There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
Small-minded drugs policies are killing Scots
NEIL FINDLAY MSP is dismayed by the SNP attitude to the drugs crisis: like Portugal, Scotland needs to decriminalise drugs
Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
DR DYLAN MURPHY looks at a Big Brother Watch report which exposes the government as an enabler of DWP secret spying on benefit claimants
The EU faces a critical choice: will it remain in the shadow of an increasingly unreliable US ally, or will it forge its own path in a multilateral world where co-operation with China is essential, asks MARC VANDEPITTE as leaders meet for the EU-China Summit
A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
For Egypt trade trumps the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, but how long can the country’s ‘misleaders’ – and others in the region – continue their indifference against the popular will of their own people, asks ROGER McKENZIE
ALBERT Einstein said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Nowhere is this more true than in the current drugs policy.
As a young man growing up in a mining community in the ’80s and ’90s, cannabis was the drug of choice at that time. Then heroin hit the cities and housing schemes before the rave scene popularised ecstasy.
A few years ago I chaired a session of the Scottish Parliament health committee. I took the opportunity to tell the then Cabinet Secretary Shona Robinson that the streets of Scotland were now awash with cheap cocaine (the new drug of choice for many) and that this was having a terrible impact on our young people, their families and communities.
What depressed me about our exchange was the lack of awareness of the extent of the problem and the complete lack or urgency in dealing with it — indeed the impression I got was that she and journalists reporting the committee’s business simply didn’t believe the point I was raising.
This feeling was exacerbated in subsequent parliamentary exchanges with the Public Health Minister Joe Fitzpatrick — all the more remarkable as his home city of Dundee, the place he represents, has the highest levels of addiction and drugs deaths in Britain and Europe.
More from this author
From Grangemouth’s closure to Europe’s highest drug deaths, 23 per cent of children in poverty and ferries seven years late, all parties who’ve governed in the last 20 years lack vision or inspiration — we need a new way forward, writes NEIL FINDLAY
It’s easy to lose your sense of optimism amid bleak political times. NEIL FINDLAY has some suggestions for what we need to see in 2025
NEIL FINDLAY slams the shocking lack of facilities and breaks forcing drivers to risk health and endure degrading conditions following a new report from train drivers’ union Aslef
The city of Jimmy Reid, Mary McArthur and other great class fighters must not be left without trade union learning provision, says NEIL FINDLAY
