Monday, 2 November 2009

In this case, the Government has chosen to classify LSD as an illegal drug and permit the continued consumption of alcohol. We all know why such a decision is made. Indeed, many might think it to be the correct decision since alcohol is a drug we have lived with for some considerable time and its production and distribution are significant to the economy, while also providing the Government with much needed revenue.

Prof Nutt should now be styled as the people’s advisor on the misuse of drugs. He speaks in a reasoned manner and all those in the media who wish to encourage serious debate on the subject of drug misuse should in future seek his views, rather than those of some lackey who might replace him.

Sandy Gemmill, Edinburgh.

The sacking of Professor David Nutt provides proof, if it were needed, that it is not possible for a scientific advisor to the Home Office to be independent.

It has long been apparent that the Home Office does not deal in the truth and that evidence plays no part in formulating policy. Facts are selected to support the chosen political narrative. Supposedly independent advisors are expected to toe the party line.

The Home Office craves the credibility that scientists can bring to debate, as demonstrated by its unseemly haste to publish incomplete research by the Jill Dando Institute to support enlargement of the national DNA database. The institute has since expressed regret for allowing itself to be used in that way.

Similarly, the Home Office selectively released misleading figures about knife crime, before being reprimanded publicly by the Office of National Statistics.

Scientists and academics should sup with a long spoon when dealing with the Home Office. It is still locked in the mindset of the George W Bush years with faith, spin and vested interests trumping science at every turn. Like the former US president, the Home Office is long overdue for removal from any role in government.

Dr Geraint Bevan, Glasgow.

It is obvious that alcohol is the most important “social lubricator” in British society for we have ample evidence, at private and public levels, of its acceptable and increasingly anti-social effects. It is not only a personal problem but also a growing public one at health, employment and societal levels. Smoking is also socially acceptable but it suffers from the twin dangers of causing personal ill-health and ill-health due to passive smoking, both of which are being tackled by the Government but are still widespread.

The Government should not appoint well recognised and expert advisers to any post unless their advice is given widespread recognition and approval and, once accepted, it should be followed and not negated by ill-informed decisions.

Ian FM Saint-Yves, Dunvegan, Iisle of Arran.

We take it as evidence of an oppressive regime when scientists are gagged, sacked or otherwise silenced for speaking the truth or being critical of the Government. It is true, as Profesor David Nutt asserts, that alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than cannabis. The difference is that, with the former, the Government is the dealer.

We need more Prof Nutts and more dissidents. In the Soveit Union many dissidents were diagnosed as insane to punish and gag them. We are one step away from that.

Norman Armstrong, Glasgow.

Destroying our heritage to produce energy

Scottish Renewables asserts, regarding the Beauly to Denny line power line public inquiry, that “it is a matter of record that the public inquiry examined alternatives such as strengthening the east coast line, going underground and installing sub-sea cables” (Letters, October 30).

A letter from Scottish Ministers to the Beauly Denny Landscape Group, of June 29, 2007, states, in response to a legal submission from BDLG: “In your submission, those alternatives [to an overhead Beauly-Denny line] should have included a sub-sea cable and an east coast route. While both those options may have been under consideration at any early stage by the applicants in formulating the proposed route for the transmission line, on the information currently available to them the Scottish Ministers do not consider that either option was a main alternative to the particular routing for which consent is now sought.”

So, at that time, Scottish Ministers did not consider either a sub-sea or east coast line to be a main alternative and, therefore, the electricity companies did not have to provide details on why they had excluded those options.

Ministers now have an opportunity to be visionary, recognising that technology and the economic environment have moved on since Ofgem allowed the

Beauly-Denny proposal to be taken forward.

The Scottish Government should open negotiations with Ofgem about which truly sustainable options for transmission of electricity from the north of Scotland to the central belt and England should be reconsidered.

Does Scotland want to be remembered as the last country to recognise that destruction of large swathes of our heritage is no longer a necessary price for being an energy producer?

Helen McDade,

Head of policy, John Muir Trust, Tower House, Station Road, Pitlochry.

Disappearing traditions

Why has the Americanism “trick or treat” taken hold of Hallowe’en, one of our most ancient traditions? It is bad enough that pumpkin lanterns now illuminate the dark of Hallowe’en, instead of the good old portable turnip lantern. To have the term “trick or treat” instead of our good old Scottish “guising” angers and saddens me.

The old Hallowe’en traditions of guising, dookin’ for apples, catching treacle scones and so on are dying out fast, to be replaced by what amounts to extortion and bullying. Kids expect to be handed money for no reason other than having dressed up in tacky, shop-bought costumes.

Let us be entertained by children carrying carved tumshies lit by tealights, singing songs, saying poems or telling jokes.

Rosee Macdonald, Howwood.

If smoking doesn’t kill us, which illness will we succumb to instead?

In your leader, you rightly draw attention to the increase in smoking-related cancer among women, and the poor relative position of Scotland among developed countries (“Cancer takes its toll – smoking remains a major cause of disease”, The Herald, October 28).

Mortality tables show a general drop in cancer-related deaths in all groups except women where the lung cancer rate has risen. As you observe, the smoking rate is highest among the poorer sections of the population. A larger proportion of the income of the poor goes on smoking and that must affect not only the health of the smokers but also of their non-smoking children.

Clearly the anti-smoking message has largely hit its target but why women are resistant is not clear. Smoking in work and public places has disappeared but it took more than Richard Doll’s identification of benzpyrene as the major tobacco smoke carcinogen which, unlike the same polycyclic produced in a bonfire, is passed to the smoker’s lungs in concentrated form.

I am concerned with the way the smoking hazard is presented. Smoking kills! So it does, but stopping smoking does not prevent death. We are not immortal so we survive one potentially lethal disease to succumb to another. Industrial countries have a life expectancy much longer than previous generations. If we could all stop smoking, how much would it extend the average life span? My guess is not very much and a realistic headline may say eliminating tobacco will increase life expectancy by a few months. Is that our goal in reducing smoking?

Of course not, because the total quality of life is not evaluated by that expectancy figure, although it is the easiest one to identify. A better index would be the amount of victim and family distress it saves, but that is difficult to measure.

Since we all have to die of something it raises the question: which is the best terminal condition? It is not a topic that lends itself to objective discussion.

Chris Parton, Uddingston.

It is deluded to think Eurozone countries have independent economic powers

As a well-know advocate of the European Union and Euro membership, it’s surprising that Alex Orr (Letters, October 31) complains that Scotland “operates within a financial straitjacket, while all around us other countries facing the same challenges have the ability to adapt to the prevailing economic conditions because, as independent nations, they have the full range of fiscal powers needed to do so”.

Eurozone members enjoy no independent powers relating to monetary policy or devaluation, both of which can, of course, be useful in times of economic slowdown.

For example, with the economies of France and Germany resuming economic growth, there is a danger that the European Central Bank will increase interest rates to suit economic conditions in these countries, while the likes of Ireland is still mired in recession with a huge mountain of government and private debt to service.

Of course, Mr Orr’s financial straitjacket seems to ignore monetary rather than fiscal policy, but even as part of the UK the latter still operates to counter the economic slowdown. Granted, the Scottish Government has limited powers over how much it directly spends, but the fiscal stimulus of the VAT cut was enjoyed throughout the UK and initiatives such as enhanced spending on welfare payments during the recession are similarly beneficial.

It may be of interest to read Mr Orr’s views on the fiscal powers of independent nations after next month’s Irish Budget, which seems likely to include swingeing public spending cuts to help counter the country’s ballooning public borrowing.

Stuart Winton, Dundee.

If there was investment after the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the Taliban could have been crushed

I fully agree with Duncan McFarlane that bombs and bullets are enraging and alienating the Afghans (Letters, October 30). It is now eight years since the US and its allies invaded Afghanistan in their war against terrorism. During this period, they have killed thousands of Afghan civilians, lost hundreds of their own soldiers and spent billions of dollars without any success.

In fact, the Taliban is stronger and more effective now than in 2001. The indiscriminate killings and terrorism let loose by the invading forces in Afghanistan are causing more Afghans, Pakistanis and other nationals join the Taliban fighters.

Similarly, the action of the Pakistan army in Waziristan and Swat will not rid the country of the Taliban. Most are moving out to carry on their nefarious activities from elsewhere. The displacement of civilians and death and destruction brought about by army action in the tribal areas have strengthened the Taliban movement in Pakistan. The present spate of horrific bomb blasts in Pakistan bears witness to its strength and increased activity.

The Taliban movement was financed and the Taliban mujahidin trained in Pakistan by the US in the 1980s to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. When that objective was achieved, the US conveniently abandoned the devastated Afghanistan and its ally, Pakistan, to the mercy of the victorious and extremist Taliban. If it had stayed and spent even a fraction of the billions of dollars now dedicated to destroying the Taliban on the economic, educational and social uplift of the Afghans in the 1990s, the Taliban ideology would have disappeared from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Bashir Maan, Glasgow.

Would the use of such lethal weapons as unmanned drones by British forces in Afghanistan violate international law?

(IISS) 39 Squadron RAF, which operates remote-controlled drones, has been on operations since October 2007. Located with the USAF 42nd Attack Squadron at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, US, the squadron’s mission is to provide persistent ISTAR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance) and where required, offensive support to UK and coalition forces in operational theatres.

The US has been warned by the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Philip Alston, that its use of drones to target suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan may violate international law. Mr Alston raised the issue in a report to the UN General Assembly’s human rights committee on October 27.

The US told the UN in June that it has a legal framework to respond to unlawful killings. It also said the UN Human Rights Council and the General Assembly have no role in relation to killings during an armed conflict.

Mr Alston has described that response as untenable.

There is already concern within mental health services about the stress of serving RAF personnel who are required to live in comfortable and safe bases thousands of miles from the front who may be required to press a button to kill suspected terrorists and then go off-duty into a normal environment, aware that they may later become involved in war crimes investigations.

Our top generals insisted on an assurance by a government law officer that invasion of Iraq would be lawful. If we started killing suspects in Afghanistan using remotely controlled drones and the UK were subsequently charged with a breach of international law, would it be a British civilian or a British military neck on the block? Have our top brass asked for legal advice?

Major (retd) Michael Hamilton, Kelso.