Note the order of words in the title!

My, but the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs have been busy little bees today.

No sooner did they appoint the Dentist, to correctly constitute the committee following the resignation of Dr Polly Taylor – than he said ‘open wide’ and they shovelled a freshly minted report into our open mouths.

Not so much as a mention of Mephedrone in the press release, but heavily targeted on Tobacco and Alcohol….

Amongst other gems is this one:

* more proactive intervention by the government in limiting the promotion of excessive drinking at further education establishments, with consideration given to encouragement of universities to withdraw financial support from sports and other clubs that promote irresponsible drinking;

Now they may have thought that the man in the street had been fairly placid so far, as he has been pilloried for his drinking and smoking habits – but they have seen nothing yet.

When the Student Union find that their block grant from the University has been cut because they failed to stop students drinking their grant money – there will be blood on the streets!

UPDATE: And exactly 38 minutes after that report was published, Alan Johnson has held a press conference and announced that he is laying a bill before parliament tomorrow calling for Mephedrone to be banned and likewise all similar generic ‘legal highs’ on the basis of the unconfirmed links to 25 reported deaths in which mephedrone has been mentioned. As from tonight all legal shipments of Mephedrone will be intercepted by the UK Border Agency.

1
Uncle Marvo March 29, 2010 at 17:57

Jerk that knee, postman.

2
Tractor Stats ABC March 29, 2010 at 18:35

Next they’ll be siezing the letters a,e,i,o,u from all blog use.

3
Alan March 29, 2010 at 18:49

The Government News Distribution Service has this press release. (Incidentally it is fantastically depressing to look at that site and see that again and again the BBC and Sky tend to report what the Government announces without much question.)

If I read it right mephedrone is not illegal (though The Postman would like us to think it is) as he will “seek cross-party support to ban mephedrone and its related compounds as soon as possible.” Yet Customs have been granted (by ministerial fiat?) the power to stop, confiscate and destroy imports of something that is not yet illegal. The key to that would appear to be the Lord Mandleson removing permission to import cathinones. How jolly beastly of him. And how does this square with the EU’s free movement of people, goods and services?

A further puzzle is this: “The ACMD expressed concern about the harms it can have on the health and well being of users. They cited evidence that mephedrone consumption can cause hallucinations, blood circulation problems, rashes, anxiety, paranoia, fits and delusions.”

Not a cause of any deaths then, or they would sing it from the rooftops.

Presumably this will apply to khat as well.

4
Anna Raccoon March 29, 2010 at 19:08

Alan,
There has been an air of desperation about them all day. All the press officers were in conference this morning, only a dingbat available.
I got the distinct impression that once the Postman had said it was going to happen on Monday, they weren’t going to let a little thing like Polly resigning derail them
Let’s face it, if they are presenting a bill to the House tomorrow, that would have been weeks in the writing – which means the decision had been taken long before the committee reported today……
I think Polly’s move was deliberate too – and they weren’t going to let her stop them.

5
JuliaM March 29, 2010 at 19:25

Well, if the UKBA are as good at that as they are stopping habitual criminals from re-entering the UK, there’ll be no change….

6
Gloria Smudd March 29, 2010 at 19:40

And maybe The House of Lords will soon welcome Baron Matheson, Baron Gibbons and Baroness Arr-Jones in recognition of their stirling morning’s work.

7
Pericles March 29, 2010 at 19:53

“Next they’ll be seizing the letters a,e,i,o,u from all blog use.” — Tractor Stats ABC

They might try sending them to Serbia, where they’re short of a vowel or two. Then they could confiscate the consonants and send them to Newcastle. In fact, why don’t the Geordies and the Serbs get together and organize a more equitable distribution of the letters ?

~ · ~

“… if they are presenting a bill to the House tomorrow, that would have been weeks in the writing …” — Anna

Given the standard of to-day’s parliamentary draughtsmanship ?

~ · ~

I suspect JuliaM has found the truth of it.

Now, I don’t indulge in these things — alcohol, yes, but not uppers and downers ; and I gave up smoking when Pontius was a pilot — but surely this is just the Postman’s trying to be seen to be ‘doing something’ (presumably to protect ‘hard working families’). Dunnit make ya sick, eh ?

ΠΞ

8
Gloria Smudd March 29, 2010 at 20:07

Finland’s the place where they don’t bother with many vowels. I once had to copy-type various translations for production of a technical manual – including Swedish, Danish, German, French, Norwegian, Dutch, complete with all the respective dots, cedillas, umlauts, accents and other special characters – and I found Finnish to be the hardest of them all: each word seemed to be at least 40 letters long, consisting mainly of “llkkjjhthtkkjjll” etc. Not the most enjoyable 70 pages I’ve ever had to type.

9
Spartan69 March 29, 2010 at 20:43

Bloody Stupid Johnson (h/t T Pratchett) up to his normal low standard.

Adding another substance to the illegal drugs list … that’ll stop people using them! … yeah, right!

10
Dick Puddlecote March 29, 2010 at 20:56

“When the Student Union find that their block grant from the University has been cut because they failed to stop students drinking their grant money – there will be blood on the streets!”

I wish I shared your optimism, Anna, but the modern student is more likely to turn into a drink enforcer as a result. Times have changed after a decade of propaganda under the government jackboot.

11
Saul March 29, 2010 at 21:43

The price of Mephedrone just went up.The government will be able to start again as an advertising company. What a great campaign so far.

12
Old Slaughter March 29, 2010 at 21:48

Oh no. It will be the same legal class as pot. So nobody will ever take it again.

13
Saul March 29, 2010 at 21:50

Compare the Meerkat.com. Compare the Mephedrone.com.

Seemples!

14
Tractor Stats leap up March 29, 2010 at 22:43

Jumping off of high structures such as car parks and bridges has just been made illlllegal, its hope this will prevent 4,000,000 suicides a year in Dorset alone.

15
Spartan69 March 29, 2010 at 22:50

l’m afraid Dick P is correct. The cultural revolution of the 60’s & 70’s involved a different type of student and youth to what we have nowadays.

How many of us here were part of that time that did indeed change the world?

l sometimes look back and then see what we’ve become and think “What the fuck happened?”

16
Kulmbacher March 29, 2010 at 22:59

Um Gtt es will….Am I believing these funy worts
The Anny Rakoon is saying the students of the Britain will spill the blood on
the streets.Please this is sarkistic joke ,Ja.
The studenten peoples are much like the smoking peoples what they do only is
Bha Bha Bha Bha Bha

Lili Marlene

17
Mrs Rigbyq March 30, 2010 at 00:08

“encouragement of universities to withdraw financial support from sports and other clubs that promote irresponsible drinking”

Will that include the Real Ale Societies?

How will they define ‘irresponsible’?

18
blastproof@rocketmail.com March 30, 2010 at 04:45

Unsubscribed.

19
2Mac March 31, 2010 at 23:28

Saul March 29, 2010 at 21:50
Compare the Meerkat.com. Compare the Mephedrone.com.

Seemples!

===============================
Good Joke, But you missed the obvious punch lines.

Compare the Meerkat.com. Compare the M-Cat.com.

Sin-Pills! / Teen-Pills!