I’ve posted about the drinkaware campaign before.
This time, well, see for your self…
To enter and get to the goodies of the site you need to be able to subtract eighteen years from todays date. This, apparently, show commitment to responsible drinking.
What fucking good is this little exercise? Anyone of the age of seven can do the maths and when was an age limit on reading about booze imposed?
[stops typing whilst thinking of the words ‘patronising’, ‘pointless’, ‘they’ (in the sense of ‘look what they’re doing’]
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.
You probably all knew it anyway, but here is a fine example of the hypocrasy of capitalism [click to enlarge]
£5 for 15 cans of cider. 34 pence a can.
£5 for 18 bottles of lager. 28 pence a bottle.
A pack of 10 cans of Coke will cost, from Tesco, £3.65. 37 pence a can.
The drinkaware.co.uk website says about themselves…
Drinkaware aims to change the UK’s drinking habits for the better. We promote responsible drinking and find innovative ways to challenge the national drinking culture to help reduce alcohol misuse and minimise alcohol-related harm.
Wow. Now that really is innovative. Selling alcohol cheaper than non-alcohol. I see, minimize the impact of drinking on the wallet. Very good.
N.B.
It’s not the selling of cheap beer that’s irked me, it’s the hypocrasy of pretending to care, saying one thing and doing the opposite.
