On January 12th the small island country of Haiti was struck with a magnitude 7 earthquake. The epicenter was close to the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince. The death toll is currently at approximately 50,000 with estimates that it could double to a number that would represent 1/100th of the entire populous or even more.

Besides the very real cost of human life there has been widespread destruction of key infrastructure within the country such as governmental and religious buildings as well as the losses of many important Haitians. It was already the poorest nation within the Americas and is consistently ranked near the top of poverty and corruption analysis, its stunted development will be burdened even further as they endeavour to rebuild their lives and homeland.

Haiti’s government relies on donations from other governments to make up over a third of its annual budget but this has not stopped the world rallying and pledging over a hundred million pounds as well as sending rescue teams, tents and provisions.

If you want to help, which even the smallest donation will, here is a list of all donation sites:

http://itsmyurls.com/bookmarks.php/haiti

The Red Cross alone has raised $100million from text messages at $10 a time, every little really does help.

Platform2

http://www.myplatform2.com/about

X-factor political populism

Simon Cowell has spoken on Newsnight about an X-factor formatted politics show.

“If you went around the country, it would be five or six issues which I think are really, really important in people’s lives, so I think there could be a referendum-type TV show where you can speak on both sides and then open it up to the public to get an instant poll.”

There are so many fundamental flaws in this idea that I’m amazed an obviously intelligent, astute man would suggest it. Clearly he’s thinking more about his bank balance than the good of the country.

First of all, the technical problems are many. If these ‘referendums’ actually had any influence they would exclude those without televisions, there would be huge problems on limiting fraud as people often own more than one phone, there could be widespread corruption as people could be bribed or coerced within their homes and also he’d never let the votes come in without a fee on each one which is, in essence, charging people to vote.

One of the ‘really, really important issues’ was knife crime. If 10 million people were to vote, as they did in X-factor, what would they be voting on? ‘Do you think knife crime is bad?’, ‘Do you think there should be harsher punishments for carrying knives?’. I find it alarming that Cowell isn’t aware of Yougov or any of the other hundreds of market research companies that compile opinion polls on such subject regularly. Obviously something is wrong with the rate of violent crime in the streets but it naîve to think Cowell and his TV fantasy could help change this.

As much as the youth of today’s political apathy is mentioned  you only have to look at the global protests in relation to the United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009 or the Iraq war and on a more local scale the  picket outside the BBC studios during Nick Griffin’s Question Time appearance. We don’t need to cheapen democracy by adding glitzy titles and having it presented to us by Fearne Cotton, we need to make people believe that politicians can do the right thing, that they won’t scam their own constituents with their expenses claims and that they genuinely want to the best for the voters.

That is the biggest problem of all, Cowell isn’t here for you or me, he is here for himself.

David Nutt

The government has exposed itself as a confused and reckless beast on the legality, and harm, of drugs.

The sacking of chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, David Nutt, shows the Home Office has lost touch with the public, and more dangerously, the scientific community. He was fired for ‘policy making’ and ‘overstepping his mandate’. His dismissal came after a lecture given at King’s College, London where he reiterated his view that alcohol and cigarettes are more dangerous than ecstasy and cannabis and that it is by harm to the user and those around them that drugs should be classified. He wasn’t proclaiming an unfounded view with the researched harm scale as his point of reference.

Alan Johnson, the incumbent Home Secretary worked with Nutt for over a year before firing him. Speaking in parliament Johnson said Nutt had ‘breached guidelines’ by not informing the Home Office prior to the talk. This was misleading, witnesses have confirmed Nutt explicitly said he was not speaking as an advisor and there was no reason for Nutt to tell the Home Office. To add further incredulity to Johnson’s stance the talk was advertised on the Home Office’s website.

In truth, this relationship had never been particularly amicable. Then Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, moved cannabis from class-B  to class-C and then reversed the decision due to ‘dangerous new strands of super skunk‘. Nutt contested the amount of credibility given to the  disputable risk of psychosis from this new uber-weed. Then in 2009 Smith rejected a recommendation, after the ACMD reviewed 4,000 papers, that MDMA be downgraded from class-A. He did, however, manage to survive the Smith era.

If a government advisor is repeatedly ignored, is it not fair for them to speak publically? When he accepted the terms of his chairmanship did he revoke his rights to campaign for science? This attitude borders upon the medieval and is dangerously restrictive, especially if the government is meant to hire the best scientific minds.

This is a government that allows alcohol and nicotine to remain legal, although they spend millions trying to get us not to drink and to give up smoking. Gordon Brown has said Labour must take a ‘hard-line’ on drugs, which apparently means disregarding scientific evidence; however, there are gaping holes in their war on drugs.

Recently there has been a lot of attention given to ‘legal highs’, unregulated substances that give the user some, if not all, of the effects of illicit ones. One of these, mephedrone, a drug with effects more potent than MDMA ­­which is, remember, class-A, is readily available for less than ten pounds a gram from the internet – meaning anyone with a debit card could buy it ­­– regardless of age or disposition.

It is produced in China and sold across Europe as plant-food. In truth, its benefits to plantlife are nil. One user said  “The key I used to take it had changed in colour and it leaves a strong smell on a person after a short binge”, not something you’d use to fertilise your Daffodils.

They may deny that nicotine and alcohol are more addictive and dangerous for users and their families although the science says this is not true, but they can’t claim to even know the long-term or even the short-term effects of mephedrone.

This kind of negligence towards a drug that has not been subjected to the same extensive clinical human testing as MDMA, and ketamine seems to be in conflict with the government’s ‘hard-line’.

The government’s lack of comprehension and ignorance of the recreational drug world is a contributing factor to the apathy of the country’s youth as they inevitably experiment and realise things aren’t as bad as they’re made to believe, destroying trust. This will not be helped by the removal of one of the most respected and honest advisors it had at its disposal. Pandering to the tabloid’s perception of drugs will not only isolate the public but angering the scientific community could prove a costly mistake to make in the run up to a general election where the government are already finding support hard to come by. Maybe the public do not sympathise with drug users but they do believe in science.