For the record I am not endorsing, recommending, or condoning drug use at all. If you want to drink, smoke, snort, inject or otherwise ingest chemicals that alter your mood and physiological wellbeing, that’s your decision. All I ask is that you do it in an informed manner, and don’t come crying to me if you end up being used on the front page of the Daily Mail as a warning to others about the risks of your chosen poison.

Right, now that’s out of the way we can begin. Although if the Mail did stumble across this site it would be entertaining to be criticised and publicised on such a national scale. Maybe one day… it’s good to have an ambition!

I have a suggestion, and it’s slightly controversial. Let’s decriminalise heroin.

At the moment, the majority of the heroin that is coming into the UK comes from Turkey, Afghanistan, and other Baltic/central asian states. There is a lot of concern that now the US and UK armies have destabalised the Taliban in Afghanistan, the production of opium will escalate leading to a massive flood of cheap smack hitting the streets. At the same time, money is tight for Government, and they need a really good way of saving existing costs and ideally bringing in new revenues. My plan is flawless… kinda.

The current law on drugs is like alcohol prohibition in the US. People still want what they’re told they can’t have, and so turn to criminals to help with their curiosities. As a result, some very unpleasant people make a massive amount of money. Everyone involved breaks the law, and if they are ever caught the state stumps of for police time, solicitors (cheap at twice the price if you ask me), Court time, and potentially prison funding.

And does this “threat” of prison actually stop people who really want to take drugs? Of course not. It just puts them in danger of having tainted drugs, puts them in contact with some of the nastyest bastards on the planet, and takes money out of the pot that could be spent better elsewhere. Not only that, but heroin dependency leads so many people to repeated offending to fund their habit, which just adds more and more to the cost involved.

Now I’m not suggesting we quite go back to the Victorian days where, in the manner of Sherlock Holmes, you could more or less go to your local pharmacist and buy laudanum or opium. Boots the Chemist really doesn’t need the increase in profits, and why let private business take the money that could all go to HM Treasury?

Even the Royal College of Nursing thinks that a change is needed, and that it’s much better for addicts to be able to get their fix in a safe environment, with medical supervision. This takes the users off the streets more effectively than the police ever could, and who wouldn’t rather have streets, stairwells, or playgrounds free of dirty syringes?

Who would gain from this?

1- Well the users wouldn’t get more gear, but they wouldn’t have to pay dealers for the privaledge. They would be closely monitored and have better support with a system in place that can be designed to help rehabilitation through the NHS rather than inneffectively through the prisons.
2- There will be an immediate reduction in shoplifting, as smackheads don’t then have to go out grafting to scrimp enough cans of tuna or boxes of chewing gum together to pay for a £10 wrap.
3- The police can focus on other stuff, saving them time and money
4- The Government can slash the criminal legal aid budget (see, I’m not doing this out of self interest) and save money…
5- The Government can also generate money by buying up all the opium from Afghan tribesmen (thus making friends with them in the process), using that to create heroin as well as numerous other pharmacuticals, and selling it on at reasonable prices through the clinics.
6- Communities who no longer have to worry about street dealers and street users.

And who loses out?
1- The dealers, importers, trafficers, and anyone else who is currently making billions each year thanks to an inneffective prohibition that allows demand to flourish and supply to be resitricted by armed cartels. Why pay these scumbags for contaminated shite, when instead you can pay a fraction of the price for clean, medical grade diamorphine?
2- Defence lawyers like me, who will all know at least one client who’s a 1 man shoplifting industry because he’s a pathetic, sweating addict.

Seems like an obvious solution doesn’t it? I’m not saying it’s perfect, but it’s not as insane as it first sounds either.

I know this will still leave the drugs like cocaine, speed, ecstacy etc, which are seen as more recreational than the addiction of heroin. It’d take real guts for these to be legalised… but it would also generate real money if they were made available like other addictive and dangerous chemicals like alcohol and tobacco, and taxed in similar ways.

The argument for keeping these drugs illegal is always talking about the risk of harm. Well let me clarify one thing- alcohol makes people more aggressive and dangerous than any of the substances I’ve mentioned. Alcohol causes more breakdown of society, more domestic abuse, more fights on a saturday night than drugs ever will. Drug-related violence is down to rival gangs competing for market share, but I think I’ve already explained how that will be affected. In reality, if the Government was truly looking to protect the public from danger, fags and vodka would be treated like crack. I’m sure the tax revenues generated by British American Tobacco or Diagio has absolutely no baring on the argument of why these substances are both legitimate and sociable permissible.

If people are stupid enough to want to take these drugs, let them… but why should the country pay to pick up the pieces if we’ve not had our slice of the pie to begin with? Put the warnings on there like with booze and fags, and let people maked informed decisions. Treat them like grown ups, stop stygmatising and criminalising an industry that will never go away, and make a fortune in the process.

Simple

(I will settle for 1% of money raised as my fee for this idea)

Ok, so I will try and do some detailed proper posts soon as i feel like mouthing off a bit about drugs and Government. Let’s face it, the internet and wider world have been on pause waiting for me to pass comment on the new world of British politics. Fear not brave readers, I will provide a definitive appraisal of this all when I get my arse in gear.

I am also going to be working on a new blog site, dedicated to my professional life. This means that I can divide my writing between legal ramblings, and the mature correspondence such as my Um Bongo observations.

I may even make it mandatory that I have to post at least once a week… but we’ll see about that for now.

It all becomes clear. All those tree-hugging-hippy-anarchist-wannabe-tosspots who smash up windows in anti-capitalist demonstrations might actually be onto something. I have seen the devastating impact corporations are having on Third World countries first hand, and it makes me sick to my stomach. It’s like taking the blue pill and waking up from the Matrix.

Which sick bastard changed Um Bongo?

For those who may not know about Um Bongo, allow me to explain. Or even better, watch the video below and allow Youtube to explain more eloquantly than I ever could. I don’t think it’s sold outside the UK, but I make no apologies for sounding parochial.

Um Bongo is more than simply a juice drink, and it’s not simply nostalgia either. It was a perfectly blended cocktail of apricots, guavas, mangos, passion fruits, and mandarins. It was also a rare employment opportunity for the diverse wildlife of hippos, pythons, marmosets, and parrots.

And when you mixed it with Blavod (black vodka), it created an astounding colour/taste sensation.

But imagine my horror when the other day TechnoScouse returned from a supermarket that doesn’t deserve naming, to find that my memories of childhood have been pillaged by the adulterated felch-juice now being called Um Bongo!

This picture of a serving suggestion from wikipedia would be perfect if it was the old stuff with it’s charming packaging (painted by parrots remember), and contained what afficionadoes refer to as “the good shit.” As it is, look at the poxy, human-designed carton and recoil in horror at the rancid spluff that is contained therein:

I mean that orangutan (a primate that lives in Sumatra in Asia, as opposed to the Congo in Africa) looks like it’s been given rohypnol and has had those fruit items mercilessly inserted into it’s furry pocket of happiness!

And what fruits are they? Orange, pineapple, and banana. Vile. I loathe bananas. They are the staple food of geriatrics and monkeys who don’t smoke. You can’t get a smoothie half the time (and I don’t even bother trying 90% of the time) which doesn’t have a banana rammed into it like a hooker dating a grocer. Just look at a banana with fresh eyes. They look like the fetid todger of a jaundiced clown. And I’d imagine the taste isn’t far off either. Yet some absolute shithawk had to dip his into the juicebox.

Hanging’s too good for some people.

And so it is time to act. We must take to the streets to spread the word on this dispicable outrage. The people walk in darkness, unaware that there are hippos out of work, watching Trisha (well, the Congo equivalent), and living a hollow existance. Pythons used to have a job for life in the passion fruit picking plantations, now they spend all day smacked of their tits listening to Libertines records. As for the poor parrot, well life as an artist is always tough and regrettably they all died out recreating the absinthe excesses of Toulouse Lautrec.

It’s no wonder the Democratic Republic of Congo fell into civil war. That’s not just because they have French as their official language you know (though the risk was increased because of this).

Don’t be fooled by any other campaign to Bring Back Um Bongo. If you see these pages, you’ll discover that they are actually being done by the producer of the new filth itself! Clicking on www.umbongo.com will actually take you to the petition. They lure you in with their old-chool images, but they still have that abused ape on their boxes. You can’t trust anyone these days.

So, I need you dear readers to suggest ways to reclaim what is rightfully ours. If anyone has anything we can use to blackmail heads of state to put international pressure on these bastards, let me know. That’s the level of action we’ll need to overcome the corporations on this.

To arms Comrades! You have nothing to lose but your cordials!