New Puritans

O M Gosh. Is it me or are there an astonishing number of stories in our oh-so-clean media about the dangers of alcohol? I can hardly open a paper, switch on the radio or hit a news website without a constant stream of sometimes accurate/sometimes not, stuff leaking out about the horrors - alledged - of the pop. Given that hacks are dedicated boozers as a rule this is interesting.

What's more interesting is does this tell us anything about the current climate re: booze? I think it may do.

• Young people drinking too much = binge drinking. Middle classes drinking too much = dinner party. One's ok, the other isn't.
• Endless fears about pregnancy, parenthood and alcohol.
• More fears about the health/ASB impacts of alcohol.

And so on. And before I get it in the neck from my police chums - I've been to the bars where you drink and the institutional bingeing and in some cases expectation that everyone gets hammered after a shift is/are awesome.

My point is this. We can't take drugs, you can't smoke cigs, now it seems no one is allowed to drink. But as humans we seem programmed for the desire to experience altered states of consciousness, achieved in all sorts of ways be it religious ecstasy, spinning round as kids till we drop, drugs, whatever. And if the New Puritans force people away from drug #1 they'll switch to #2. Here's a lesson. In the 80's and 90's the drug Ecstasy was hugely popular - up to half a million doses taken each Saturday night. But those who took it fore swore alcohol. Ecstasy was judged to be more fun, less violence inducing (difficult to smack someone in the face when you're loved up) and an all-round improvement on booze. But the combination of crackdowns on Ecstasy-fuelled parties and the aggressive advertising and reductions in price of alcohol led people to ditch so much E and go back or on to booze. With the results we see on our streets and in our A+E depts every night. You reap what you sew. Yes there were a few sad E related deaths and injuries but they were/are as nothing compared to the damage caused by alcohol. So what will happen if the current anti-booze campaign continues? People will switch back to something else e.g. Ecstasy. So it goes.

Oh dear, Oh dear

My chums in the police blogosphere have gotten very exercised by my comments on pcbloggs.blogspot.com in which I merely pointed out that it's quite a good idea to wait for a trial before deciding if someone is guilty or not guilty of an offence. Oh yes and I did say I thought castrating Chavs (I paraphrase but you get the picture, is tantamount to recommending a policy of eugenics). In my business we see this sort of muddled thinking all of the time. The police are just as good at jumping to conclusions as the rest of us and then get upset when this is pointed out to them. Guildford 4, that nice civil servant who got off the 'Belgrano' official secrets charges because the jury wouldn't be swayed by a biased judge and CJS etc. Yes, from time-to-time the police make mistakes and it's right that in a democracy they should be held to account as well as appreciated for the good work they do.

Crash and Burn

You have to laugh don't you? I went through security on my way out of Philadelphia airport - as you do/must/have to.

I had my, ahem, liquids in two separate clear baggies as per regs. So I thought. Mistake; there were lots of signs up as we got towards the checkpoint and the X-ray machine saying that only one baggie was acceptable. So when I got there I asked a security guy if I could take two bags through. 'No Sir, one only came the reply'. 'I can take one through for you' said the kindly lady behind me. 'Is that ok?' I asked the man. 'Yes' he said. 'Well thank you Mam' from me. We met up after security and I got my Clarins and Clinique gifts for my wife back. Could have been anything but as long as it was in one bag that was OK with security.

Going Home

Well, that's it for this US trip. As ever it's been astonishing and educational and well, fun. The country is gripped by election fever and watching the Clinton-Obama primaries with awe. Will one win out? Will they fight each other to a standstill and let McCain breeze through? Will the Democrat big-bananas (Gore, Kennedy etc) step in and referee. Who knows, but what I do know is that neither is talking about the country's drug problem and what to do about it. There again that's understandable, doubtless whatever their private views neither Clinton nor Obama is going to risk handing McCain a hostage to fortune by setting out a stall of drug reform before the election.

At dinner last night some US friends asked what people in the UK felt about the US. I said many of us didn't have much time for Bush or his (and Blair's) war but loved the country and its people. On the whole I think the US is a force for good in a naughty world and I can't wait to come back.

Bingeing in the USA

Don't let anyone tell you that Northern Europe (inc the UK) is the only part of the world where binge drinking and its fallout happens. I went in to downtown Philadelphia PA, USA during the St Patrick's day celebrations on Saturday. OK St P's day is today (Monday) but everyone gets seriously stuck in on the weekend before as the day itself is, strangely, not a national holiday. Given the seriousness with which East Coast USA takes the anniversary I'm surprised at that.

Anyway, we get on the train to Philly at around 11.45 for the 45 minute ride downtown and its absolutely rammed with teenagers all dressed in shamrock green- boys and girls all necking beer like there's no tomorrow. By the time we've walked from the station to our destination we've passed about 10 'Irish' themed bars all of which have customers spilling on to the sidewalk drinking green beer, Guinness or pretty much anything. By the time we walk back a couple of hours later the beer is spilling on to the sidewalk and the punters are absolutely hammered. They're having fun, but there will be noise and naughtiness later on according to my contacts.

Here's a thing though - no surveillance cameras, and they put portaloos outside the pubs which prevents the - inevitable in the UK - peeing in public. What a good idea. No offence and no offences.

Art in The USA

I went to the Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art yesterday. She was an outstanding painter active in the first part of the 20thC, with much of her output, at least on display yesterday dedicated to self-portraits documenting the trials and tribulations as well as some happy times of her life. The works are all striking in their accurate brushwork, beautiful colours and the way in which she puts her emotional life right out there in her work. Neither she nor the viewer is spared as she documents both the breakup of her marriage to Diego Rivera and her lifelong suffering from various illnesses including polio, scoliosis and childlessness.

What's this got to do with drugs? Well as her illnesses, especially the pain from her back became more severe she could only keep going with stronger medication, notably opioids. And this is noticeable in her later works, both in the loss of technique but also in the seemingly heightened appreciation of colour. So the drugs do and don't work. They enabled her to keep going but robbed her of some of her physical ability. In my humble opinion anyway, and I'm no art expert.

She died aged 47.

Drugs in the USA

I'm here for a week, staying in and around Philadelphia and New Jersey. Here's a couple of observations on drug-type stuff.

#1. Driving down to NJ to see friends, as I got to near their place I could see lots of little signs by the side of the suburban roads declaring the area a 'Drug-free Zone'. These areas are usually around High Schools and so it proved to be. Essentially they mean that anyone caught inside these zones carrying drugs will be assumed to be intent on dealing them to students and so on and faces massive penalties if found guilty. Interestingly there was no mention of alcohol.

Fact - the prison population in the US has just reached one person in one hundred. Mostly non-violent offenders, many for possession of drugs. The drugs problem is as bad as ever.

#2. The writers of a hit and very good US TV show, 'The Wire' which is a police, criminal justice type programme but one of the best of its kind; published a piece in 'Time' magazine decrying the continuing US war on drugs. Amongst other things they argue that the police spend most of their time on small-time drug arrests, so-much-so that murder arrest rates have halved because they go for the easy bust to keep their overall arrest rates up. They (the writers) have come up with an interesting proposition and are urging fellow citizens to consider doing the same as a way of avoiding clogging the jails up. It's this: they suggest that if called to jury service, jurors should not convict for any minor drugs offense unless violence is involved, 'No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses non-violent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens'. They go on to argue that jury nullification has long been a form of American dissent.

I present the above two observations without comment, it's not for me when visiting another country to say if these things are right or wrong. But it is interesting isn't it?