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6.4 Around a quarter of the UK adult population drink above the recommended weekly guidelines, which increases the risk of causing or experiencing alcohol-related harms. The Department of Health have calculated that the cost of alcohol-related harms in England alone is up to £20bn per annum. These harms include: • harms to health; • crime and anti-social behaviour; • loss of productivity in the workplace; and • social harms, such as family breakdown. 6.5 The Department of Health estimate there are over 30,000 hospital admissions annually for alcohol dependence and up to 22,000 premature deaths per annum.  Tobacco;6.6 Although tobacco use has decreased in the UK over the last 30 years there are still 106,000 deaths in the UK caused by smoking every year (84,900 in England). Smoking costs the NHS about £1.5bn per year. Main diseases include lung cancer, bronchitis, and heart disease.6.7 Harms from tobacco are predominantly confined to the harms to an individual’s health and to some extent those around the user. The social harms to tobacco use are minimal compared to alcohol. Nicotine can induce strong dependence in individuals where they find extreme difficulty in maintaining abstinence even when the damage to health is clearly apparent.Controls; 6.8 There has not, in the UK, been any attempt to impose controls comparable to illicit drugs where it would be an offence to possess and supply alcohol and tobacco. The social acceptability of, for example, alcohol would make such controls unacceptable to the majority who use alcohol responsibly and therefore impractical. But alcohol and tobacco account for more health problems and deaths than illicit drugs. To many young people this presents problems in understanding the rationale behind controlling drugs such as cannabis and ecstasy when their misuse contributes less overall harm to society than widely available drugs such as alcohol and tobacco.  6.9 In terms of death, illegal drugs amounted to 1,388 in 2003 compared to about 20,000 for alcohol and 100,000 for tobacco.  These figures are from a hidden governmental revue of the drug laws hidden since the decision to re-classify cannabis back up to B in complete disregard to the facts and the claim that drug laws are based on relative harm.This revue was only made available after a  freedom of information request. and it has taken Eight years of fighting Bull****, ignorance, bigotry and lies over which drugs are truly dangerous and which are a 16-19 billion pound a year earner for the industries involved in drug prohibition and who knows how much from dealing truly dangerous drugs to our children on every High Street in the nation!!

Philip Walsh ● 5275d

In 1972 Edward Heath pushed through Parliament the European Communities Act, this wasn't an International Treaty but an act of Parliament deciding that it no longer was the supreme authority for lawmaking in this country, the act was passed in conjunction with Britain applying to enter the "Common Market"Britain joined the EEC in Janury'73.Harold Wilson gave us a referendum in 1975 telling us that it was because of trade and reassured people that we would not loose our Sovereignty, we trusted him and it was passed with a vote of just 47% of the population, there has never ever been another referendum and no one under the age of 53 has had the chance to vote on a referendum on how our country should be governed.The Single European Treaty of 1986 was signed by Margeret Thatcher who lated stated that she had been tricked into signing it.The Maastricht Treaty 1993 was agreed by John Major, it changed the European Community to the European Union. Article 8 made all citizens of the United Kingdom citizens of the European Union, including Her Majesty the Queen, and could be deemed an act of treason by any who signed it, including Douglas Hurd, the Foreign Secretary, and Francis Maude who both formally signed the document. Indeed, a citizen’s charge of treason was taken out against them by Norris McWhirter, of Guinness Book of Records fame. This was successful in the magistrates’ court, but the case then had to go to a higher court. At this point the Attorney General in the Conservative government exercised his power to take over any private citizen’s right to go to law, and having replaced Norris McWhirter, he failed to take it any further, thus ending the treason procedure against Douglas Hurd and Francis Maude. In 1999"The Treaty of Amsterdam" was signed by Tony Blair.It gave the EU control over further areas of British Law,and established Europol the EU State Security Service, which is above the law, and cannot be sued, whatever damage they might do in the exercise of their duties.Treaty of Nice 2001 signed by Tony Blair. This gave up another 39 vetoes on areas of British Life, the introduction of Corpus Juris which was an interpretation of Continental Law.to replace British Law such as Habeas Corpus whereby a person cannot be held in custody for more than 96 hours without being charged. Under Corpus Juris a suspect can be held in custody for up to 6 month's without charge. In EU Civil Law it is up to the accused to prove his innocence, this is why our criminal courts are now introducing trial without Jury because of the EU ruling.The European Constitution Treaty of 2004 also signed by Tony Blair it was intended to be the second treaty of Rome and the last treaty to give Brussels full control of Europe with the creation of "the United States of Europe" Tony Blair was eventually persuaded to have a referendum on the new constitution to ratify his signature, This forced France and Holland to do the same, as it was thought that they would get a yes vote and that it would persuade Britain to do likewise. However to the dismay of politicians, both France and Holland voted against the Treaty and it decided against for the time being.The European Reform Treaty of 2007(The Lisbon Treaty,now a constitution)Britain was denied the right to vote on the Lisbon Treaty which affected our entire future by Gordon Brown he was aided by the leader of the Liberal Democrats consequently both parties voted against having a referendum which forced Parliament to vote it's parliamentary sovereignty into oblivion. 76% of new laws passed in parliament are a directive from Brussels. And yes of course HRA is universal throughout the union it is only the UK which pay's so much out for hurting peoples feelings.

Dawn Hardy ● 5276d

The HMR that is now used in this country was in fact formulated by Tony Blair in '97 which brought the European HRA into UK law. What? is it with you people it's obvious that you dislike the Daily Mail so why bother to read it.Do get your facts right I haven't mentioned RBS although I disagree whole heartedly that bonuses as huge as these should not be given out, no matter what job you do, nobody deserves such money, as for RBS still being around we have dear old Gordie to thank for that another great business venture that went arse upwards.I came from a working class family and I'm bloody proud of what I, my husband and children have achieved, when I had my first child there was no such thing as family allowance for the first born, 2 year's later our second child came along and I got the great sum of 8 shilling's(40 new pence)family allowance per week, what is it now 20 pounds per week. If you didn't work then you went hungry but our children were never latch key kids, I did accounts at home, small businesses would bring there bits to me in carrier bags. We couldn't afford to buy our children sweet's, however I baked cakes 3 times a week and kids at school used to line up and swap there sweets, I wasn't aware of this until about 20 years ago at the Sunday dinner table. My Dee had half his tummy taken away when our eldest was 14 did we cry and get help no we used our savings and never went hungry, after 6 months he was able to return to work. When our youngest son went to upper school, I returned to full time work and my career took off through shear hard work and a willingness to learn.Unless you have first hand experience of what you are discussing you should not wander there. I have through one of my sons, he was given a free sking holiday in March 2007 a week before my husband and I went to Australia for 6 months, unfortunately he had an accident on the slopes and his knee was shattered, fortunately he had holiday insurance and was flown home on a stretcher were he was admitted to West Mid Hospital where they did a grand job with nuts and bolts to enable after several excruciating months to walk, he signed on I believe that is what it is called and YES!!! go to the head of the class because what happened to this lady happened to my son, the incompetence of these departments of failure to share information had my son accused of fraudulently obtaining benefit even though he had sent in all the relevant paperwork to what he construed the right department, we came back from Oz in January and our boy showed us a letter saying that he had obtained money wrongly,supercilious council departments never listen because in their eyes they do no wrong!!! even after sending a cheque for 1875.00 pounds the whole amount accompanied by letters with an explanation of what had occurred,that they did in fact have the information they still took my son to court. We engaged a first class solicitor and wanted to go to Crown Court because the boy had done no wrong, however a compromise was reached with no blame to my son and NO criminal record, however we were not so lucky as to have the media interested in it.By the by this woman has a partner does he work? and I guess the 80 pounds per week family allowance helps just a little does it not. I never comment on anything unless I am absolutely sure or have indeed experienced the problem.My children work and have always worked they don't live off of society and in my boy's time of need he was dumped on the hard shoulder by bureaucracy and bad house keeping by LBH. It would seem that if you are in the system you are continually paid however if you are a hard working person paying your taxes & NI, when the need eventuates and you don't know the system you are treated as a criminal.

Dawn Hardy ● 5279d

A brief education on human rights;Human right are always necessary because we are all human (except illegal drug users apparently) and we should all have rights,(again excepting illegal drug users apparently).We the British are responsible for the original Human Rights Act. It was us that bought it to the UN and the world; it was us that never incorporated this act into British law but did use it as a stick to beat many other nations.  The Human Rights Act was the single most important act of any British Government either side of the second world war and was to all intense and purposes a way of honouring and testifying too the great sacrifice of millions in the two world wars; it is something to hold dear and be proud of.The European Human Right Act is based for a large part on the one my fathers Generation wrote and were proud of doing so.The continued HRA bashing and blaming everything on Europe is ignorant of the facts and disrespectful to the worlds. dead. I for one am proud of the HRA and with China being held up as some kind of example of a 'Modern Democracy' the HRA is more important than its ever been for your children my children and their children's children.The thing that really gets up my nose is the way fascist, scaremongering rags and the imbeciles that read them, keep trying to dress up their often not very well thought out bigotry and ignorance as flag waving pro British sentiment. It is not; flying as it does in the face of those that died for the freedoms they have, it is anti British, anti freedom and anti democracy. Pretty much sums up the Mail, its Journalists (especialy Peter bigot Hichins) and its readership.

Philip Walsh ● 5279d