I’d feel happier heading into 2007 if I could be confident this will be the year that we’ll manage to overthrow the government.

Strike down stupidity, raise reason up, overwhelm the laws which prevent us dealing with the drugs problem.
There are two reasons 2007 would be suitable. One, it marks the 40th anniversary of the publication in the Times (of London) of a full-page ad calling for the lifting of the law against cannabis in particular as “immoral in principle and unworkable in practice”. The ad was devised by Steve Abrams, mainly funded by The Beatles and signed by 65 liberal luminaries of the age.
On the subject of drugs, Paul McCartney composed ‘A Day In The Life’ while indulging. Going straight, he wrote ‘Mull Of Kintyre’.
In Dublin in November, the Drug Policy Action Group (DPAG) urged the Government and the Gardai “to completely rethink and liberalise their approach to the illicit drug trade, because current practices are doing more harm than good.” Perhaps we are beginning to catch up with the Brit Baroness of 40 years ago?
The DPAG (www.drugpolicy.ie) includes academics and expert practitioners on addiction, social policy and public health. Its report says bluntly that one of the main reasons the “war on drugs” is being lost has to do with ignorance on the part of government officials, garda chiefs and judges. Among its recommendations are that the Law Reform Commission should “assist” the cabinet committee reviewing drugs-related laws; that a review should be instituted of “the capacity of senior civil servants... to lead a cohesive drugs strategy”; and that gardai and judges should be given classes to acquaint them with the facts about drug use and the law.
The implication is that the people who frame, enact and implement the drugs laws, and deal with those who break them, either don’t know the truth, or don’t want to know.
Last year, Justice Minister Michael McDowell felt no shame going on radio to intone that, more or less, any youngster who takes a toke at tea-time will likely be strung out on heroin by nightfall.
The point of the “war on drugs” is to maintain a high level of fear in society. A terrified community is unlikely to challenge the rule of the gobdaws in power.
But acquitting politicians, police chiefs, crime correspondents etc. of crimes against the community perpetrated in the “war on drugs” on grounds of ignorance is the equivalent of accepting that the invaders of Iraq didn’t know what they were getting the world into, when the truth is they didn’t want to know.
Year after year the drugs madness continues. The ruling elite and their police and media outriders casually concede that much violent crime, including almost all “gangland murder” is associated with trade in illegal drugs. They then go on immediately to reject the blindingly obvious conclusion that issues arising from drugs use should be removed from the arena of law and placed instead in the context of health and education.
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The Catholic bishops were chuffed by their ad limina visit to the Vatican in 2006. Coverage in Irish media outlets was a PR dream. An impression was conveyed of “the Holy Father” (the Irish Times, the Independent and RTÉ were among outlets using this obeisant phrase) telling the Irish managers of his operation to clean up their act with regard to child sex abuse, and the bishops prayerfully pledging to follow his instruction and right the wrongs of the past.
None of this took place. Benedict XVI’s address to the Irish bishops is easily accessible on the web (www.catholiccommunications.ie/pressrel/28b-october-2006.html.) The passage on clerical savagery visited on innocent children reads: “In your continuing efforts to deal effectively with this problem, it is important to establish the truth of what happened in the past, to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it from occurring again, to ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected and, above all, to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes.”
Not a single practical proposal, much less instruction, to do anything differently. No question of any bishop being held to account. No reference to repentance.
If Benedict XVI has the brass neck to visit Ireland in 2007, he should be questioned by the gardai about the role of the Vatican in covering up his Church’s continuing crime-wave against children.
The reason this is highly unlikely to happen is that as we enter 2007, the Catholic Church retains its legally unwarranted, morally indefensible and grotesquely inappropriate special position in Irish society, North and South.
Could we find space for a campaign on this matter in ‘07?
Certainly, we could find space for a new intake by releasing all who’ve been rail-roaded into prison for “drugs crime”.
Two for the price of one. I feel better already about the year almost upon us.