[Suetonius]

Many of you probably saw the annoying Louise Mensch on Question Time this week talking about her experiences with Class A drugs in the past:

Of course, given the argument you just watched, I'm actually starting to believe her: her brain has certainly been "messed" by something. More people are needlessly killed, or brains needlessly "messed" up, by impurities in MDMA due to lack of regulation, and anyone who can't see that clearly has something wrong with them. Obviously, when one considers this, we should look at the fact that The Beatles wrote some of their best stuff when tripping, Carl Sagan was a lifelong pothead, and Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have both experimented with acid. More importantly, they all consider their experiences to have been beneficial to them, so I think I'll take the collective opinion of Sagan, Gates, Jobs, Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Ringo (among many others) before that of government-spokesman Mensch.

Anyway, that's just my initial reaction to this. What should be considered more seriously is why this woman was allowed to go on TV and speak total and utter ****. The simple fact is that the word "drug" should be abandoned. It's become a term that governments use to suggest equivalence between many very different substances.

So, if someone directs a question/comment to a politician in a Question Time debate about cannabis, or asks David Cameron whether he'd consider legalizing it, the pejorative term "drug" can be pulled out of the bag to try and mislead the public/evade the obvious shortfalls of the present policy. I point people to this poor attempt by Margaret Hodge on QT who compares the average weed user with some junkie hookers who were murdered in Ipswich. Scaremongering BS, basically.

This is an obvious Orwellian tactic. It's an attempt to reduce the number of words in our lexicon, force close-mindedness and to stop people from discriminating between things. Needless to say, this is counterproductive, and I'm sure has led to some young kids tragically considering the idea that "well, if the government's lying about weed then they're probably lying about everything else too".

"By 2050—earlier, probably—all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron—they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like "freedom is slavery" when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness"
~ George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

[lukas1051]

I agree, drugs should not be put under one umbrella but instead considered individually. Her experiences with unspecified class A drugs mean nothing when it comes to the issue of cannabis legalisation for example.

[MancStudent098]

Sooooo... based on her experience of taking class A drugs, despite their being illegal at the time, she thinks that drugs being illegal is a disincentive to use class A drugs.

I think we can safely upgrade Mensch to 'really ****ing stupid' on the scale of idiotry.

[subspace5000]

Uh...huh...

I'm just going to call Arken's Law and be done with this.

[prog2djent]

Carl sagan wasn't a "lifelong pot head" he used it extensively for 2 research and medical scenarios and then stopped.

[DaveSmith99]

She is either lying, or was a serious drug user, not a recreational one.

[Snagprophet]

I think that tactic the OP's on about can be applied to 'racism/racist' whenever people make jokes about people who aren't white.

When I heard Louise Mensch say 'they messed with my head' I was expecting a pandora's box to be opened like 'you're not qualified to be an MP' or 'yeah you certainly act like you're mentally ill by your political views' lol.

Still, pretty awesome to be married to the Metallica manager anyway.

[barnetlad]

Unlike some other politicians she has at least acknowledged her past.

[Xhotas]

I'm in complete agreement with you. She did a certain class A drug that "messed her up" but wasn't exactly specific in what it was. She could have been talking about Heroine, an insanely addictive and quite damaging drug but because she only mentions class A, she could have taken MDMA and people would think it's ruined her life, when I know no one who has experienced with MDMA and regretted it (myself included).

At the same time though, in this particular case she has an image to uphold. To be honest, she has little choice but to go along with the "drugs are bad, m'kay" because she lacks the persona to make a change nor does she probably want to even try. Not to say that I agree it's the right thing to do, but there was really no chance of her ever saying her drug experience was amazing and would recommend it.

[hamijack]

Weed double-plus good

[electriic_ink]

From what I remember, it was the person who asked the question who first used the word "drugs". She said something like "Is it time we ended the war on drugs and legalised, taxed and regulated them?" This made it very easy for Louise and friends to employ the false dichotomy.

[Heeck]

Although I do applause Louise Mensch's bravery for admitting that she has taken class A drugs on TV while she is still a MP. I do feel this further undermines the public’s faith (or at least mine) in our politicians, how many other politicians took class A drugs? Just further shows that our current politicians are hypocritical and are no better than your average person other than perhaps having degrees and are good at lying in front of large audiences.

How can we trust our politicians to be serious in their efforts in resolving serious issues such as tax loopholes, tax fraud, the economic crises and the consumption of dangerous drugs (I'm talking about dangerous class A and B drugs, not marijuana) when many, if not all the politicians are either incompetent or are themselves abusing the system for their own end.

TLDR: I respect Louise Mensch for trying to be honest and progressive with the whole drug issue but I don’t know how the public is supposed to trust their politicians when they’re just as bad as us.

[Elipsis]

The thing that I don't get about her argument that they should be illegal is that it simply doesn't stop anyone getting drugs. I can get literally any drug I want at a reasonable price at a very high quality.

[n00]

Yep well we can't really argue that its not messed up her mind. She’s so deluded she even believes her own drug use could glamorise drugs, as if our streets are full of kids desperately trying to uncover what drug it was Louise Mensch took just so they could one day be just like Louise Mensch.

Well kids my moneys on cocaine, no better drug out there to turn you into a massive ****.

[sugar-n-spice]

LOL massive victim complex

[py0alb]

(Original post by MancStudent098)
Sooooo... based on her experience of taking class A drugs, despite their being illegal at the time, she thinks that drugs being illegal is a disincentive to use class A drugs.

I think we can safely upgrade Mensch to 'really ****ing stupid' on the scale of idiotry.

Your argument doesn't make sense. Just because someone takes a drug despite it being illegal, does not imply that its illegality was not a disincentive. I don't think its Mensch that is "really ****ing stupid" here.

Drugs being illegal is a strong disincentive for the vast majority of people.

[n00]

(Original post by py0alb)
Your argument doesn't make sense. Just because someone takes a drug despite it being illegal, does not imply that its illegality was not a disincentive. I don't think its Mensch that is "really ****ing stupid" here.

Drugs being illegal is a strong disincentive for the vast majority of people.

Really? A strong disincentive? Yet where the law is relaxed we see very little difference in usage?

Negative effects of drug use are a strong disincentive. Getting a criminal record is of course a possible negative but one that can be easily avoided as shown by Mensch.

[King Kebab]

I am in favour of full legalization.

[py0alb]

(Original post by n00)
Really? A strong disincentive? Yet where the law is relaxed we see very little difference in usage?

Negative effects of drug use are a strong disincentive. Getting a criminal record is of course a possible negative but one that can be easily avoided as shown by Mensch.

Of course its a strong disincentive. Most people haven't got the first clue where they would be able to purchase drugs even if they wanted to.

When has the law ever been relaxed?

[Pitt1988]

I watched it and just laughed when she said it's had negative consequences in her life. She seems like a very well-to-do, articulate, ambitious and driven individual to me. I really hate all the scaremongering that goes on with relation to substances. Many people I know, my self included, have experimented with a fairly wide array of substances to absolutely no ill consequences, mentally or physically. The only thing I, and others I know, do have is a tarnished record. Needs to change.