Sunday, 13 January 2008

Jan 13 2008 Wales on Sunday

I WOULD never take ecstasy or aspirin unless prescribed.

However, I’m fed up with ignoramuses like Peter Stoker who has made a career out of talking c**p about drugs (‘Cop or Clown?’, WoS, Jan 6).

Brunstrom’s comments are slightly misleading, because it’s not that simple. However, he is to be congratulated for stating the obvious: that current policies are entirely counter-productive.

As long as lying hypocrites can get votes by talking tough on drugs, no progress can be made.

CHRIS SMITH Via e-mail

AS a police officer in the US who has worked the trenches of the drug war, I can attest to the absolute futility of making a dent in drug supply or availability.

Today, I know that the UK’s sworn enemy Al qaeda makes two billion pounds per year, which they use to fund operations such as 7/7.

Too many thousands of police officers in the UK are not investigating leads on terrorists, rather they are out breaking into a house with a cannabis growing operation.

In the century of 9/11 and 7/7 this is fence-post stupid.

You claim that the situation would become worse post-prohibition.

What research have you read?

The Swiss have dramatically reduced crime, death, disease and heroin use using a legal heroin distribution approach.

HOWARD J. WOOLDRIDGE Frederick, Maryland, USA

THE new Climate Change Wales website at www.climatechangewales.org.uk is fundamentally a good idea.

But surely Jane Davidson, Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing, who launched the site, does it no favours when she states: “Wales’ ecological footprint is the lowest of all the UK regions.

“But as a nation we are still using three planets worth of the earth’s resources so I am delighted to see this resource being developed for children and young people across Wales.”

Is the minister trying to speak metaphorically – what planet is she thinking about?

What on earth does she mean, when she claims the nation ‘uses’ three planets’ worth of the earth’s resources? What do these words mean?

Surely, after one has used the earth’s resources, the bin will be empty, and the balance will have to come from elsewhere – does she mean Mars, or possibly the Moon? Which all sounds rather loony, and just as daft as defending large-scale wind generation in the UK.

Remember, none other than Albert Einstein opined: “The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.”

What do we do to deserve such ministers?

DAVE HASKELL Boncath, Pembrokeshire

THE start of 2008 sees world oil prices exceeding $100 per barrel and heading skywards.

So when I read last weekend that the Department for Transport, in its most recent report, had based their projections for future traffic growth on UK roads on oil-cost estimates of just $50 per barrel by the year 2025, it made me wonder in just what sort of cloud cuckoo land our nation’s supposed “expert” forecasters are living.

Unfortunately, a whole raft of highway projects in the UK have been largely based on future traffic-growth assumptions promulgated by the pundits at the Department for Transport.

This glaring anomaly hits us hard here in North Wales. Assembly transport officials quoting DfT data have repeatedly asserted that unless the A494 and A55 North Wales highways are immediately beefed up to motorway standards they will be become progressively so congested by 2025 that this illustrious area will have lost its economic edge.

This is a premise that never had even a ring of truth with thousands of Flintshire folk who experience local roads every day and who forced their most recent proposals to a public inquiry.

During January, Welsh Assembly Transport supremo Ieuan Wyn Jones will be presented with the inspector’s findings.

It will be his personal decision which either sets the bulldozers in motion or calls an immediate halt to an otherwise irreversible bout of wasteful, needless road-building.

Let’s hope Mr Jones is mindful that $100 per barrel oil now makes a mockery of any forecasts for UK future road-traffic growth that don’t use that figure as baseline.

He also might question the validity of every current Assembly sponsored transport proposal that has been tainted by this disgracefully misleading report.

JOHN BUTLER Hawarden, Flintshire

THERE is a place within the UK which lives in bilingual heaven, the locals don’t complain, the tourists don’t complain.

The Government has its own powers over taxation and has become a tax haven for some of the richest people.

The answer is Jersey: the island has a special relationship with the UK which has been continuing for the last 900 years. While the UK remains responsible for the island’s defence, Jersey is self-governing.

The Queen has a representative on Jersey, the Lieutenant Governor, who, along with the Dean of Jersey, the Bailiff and the Attorney General, is Crown-appointed.

Criminal and civil justice are administered by the Royal Court, presided over by the Bailiff and Jurats.

ANDREW THOMAS NUTT Bargoed, Caerphilly