UKHamlet's Blog

I’m not a drug user – I experimented in the seventies, but lost interest in the eighties and I have a certain amount of sympathy with those who believe cannabis use leads to lethargy and psychological problems. In my view, however, there is mounting and undeniable evidence that continued prohibition of narcotics is causing society more problems than it is solving.

The cost of drug prohibition to society is enormous – from policing the supply and use to the cost of property crime associated with drug use, through the cost of NHS treatment for overdoses, AIDS, hepatitis and so on. If you remove prohibition, regulate the supply and quality, allow prices to fall to a market level low enough to remove the need for additional funding from crime, and offer support from the NHS, you will at a stroke remove:

• The cost of policing drug use and supply
• The cost of crime against the person and their property
• The cost to the NHS
• The criminalisation of people that need help not condemnation
• The opportunity for criminals to control addicts, forcing them into prostitution and other crime

You will also create jobs in a new narcotic supply industry – not just at home, but abroad too – where farmers in poor countries can grow cash crops without fear. We will generate income for the Exchequer through taxation, save lives through quality control, allow the police to focus on “real” crime and disassociate drug use from criminality.

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The Six Nations Championship is upon us again. Speaking as a Welshman, the first game is absolutely critical this time. Talk about your whole season hanging on one game. If we win at Twickers – which would be a mighty task given the history of this game – we will be on a roll. History is against us though. Not only will it be our 4th Six Nations win against the English in a row but it includes back to back wins at Twickers . We’ve done it before, but not very often – certainly not in the last thirty years :

• 1950 & 1952 (4 win streak ’49-’52)
• 1970 & 1972 (5 win streak ’69-’73)
• 1976 & 1978 (5 win streak ’75-’79)

In our first golden era we had a 10 game unbeaten run (1899-1909). In our second golden era we had only lost once (1974) to England in the period 1969-1979.

Can this team do what the Golden Era boys did?

We are 8th in the IRB table, only Scotland and Italy are below us, with England, France and Ireland 2, 3 and 4 places above us respectively. We have just come off the back of a pretty dire autumn series, our regional teams are stuttering and our management seems bereft of new ideas.

So far has the stock of our coaches fallen, that the Irish are suggesting that they’re glad they sacked him. Obviously, their Grand Slam is worth both ours. Now, it would be churlish to suggest that they only got theirs courtesy of a missed game winning penalty by Stephen Jones, but no more so than the implication that Gatland is an Irish hater. He probably has a gripe about the IRFU, but who wouldn’t given his treatment? They are lucky they have a great coach in Declan K – who has turned a team of honest plodders into a tenacious fighting unit. He took one season to do that.

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Arthur Schopenhauer

38 Ways To Win An Argument by Arthur Schopenhauer

1 Carry your opponent’s proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it. The more general your opponent’s statement becomes, the more objections you can find against it. The more restricted and narrow your own propositions remain, the easier they are to defend.

2 Use different meanings of your opponent’s words to refute his argument. Example: Person A says, “You do not understand the mysteries of Kant’s philosophy.” Person B replies, “Oh, if it’s mysteries you’re talking about, I’ll have nothing to do with them.”

3 Ignore your opponent’s proposition, which was intended to refer to some particular thing. Rather, understand it in some quite different sense, and then refute it. Attack something different than what was asserted.

4 Hide your conclusion from your opponent until the end. Mingle your premises here and there in your talk. Get your opponent to agree to them in no definite order. By this circuitous route you conceal your goal until you have reached all the admissions necessary to reach your goal.

5 Use your opponent’s beliefs against him. If your opponent refuses to accept your premises, use his own premises to your advantage. Example, if the opponent is a member of an organization or a religious sect to which you do not belong, you may employ the declared opinions of this group against the opponent.

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