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UK drugs advisor resigns over media driven policies, again

Blinded by Science, Health
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Drugs advisor Eric Carlin resigns from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs over the tabloid driven ban on mephedrone:

Re-Mephedrone; we had little or no discussion about how our recommendation to classify this drug would be likely to impact on young people’s behaviour. Our decision was unduly based on media and political pressure. The report was tabled to the whole Council for the first time on Monday; the Chair came to brief you before the whole Council had even discussed all of the report. In fact, I still haven’t seen the final version.

Mephedrone is still legal, but a spate of tabloid stories in which it is “linked” to various deaths means that it will be banned as soon as parliament has the time for it, despite the lack of direct evidence pf mephedrone’s lethality. Nobody has actually proved that mephedrone has caused any deaths, just that some people who later turned up death had used it at some point, often together with other drugs. Banning it, when it has allegedly become the fourth most popular drug in the UK, just means the selling of it will be turned over to organised crime, rather than smartshops. Is this a clever idea?

Honduras: unions call for general strike against the coup

Honduras
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the Hondurian unions, through bitter experience well aware of what a rightwing regime can do to their country, have been out in force against the coup from the start. Now they’re calling for a general strike, as deposed president Zelaya has sworn to return soon:

The CUTH represents 250,000 workers in both urban and rural areas.

Previous protests against coup leader Roberto Micheletti have been confronted by large numbers of armed soldiers and police.

Mr Salinas told the Morning Star that opposition to the coup is gathering strength. “We have been in the streets for 22 days and our movement is becoming stronger and stronger.

“Our aim is to stop production, trade and transport,” he said.

Despite the resistance of the oligarchy, Mr Zelaya’s government had doubled the minimum wage and the trade unions predict that unless the coup regime is removed from power, it will attempt to reverse this and other progressive measures.

So far the coupists seem to have kept somewhat of a low profile: repressive, intransigent, but just standard issue repression rather than football stadiums full of dissidents being tortured and shot. They seem to be playing for time, establishing the facts on the ground and count on the “international community” to lose interest. They’ve been trying to spin the coup as an emergency measure to prevent the constitution from Zelaya’s supposed depravity, urged on them by the people. If they can keep Honduras quiet without too much visible repression, this old trick might just work. Hence the importance of a general strike as a very visible show of support for Zelaya.

By the way, it would be a mistake to think that this is just about Zelaya and his return. Until he came in office he was your fairly establishment candidate, who was half pushed into taking some measures to better the existence of the majority of Hondurians. He isn’t a socialist or populist reformer like Chavez, but hopefully if he does return, he will be radicalised like Chavez was, rather than cowed as happened to Ariste in Haiti. More important than Zelaya’s fate however is what this struggle is doing for the working classes in Honduras: if they win it’s a huge boost; if they lose they know everything that was achieved during Zelaya will be taken away again.

Total victory

Unions
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As the Independent reports:

Construction contractors at Total’s Lindsey oil refinery have settled their labour dispute by agreeing to reinstate 700 sacked workers, amid concerns that the sackings had led to wildcat sympathy strikes across the country.

The deal – brokered at a meeting between the managing contractor, Jacobs, the Engineering and Construction Industry Association (ECIA) and the GMB and Unite trade unions in the early hours of yesterday – will be put to staff working on Lindsey’s hydro-desulphurisation unit building site on Monday. The proposal is expected to be accepted.

[…]

However, the redundancy programme is not over at Lindsey. The dispute started because 51 workers were laid off by one of Jacobs’ subcontractors on the site, at the same time as another was hiring. But the project is nearly finished, so staff will still have to be cut. Once all workers, including the original 51 redundancies, are back at work on Monday a new formal redundancy programme will start.

The reinstatement deal includes an assurance of a minimum of four weeks employment, and guarantees both efforts to co-ordinate new work and normal severance payments in the event of redundancy.

There were disruptions at nine engineering building sites in response to the problems at Lindsey, including the South Hook liquefied natural gas terminal and the Sellafield nuclear plant.

The Lindsey deal is a stark volte-face from the employers’ earlier hardball tactics of immediate dismissal. Sources close to the dispute credit the change in attitude to demands from Total that the completion of its building project take priority over subcontractors’ industrial relations issues. Pressure from other companies affected by the problems was also a factor.

That’s twice now that socalled wildcat strike action forced Total and its contractors into a retreat at Lindsey. Sympathy strikes elsewhere helped put pressure on the bosses, who might have been able to ignore the strike at Lindsey on its own. It also showed that the Thatcherite laws forbidding such wildcat action need to be repealed and until they are, to be ignored by the workers, if not by the unions.

It’s A Gift

Funny, UK politics
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The expenses scandal is a comedy goldmine that’ll be good for years to come. Anarchist writer Ian Bone:

NATIONAL UNION OF MOAT CLEANERS -DAY OF ACTION
NUMC Captain Swing House Moat Street Millbank London SE1

A message from the Geneal Secretary

‘As the son of domestic servants I have been honoured to accept the position of General Secretary of the NATIONAL UNION OF MOAT CLEANERS (NUMC). As you know with drastic cuts in MPs expenses there will be a knock on effect with drastic – redundancies amongst our members – something the do-gooders who do not understand the countryside should bear in mind.

Accordingly I announce a DAY OF ACTION next Wednesday May 20th. NUMC will hold a press conference on ST.Stephens Green opposite parliament at 11am before prime minister’s question time followed by lobby of parliament. We will then move on to Tory HQ where we will be joned by National Union of Mole Catchers (NUMC) Liberal Democrat HQ – joined by National union of Trouser Pressers and Labour HQ – National union of Tudor Beam makers.

More…

Evil Encapsulated

Culture, Wingnuts
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Interesting if real: Karl Rove’s Twitter feed.

The wingnuts think it’s real, to judge by the tweets, and

Precautions taken 2 guarantee compliance w/ federal prohibition on torture. U might characterize diligence as overcautious.

certainly sounds suitably Rovian.