{"id":312,"date":"2010-03-29T20:17:28","date_gmt":"2010-03-29T19:17:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/?p=312"},"modified":"2010-03-29T20:17:28","modified_gmt":"2010-03-29T19:17:28","slug":"is-there-an-election-due","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2010\/03\/29\/is-there-an-election-due\/","title":{"rendered":"Is there an Election Due?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So: Alan Johnson has announced that he&#8217;s going to <span style=\"text-decoration: line-through\">stop people using mephedrone<\/span>&#8230; no, wait: that&#8217;s not it&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: line-through\">make mephedrone use as safe as possible<\/span>&#8230; no, that&#8217;s not it either&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: line-through\">prevent the price of mephedrone rising and thereby increasing the likelihood of petty crime<\/span>&#8230; close, but not quite&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: line-through\">make sure that people can get hold of open and honest public health information about drug use, its risks, benefits, and consequences, thereby being treated as adults capable of making wise or foolish decisions for themselves<\/span>&#8230; um&#8230; that doesn&#8217;t ring any bells&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: line-through\">reduce the power of drug dealers<\/span>&#8230; no, getting colder&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: line-through\">thoughtfully minimise the workload of the police by ensuring that crimes aren&#8217;t created at the stroke of a pen<\/span>&#8230; nope, that&#8217;s not it&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: line-through\">make a wise decision that&#8217;s not taken mainly to keep the tabloids happy in the week before Parliament is dissolved<\/span>&#8230; \u00a0I don&#8217;t think that was it, either&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/uk\/8592103.stm\">make mephedrone a class B drug<\/a>. \u00a0Ah! \u00a0That&#8217;s it. \u00a0Well done me for working it out, eh?<!--TrendMD v2.4.8--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So: Alan Johnson has announced that he&#8217;s going to stop people using mephedrone&#8230; no, wait: that&#8217;s not it&#8230; make mephedrone use as safe as possible&#8230; no, that&#8217;s not it either&#8230; prevent the price of mephedrone rising and thereby increasing the likelihood of petty crime&#8230; close, but not quite&#8230; make sure that people can get hold [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2010\/03\/29\/is-there-an-election-due\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[511,475,403],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news","category-politics","category-rant"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Is there an Election Due? 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