 7 per cent. of males.
The Surveying Prisoner Crime Reduction (SCPR) study(2), a large national longitudinal survey of newly sentenced adult prisoners, reported in 2008 that 36 per cent. of the sample could be classified as heavy drinkers. However, heavy drinking—defined as drinking more than twice the recommended sensible daily limits—is not directly comparable to the hazardous drinking category used in the ONS report.
http://twitter.com/NadineDorriesMP/status/6169016126
Off licences don’t control housing estates and publicans don’t run brothels, control child prostitutes and fund trafficking from booze.
Would drug dealers be able to control housing estates and fund people trafficking from drugs if drugs were legal like booze? I strongly doubt they would.
I also doubt that drugs fund people trafficking and prostitution to as greater extent that is usually portrayed.
Criminals are in drugs and prostitution for the money. That’s why there isn’t a black market for alcohol as there is for drugs. Think about it. Why would you break the law for lots of work, lots of hassle and no reward? Are criminals using prostitution as a loss-leader, like Tesco does with milk? Of course not.
The points above are supposed to be argueing in favour of stricter, harsher drug laws. They fail completely.
Mid-Beds, this is your MP. Please learn from your mistake at the next election.
Oh, and drugs are bad, mmkay?
Update:
Two more posts on the same set of Dorries tweets, the first from JDC325 who has more detail on the figures and stuff, and the second (via JDC325) from Mark Reckons which contains this nugget of comedy…
[Nadine tweets:] When I visited a womens prison, 100% of inmates were in for drugs related offences. 100%
As El_Cuevro tweeted, HM Prison Service says that 33% of female prisoners are in for drug offences. Nadine’s figure of 100% can only be because she must have visited a drug offenders institution.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by unslugged, Sim-O. Sim-O said: New blog post: The incisive arguments of Nadine Dorries http://sim-o.me.uk/2009/11/the-incisive-arguments-of-nadine-dorries/ […]
At a time like this, this is the only reasonable response
http://plognark.com/?q=node/1129
.-= D-Notice´s last blog ..… reviews @WestminSkeptics =-.
Nice work. I’ve put together my own response to Nadine’s tweets here: Nadine’s Nadir and came to similar conclusions as you have.
I think Nadine may be evidencephobic as well as logic-challenged. In fact, she’s so daft I actually had to make up new terms to even describe her.
.-= jdc´s last blog ..Politicians and the Skeptical Voter =-.
Surely she can’t get elected again? She is a shambles in human form…
.-= Daniel Hoffmann-Gll´s last blog ..An Old Woman in Barclay’s Bank in Uppermill =-.
Put simply, the woman’s a pub-bore.
I’m surprised she didn’t wheel out the old “as a single mother” line to really back up her point with, umm, evidence.
.-= Chris´s last blog ..Fixing Eclipse in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala =-.
Oh dear! Nadine is clearly utterly confused! Her statements actually support the idea of legalisation of drugs, how can she not know that? It is precisely the criminal element that will be removed if they are legalised! The reason that drug dealers run all the bad things she accuses them of(assuming the actually do, which is debatable) is because drugs are ILLEGAL! The expansion of the entire global criminal network has in part been fueled by illegal drugs! Legalise them now!
This isn’t the first time Dorries has got confused, and really isn’t going to be last, either.
Dorries has since accused Kerry McCarthy MP of writing a blog post ‘personally attacking’ her, i) Kerry didn’t write the post, it was on a completely different blog and ii) when tasked about it Dorries accused Kerry of deleting the post.
and that is just the latest in a loooong line gaffs.