Wrecked

Today there were police running around all over the station when I arrived. They had apprehended a young man who had apparently been trying to cross the tracks on foot. He was perhaps 19 years old and completely falling down drunk. I can only imagine that he had been drinking all night, since it was 8.15 am and frankly, the average person would have to drink for several hours to get that wrecked. He smelt of alcohol.

Yesterday, as I walked through the town center to reach the station, I encountered two teenaged girls smoking pot, in full view of the passing crowds. I have no strong feelings about pot smoking myself. I take the view that any idiot who wishes to do it is quite welcome. However, I don't want to see it, smell it, and I sure as hell don't want public money sunk into our health service to pay for it. More to the point, I would like to be able to walk my son across the local shopping center without him having to see it. In short, it's selfish and anti-social to make it public as far as I can see.

There are of course different views. Some say that drugs should be made legal. The libertarian in me understands this argument. People should have the right to send themselves to hell if they want. I still support that. I just don't want anything to do with it, and I should have that right also. The ususal argument for legalisation of drugs is weak I think. It's often said that legalisation of drugs would mean that the criminal underworld currently controlling distribution of such substances would vanish. I can't see it myself. If you go to the places where drugs are tolerated, it's still anti social. It's still the same low life pond slime selling the stuff on the streets. And ultimately it's still the same criminal organisations that control the supply. Making it legal won't change these things because respectable companies aren't going to get involved with anything so contraversial.

The irony in all this is that it was prohibition that caused the propblem in the first place. Had drugs never been made illegal, they would never have become anti social and all the negative elements to the business would never have existed.

North Korea are to test a nuclear device at some point in the future. Oh good!

There is lots in the news today about human trafficking. I hate that word "trafficking" it can't be a real word can it? They have to stick a 'k' in the middle just to make it read properly. Anyway, apparently there is a new centre set up in Britain to deal with women "trafficked" to Britain to work in the sex industry. I still have a problem with this. I realise that women have come from Eastern Europe and are working here in the sex industry. I find it very hard to believe that these women are being kept against their will and forced to work as prostitutes. How do you stop a woman from running away? I think these women have come to Briatin and found that the easiest way to make money (perhaps the only way to make money) is in the sex industry. Yes, they probably are miserable. Yes, they may have come here on the back of false promises. Neither of these things makes them sex slaves as the media is suggesting. Click.