As anyone knows from walking the streets of the West of Scotland, recreational cannabis consumption is very common but remains illegal.
This is not the case across Europe and North America. The extent of the issue is not just the smell wafting across our streets, but statistics suggesting that it is more common, or equal, to tobacco cigarette smoking in the UK.
Is it not time that we try to regulate this drug’s use - with the intention of stopping the subsidy to organised crime - and limiting the worst effects of usage on individuals and society?
An experiment in Switzerland has tried to address these issues. It still has a number of years to run, but the initial assessment shows that making it available legally has not resulted in increased use, and has also reduced people opting for the more dangerous forms of the drug.
In Basel they found in a published academic report that ‘Public health-oriented recreational cannabis access may decrease cannabis use and cannabis-related harms, especially among those using other drugs’.
When the UK Government does decide to legally regulate cannabis, such an experiment could well provide the basis for how to get it right.
It would also be excellent if our politicians stepped forward and addressed this issue in a non-partisan and joined up way, between Westminster and Holyrood.
It’s obvious to everyone, on most of our streets and in our communities, so we can’t continue to hold our noses and ignore it.
Foster Evans, Renfrew.
More letters...
Backers of Scots independence need to support the Catalans
Baby-box funds should be used for regular health checks for mothers-to-be
Cameron beats May as our worst-ever PM
Swinney’s pyrrhic victory
It took a mere twenty four hours for John Swinney's master plan for the next five years to unravel. (“Social care leaders warn over Swinney's NHS reform plans”, The Herald, September 3).
The SNP likes to talk, it cannot walk.
The NHS plan is doomed from the outset if there are no compulsory redundancies. Elementary housekeeping dictates that if your expenditure is greater than your income, problems arise.
If your credit card is maxed out, you face even bigger problems.
The SNP continues to drift on, imagining that somehow all of these problems, including failing education and an NHS in permanent crisis, will simply be solved by independence. Some honesty is needed here. Scotland has a very lightweight government amidst seriously heavy problems. What can possibly go wrong?
Most of us know the true answer, and even SNP supporters must be losing hope.
Poor John Swinney. His dream of being elected on his own merits has already turned bad, and if he asks for help from the Greens, it will become far worse.
May's election was a pyrrhic victory for the SNP.
Dr Gerald Edwards, Glasgow.
Let’s copy Basque Country
Scottish devolution has been an unmitigated disaster.
We were far more effectively administered under the previous system, with minimal bureaucracy and a much faster speed of response. Those who voted for it were promised effective, meaningful devolution, yet the current settlement has failed on every major front.
These include collapsing education standards; an NHS in permanent crisis; rising crime and drug deaths; the ScotsWind fiasco; the ferries scandal; non-existent support for energy transition; over-centralisation in the central belt; plus a succession of scandals.
A one-trick-pony party elected solely on an independence ticket faces none of the scrutiny a functioning democracy requires. A split unionist vote compounds the problem; stick an SNP or Green label on your head and you become almost untouchable, as the Peter Murrell affair illustrated.
Soldiering on is not an option. Independence is equally unrealistic, given Scotland’s high fiscal deficit and the absence of any credible economic plan or significant support for such fundamental change.
However, if devolution is to be retained, the only workable solution is full fiscal autonomy: complete control over every pound raised in Scotland - the levers the SNP themselves demand - while retaining the pound, avoiding a hard border or internal trade barriers, and keeping shared defence and other Union benefits.
The Basque Country has successfully operated this model for decades. Only then can devolution deliver genuine accountability rather than a perpetual list of grievances and sterile debates.
And, with a bit of luck, attract a far higher calibre of MSPs and FMs - something that is sorely needed.
Ian Lakin, Milltimber, Aberdeen.
Calm down about climate change
Many argue that our planet has to be saved from the possibility of global warming, the assumption being that the warming trend will persist to an unacceptable level.
Certainly it is thankfully much warmer now than during my childhood, some 80 years ago, when we had winters that were life threatening in their severity, and many people succumbed to prolonged cold weather.
Crops froze and roads were blocked by snow. Indeed we had a miserable climate for about five months of the year.
Some minor changes to accommodate today’s warmer weather would be appropriate.
But to switch to alarmist mode and spend billions in response to a few short heatwaves seems unwise, to say the least.
A more positive attitude would be to calm down and consider the advantages of comfort and longevity in our better climate.
Our neighbours in warmer countries - where we wisely go for holidays - are noticeably much happier people, and now we can be the same.
Malcolm Parkin, Kinnesswood, Kinross-shire.
Commercial sexual exploitation: criminalise it
The headline to Hannah Brown’s article says it all (“Scotland has had the policies on violence against women. What it lacks is delivery”, The Herald, September 2).
For years it has been Scottish Government policy to recognise prostitution as violence against women and girls, yet legislation to criminalise the men who inflict this violence has been sorely lacking.
The brave attempt by Ash Regan to tackle commercial sexual exploitation was narrowly defeated in the final weeks of the previous Holyrood session.
However, it did lead to the Scottish Government establishing an ‘Independent Commission on the criminalisation of the purchase of sex’, which is hugely welcome.
With the direction of travel now firmly set, and with John Swinney stating that tackling violence against women is a priority for his Government, let us hope and insist that MSPs follow through with their words, and that legislation to criminalise the men who purchase women for sex is forthcoming.
It would be a national tragedy and betrayal if yet another session of Holyrood were to expire without concrete action to tackle this recognised form of violence against women at source – namely by criminalising demand.
Michael Veitch, Scotland Policy Officer, CARE, Glasgow.
Racist statues? No thanks
So, the UN believes that to atone for slavery Britain should erect more statues honouring people selected on account of their ethnicity. Frankly, this is racism.
Far better to put up statues of some of the greatest thinkers of all time, not a few of whom were British. Men such as Sir Isaac Newton, Adam Smith, James Hutton, James Clerk Maxwell, Charles Darwin and Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Their achievements stand as an inspiration to people of every race and religion.
Otto Inglis, Fife.
BBC, why no Holyrood coverage?
There was much anticipation of the new Prime Minister’s first PMQs this week, with headlines and full live coverage by the BBC. And rightly so.
Yet in complete contrast, the initial First Minister’s Questions of the new parliamentary session at Holyrood received no live coverage from the BBC.
And, incidentally, neither did the presentation of the First Minister’s Programme for Government.
This Programme will have a massive impact on public services throughout the entire country, for individuals and households.
Yet no live coverage.
Returning to PMQs, BBC viewers were afforded a prelude, and there was also a studio discussion and analysis of the proceedings that had taken place.
So, I have a question for the BBC. Do licence payers in Scotland not deserve informed viewing and full coverage of FMQs, along with the Government in Scotland’s Programme for Government?
After all, this Programme will have implications on all aspects of our lives, from the moment we open our eyes in the morning.
Catriona C Clark, Banknock, Falkirk.
To Beeb or not to Beeb
I share Neil Stewart’s annoyance, regarding the “What has the BBC ever done for me?” advert (Letters, September 2).
As a matter of fact, one evening last week, I was waiting for the BBC News at Ten to commence, having watched the previous programme.
The aforementioned long-winded advert came on in-between, and I grew so irked by it, and its duration, that I eventually switched over to STV for the news instead.
John G McMenemy, Milngavie.
The numbers racket
Sometimes one hears about, reads or sees a statistic which seems virtually impossible to comprehend.
Twice in the last few weeks I picked up mention of something that I couldn't believe.
However, having checked it, I was amazed to discover that it is completely accurate.
It is the following… One million seconds equates to five and a half days; however one billion seconds equates to just under thirty two years.
Perhaps you are like me, and find those figures almost incomprehensible. Such huge numbers also show us that the apparent wealth of certain individuals is even more immoral than previously imagined.
As for trillionaires? I won’t even go there…
Brendan Keenan, Glasgow.
Jarring corporate jargon, continued
I was pleased to learn that David Miller was 'in-boxed' from a member of 'human capital', and he was happy to receive it (Letters, September 2).
Will this represent a 'paradigm shift' in the way we all continue on our 'journey'? Needs a 'sense check' no doubt.
Willie Towers, Alford, Aberdeenshire.
Years = ears
Even AI cannot solve Ian W Thomson's quest for a connection between the Scottish slang word heehaw and the braying of a donkey (Letters, September 3).
Having, however, always assumed that donkeys live for a very long time, I find that the term ‘donkeys years’ is a playful pun on ‘donkey's ears’, a reference to the animal's famously long ears.
As the Glasgow vernacular might put it: “He kens heehaw about heehaw."
David Miller, Milngavie.
Best was best
Following the announcement that Lionel Messi is retiring from international football, Radio Scotland devoted a considerable amount of time the other morning celebrating his talents, and asking if he was the greatest footballer of all time.
The other contenders in their debate were Pele and Maradona.
Sadly, they overlooked George Best, who actually is the greatest player ever to have kicked a football, and therefore the undisputed GOAT (Greatest Of All Time).
The late Hugh McIlvanney (the sportswriters' GOAT) once wrote of Best: "With feet as sensitive as a pickpocket’s hands, his control of the ball under the most violent pressure was hypnotic. “The bewildering repertoire of feints and swerves, sudden stops and demoralising turns, exploited a freakish elasticity of limb and torso, tremendous physical strength and resilience for so slight a figure, and balance that would have made Isaac Newton decide he might as well have eaten the apple."
Beat that, Lionel.
Keith Swinley, Ayr.
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