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?

US of A and depression

I'm off to the the States tomorrow, weather permitting. Apparently, apart from election-fever there is also 'Prozac-doesn't-work' fever too. Just like here. Well, here's a thing. I had a bout of moderate-to-severe depression a few years ago brought on by some very unpleasant events which I won't go in to here. It absolutely worked for me. Precisely two weeks after I started on it my mood began to lighten. Two weeks is the usual time for an anti-depressant to get to sufficient levels in your body to begin to have an effect. It was as if I had gone from a world in which most things were grey to one in which nearly everything was back in glorious technicolour. The remaining grey bits were tackled with the help of some good talking therapies.

Now it's entirely possible that what happened to me was either the placebo effect, i.e. I believed the pills would make me better so they did, or regression to the mean - that is my illness was naturally self-limiting and I was going to get better anyway and started on the tabbos by coincidence at the same time. However, I think there is enough evidence out there to suggest that Prozac and other anti-d's can and do help lots of people with bad depression. So before you decide to stop taking it - consult your physician, don't believe everything in the papers.

New month, new stuff

Here we go:

1. Government announces that it will close down off-licenses caught selling to underage drinkers. How will this work? Are there enough trading standards officers and police to check on every corner shop which also doubles as an off-license all the time? Will closing the corner shop benefit the elderly and others who rely on it? Will your local Tesco be closed too if caught mis-selling? No.

2. Opposition - Tories - say banging more people up in jail works. Where have we heard this before? Step forward M.Howard. No it does not work for people who are just mad or sad as opposed to bad. Our jails are full of the former.

Oh, I give up.