Part 1: Hellos & Menu
Parts 2 & 3: Care Not Cuffs For Druggies
In Portugal you don’t get busted if you’re caught using drugs: you’re made to a face a panel who’ll decide whether to fine you, help you or free you. In the last 10 years no one’s been given a criminal record for drug use and hard drug use has halved. Richard Branson thinks we should do the same thing here. Well, should we?
We’ll have a word on that before it’s over to Adam for the rest of today’s headlines.
Part 4: Today’s Papers
Part 5: Ban Teachers Friending Pupils Online?
More than one in 10 misconduct cases last year involved teachers had formed inappropriate relationships with schoolkids via sites like Facebook. Teaching unions strongly warn members against befriending students but there’s no outright ban. Should there be when more than two thirds of teachers use facebook?
Part 6: Councils Cashing In On Cancer Sticks
I want to know what you think of the councils who use your taxes to invest in tobacco firms? Smoking maybe entirely legal but it’s also the biggest killer in the UK and yet local authorities plough more than £1.3bn into ciggie firms to bolster their workers’ pension funds. You got a problem with that?
Part 7: Is Pink Lego Sexist?
Does anyone else feel disappointed by the fact Lego is making pink bricks in pink boxes to get more girls interested in building stuff? The pink stinks campaign believes the choice of colour restricts little girls’ horizons and reinforces all those naff stereotypes of princesses, subservience and domesticity. But what do you think?
Comments (8)
4 months ago
Lorna
There are more bigger problems in the world that need attention than the colour of lego! So what if there are pink legos? They are the same as any other colours.
4 months ago
Lucy
Teachers Facebook friends with pupils - I am a primary school teacher and I do not think you should be friends with any children who attend the school you work at. I have some friends who are ex-pupils, who are at secondary school and I am also no longer working at that school or even in the same country. I would have been unprofessional if I had requested them as friends or accepted them while being their teacher. As a teacher you have a professional responsibility to your pupils and their parents and therefore it could be deemed inappropriate to communicate on an uncontrolled website.
4 months ago
TRACEY BOLTON
THESE PEOPLE SHOULD BE IN CUFFS AND THEN REHABILITATED WHILST IN PRISON! ALL PRISONS SHOULD HAVE THIS TYPE OF CARE AND HELP AVAILABLE TO DRUG USERS,AND MAKE PRISONS HARD AND NOT LIKE HOLIDAY CAMPS!! THESE DAYS PEOPLE DONT MIND GOING TO PRISON AS THEY GET EVERY THING THEY HAVE AT HOME BUT THEY GET IT FOR FREE!!!
4 months ago
Geoff Coates
On the subject of recreational drugs I’m inclined to agree with Ardep especially his comments of yesterday. We haven’t learnt. We’re in a similar situation as America was during the roaring twenties and the probation era. While the criminals were making a fortune the country lost one trying to fight them. Also people were dying, not just the criminals themselves, caught up in gangland warfare, but also useres being poisoned through an inferior product, or suffering serious illness as a result of imbibing. Likewise I believe there is less likelihood of addiction connected with using purer drugs, so there would be less fallout to deal with. As already stated the most dangerous of all recreational drugs are already legalised, nicotine and alcohol, so they should also get the same consideration as other drugs. However, when doing so, we need to hark back to the American model of the twenties. Geoff Coates
4 months ago
George, Glasgow
Smoking pensions- the paradox is, you pay into the pension, smoke and die the day you retire!! Thatchers children indeed!!! When you look at Portugal and the fact that their crime rate has been reduced to zero since they legalised drugs, I think it is a no brainer to legalise them. The Dutch crime rate is very low too, so many of the crimes in the UK are drug related, but in these countries, it is either legal, or you're so stoned you can't be bothered to commit the crime!! LOOK AT THE AMOUNT OF CRIME DONE ON ALCOHOL
4 months ago
Dean
Tracy, writing everything in Caps doesn't make you right, it just makes you look ignorant. Also, have you spent time in a prison, worked in one perhaps? If not, how do you know what being incarcerated is like, by reading the mail perhaps, or watching Jeremy Kyle? Prison is intended for one purpose only, to remove a person from society. The loss of liberty is their punishment. You cannot forceably rehabilitate a person, a person has to choose to be rehabilitated. Someone who smokes weed isnt going to stop just because he's been handed a jail term, he'll start up again as soon as he's back outside, because the vast majority of them are smart enough to see people drinking alcohol, realise it's worse than dope, and feel like they're not breaking the law. Tax it, make it safer and raise revenue to help those on the harder drugs, such as heroin receive the help they need.
4 months ago
Craig Potter
@Dean - Spot on brother couldnt of said it better myself. Tracey its ignorant people like you thats been brainwashed by the papers and the government that are the problem. In the future, generations will look back at our history and regard descrimination against SOME drug users (not fags or booze) in the same way as our anti-gay laws and making blacks sit at the back of buses.
4 months ago
Paul wilson
Why is it so wrong for girls(or boys) to play with pink lego. It is totally ridiculous. What about boys playing with toy soldiers and guns and the message sent out that boys must pretend to kill or it is ok to beat up other boys and be aggressive. Is this not SEXIST and wrong. Yet the PC brigade get upset over girls playing with pink fluffy toys and pretending to be princesses.Well, WHY NOT??? It makes me sick.