Chase on the Case

  This article was first published in Propel Opinion in 2018. Still relevant today. Legalisation in Canada has only resulted in about 30% of cannabis used in Canada being purchased in the licit market - emphasising the point in the article below that it's important to get the model of legalisation right. SHOULD WE LEGALISE CANNABIS? The issue of legalising cannabis has been in the news in recent weeks. It began with a heart-rending story about a small boy who was having up to 50 epileptic seizures a day and his mother’s wish for him to receive medicinal cannabis oil, which relieved his symptoms. The Home Secretary then obliged with a temporary licence, but made it clear there were no intentions to legalise cannabis for recreational use. The only mainstream political party in the UK which supports the creation of a legal, licensed market for recreational cannabis is the Liberal Democrats, but pressure for change is increasing because Canada has now legalised cannabis and nine US...

  ALCOHOL AND CANCER – AGAIN! The article below, written by me, was first published in Propel Opinion in 2017. Just recently the Alcohol Health Alliance has reproduced the same old scare stories about alcohol and cancer - and you can see this referenced on Twitter. Here's the antidote to all this neo-prohibitionist propaganda - do have a read! Barely a day goes by without some new ‘threat’ to our health being announced by epidemiologists or other health campaigners. For these people, the meaning of life appears to be the elimination of anything enjoyable in order to achieve maximum longevity. Key to this is the elimination of ‘risk-factors’ from our diet and our lifestyles. The key technique used to frighten us all into abstinence is to concentrate on cancer risks. Here an old trick is used: take a very small baseline risk and then measure the increase to that risk that arises if you engage in ‘heavy’ drinking. The effect of this is to give prominence and publicity to very larg...

IS SEXUAL ORIENTATION A SPECTRUM? Peter Tatchell thinks so! In an article published in 2016, and in subsequent talks he has delivered, he has argued “The future is bisexual – get over it!” The gist of Tatchell’s argument is that there is a spectrum at one end of which are people who are 100 percent straight, at the other end people who are 100 percent gay, but “most of us are somewhere in between.” In other words, sexual orientation is not a simple binary of gay/straight or even three fixed orientations - gay, straight and bisexual. The notion that sexual orientation is a spectrum is tempting for gay activists who need to pump up the volume in order to get politicians to support reform. It enables them to make statements referencing YouGov polls that have shown 23% of the population don’t identify as exclusively gay or straight – so we’re a big minority and a big voting block.   As a gay man who came out over 50 years ago, I initially accepted this narrative, but now I really don...