Girls don't like boys, girls like cars and money
Time for a mass debate...
The BBC reports of a call from the The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs for a government awareness campaign about the dangers of steroid abuse in the face of evidence that more and more people, some as young as 12 or 13, are using the substances to 'beef up'.
Lord Victor Adebowale, a member of the advisory council ( Read more... )
The BBC reports of a call from the The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs for a government awareness campaign about the dangers of steroid abuse in the face of evidence that more and more people, some as young as 12 or 13, are using the substances to 'beef up'.
Lord Victor Adebowale, a member of the advisory council ( Read more... )
Yes in the same way that I think drugs should be legalised and taxed.
This is for adults, though. Children should not be allowed to make those decisions for the same reasons that we (try to) prohibit them from indulging in other harmful behaviours.
Reply
I couldn't agree with you more. I think the state should protect people from other people but not from themselves. If someone wants to do heroin then that's up to them - if someone steals from me to do it then they should be locked up. If someone wants to build the Charles Atlas body through whatever means then that's up to them - if the steroids make them aggressive and they start hitting people then they should be locked up.
The ultimate, paradoxical conclusion of the protectionist state is that no one has children because the only way to protect everyone from everyone else and from themselves is to not have any people. Rather like the people at work who say (jokingly) 'imagine how much work we could get done if there weren't any customers'.
I don't know if it's just an illusion propagated by the media's selective reporting but it seems to me that the more controls are put in place the less safe society becomes...
Reply
Reply
It's OK. You'll soon learn that it's possible to think that the law's an arse but enforce it anyway. I'm sure it's annoying to be a 'liberal' police officer and have to give cautions or arrests to people for things like drug offences that you feel are pointless because the person is clearly just doing it to get their jollies and not harming anyone else. But I can't imagine there are too many jobs that don't have at least some annoying aspects.
Reply
It does seem to be that way. I suspect selective reporting is partly responsible for this perception but I think there is another cause as well.
Take for instance health and safety at work. We have seen increasing legislation (red tape as the Daily Mail would no doubt phrase it) that has, I believe, resulted in safer working environments for all of us. Once this legislation is in placed and practised by the majority of responsible businesses this becomes a new base-line on which to build more legislation that is possibly not as important. Legislators like to legislate and will to when ever they get the opportunity.
Reply
Yeah. You hit a point of diminishing returns and negative cost/benefit situations but, as you say, lawmakers only know how to make laws. Make a law which saves a million people a year and you're a genius but make one which saves 10 people a year and you're a meddling idiot who should leave well alone. Unfortunately no one seems willing to say 'ok, we've reached an acceptable level of risk' and realise that some people have to die occasionally and it's not always a bad thing.
Reply
Leave a comment