Absolute tragedy - poor lad.

I always thought he looked OK, nothing outstanding just OK, but Sam clearly doesn't rate him at all. Even though he was fit last year he hardly featured at all in an injury plagued season. Who knows maybe he just hasn't impressed in training. So the obvious question was - what's the point in keeping him if his wages are high? I'm guessing they were hoping for a sale over summer but will now happily make do with a loan.

There's also an iPhone app, which tells you the nearest distributors of "legal" weed, and if you get into any trouble the app "gives you the locations of the nearest lawyers who specialize in marijuana cases": http://www.pcworld.com/article/168736/need...e_can_help.html

I'll be honest I got my info from a Bill Bryson book. Whilst he refreshingly has a pro drugs slant, that may have affect his liberal application of the truth.

No, they don't. They conducted the "come down on everyone extremely hard" approach - be it dealer or user. Just being caught in poccession in the States can, and does, lead to huge penalties - loss of benefits for life, a mandatory life obligation to tell an employer about past drug offences (they don't insist on the same thing for offences like rape or murder bizarrely). From the 80's onwards the US took an extremely hard approach to drug enforcement and this obviously hasn't worked. I'd be extremely surprised if they changed tact though.

Giving to "the junkies for nowt" in financial terms, would certainly be far, far cheaper than the current situation - which is the huge cost of crime that junkies currently commit to obtain their illegally sourced heroin. If it's £1 billion for the entire Afghan crop - then let's say for argument's sake the UK take a huge proportion of that compared to their actual user base - say one tenth - that's still only £100m a year. That's a fraction of what businesses lose each year to junkies feeding their habit. I'm not talking a half or a third here either - £100m would probably be about a fiftieth (1/50!) of the current cost from crime that's purely to feed heroin habits. Factor in the benefits you would see from taking the drugs out of the hands of the criminals as well, and the financial gain to society would be huge. Monumentally huge. Now also don't forget we already have a health service in place which happily gives out heroin substitute to junkies, which already costs the taxpayer in terms of drug production and then user management. To take that to the next stage of making heroin available for junkies instead of methadone would be tiny compared to the savings made elsewhere. And as someone has already pointed out - this approach has actually shown to make the demand for heroin drop in countries where this has been tried. So why aren't we at least trialling this approach? The answer of course is ignorant and naive people like you who either don't understand the situation or simply just believe all the nonsense they read in the Daily Mail. Any attempt to actually do something useful when it comes to drug policy is seen as a vote loser and therefore nothing gets done, and we continue in the current complete and utter mess we are in (drug production and distribution in the hands of criminals, funded by further crime, all at huge, huge costs to the taxpayer – madness!) . This situation has reached such a point that the government has now started to ignore it's own scientifically based advisory committee in favour of what they think the voter wants - a voter they believe to be the average Daily Mail reader presumably.

From a morale perspective what has this bloke actually done wrong? There are absolutely no victims in this. The pensioners got something which they enjoy - where are they going to get that from now? IMO the bloke should be put forward to the Pride of Britain awards not prosecuted!

Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you. Anyhow we are obviously getting sidetracked. The whole point of this discussion is simple - that leaflet. The leaflet stated we should "heap comdenation" on muslims who should "apologise" because "they are responsible for 95% of the world's heroin trade". Given that we know (included from your own links); that the Taliban are no longer strict adherants of Islam (when they were they cut opium production) and that once it leaves Afghanistan it no longer funds terrorists it instead funds criminals. Knowing this how is it reasonable that we should "heap comdenation" on UK muslims for the world's heroin trade? Simnple yes or no - do you think the original leafet is reasonable? Do you in fact think it would be perfectly sensible, as I suggested, for me to go and have a dig at the Asian bloke with the shop up my road for the heroin / terrorism in Afghanistan? Incidentally, I wouldn't quote http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/ as a news source like you have; a tagline of "Defending Milosevic, Defending Serbia" doesn't exactly shout unbiased IMO!

Really? Here's a Channel 4 news report from less than a week ago. The important bits are from about 7 mins onwards - with the "Taliban" drinking, gambling and listening to music (all banned by their formerly extremist incarnation): http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/poli...e+enemy/2458502 This report is also important as it mentions the funding of the Taliban from outside countries (Pakistan) not from opium. Besides which the old fundamentalist Taliban (before they were ousted by us) almost eradicated opium production: "The area of land given over to growing opium poppies in 2001 fell by 91 per cent compared with the year before, according to the UN Drug Control Programme's (UNDCP) annual survey of Afghanistan. Production of fresh opium, the raw material for heroin, went down by an unprecedented 94 per cent, from 3,276 tonnes to 185 tonnes. Almost all Afghan opium this year came out of territories controlled by America's ally in the assault on Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance. Because of a ban on poppy farming, only one in 25 of Afghanistan's opium poppies was being grown in Taliban areas." http://opioids.com/afghanistan/prediction.html You are making a huge unlinked jump there though. The Taliban may be benefitting directly from the farmers / middle men in Afghanistan but there is no evidence that once it leaves that country it is profitted by anyone other than criminals. The majority of heroin is brought into the UK by Turkish criminals via Iran. Do you think these established Turkish gangs are suddenly going to give up the most lucrative part of the process for no apparent reason? The Turkish gangs sell to British criminal gangs - where do you suggest these British Jihadi's fit into this new equation and why would the established profiteers allow them too? Not even the BNP are claiming that "UK citizens are importing heroin as means to fund terrorism". The link between terrorism and heroin is wholly within Afghanistan. Even if it were true though (it's not mind), are all muslims to blame, regardless of their own personal beliefs and morals? I'm intrigued - do you actually think it's reasonable, as the leaflet suggests, to "heap condemnation" on Muslims in this country for the production of heroin in Afghanistan? Should they "apologise" because "they are responsible for 95% of the world's heroin trade"? Should I pop up to the shop up my road and have a right pop at the asian owner there for this outrage? I suspect he would, quite rightly, think I'm either mad or on drugs for making such a ridiculously tenuous link. Do you not agree?

Cocaine isn't sold purely "to make drugs lords richer". Ever heard of FARC? They are a huge terrorist organisation in Columbia funded directly by the cocaine trade. The links between cocaine and terrorism in South America is far stronger than that of heroin and terrorism in Afghanistan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary...rug_trafficking Over and above that, the Taliban, whilst in power in Afghanistan actually cut down the production of opium in the country as it didn't agree with their religious ideals. Production has increased dramatically since we went in and overthrew them. Since then however a new "Taliban" has emerged (Taliban is a broad term used by the media to encompass anyone against the occupation of Afghanistan). Parts of this new Taliban are without the religious ideals - they even drink alcohol. They are happy to allow opium to be grown and make money from it. This clearly has absolutely nothing to do with their religion as it goes against it. Which comes to my point - this leaflet is obviously intended to spread bad feeling against muslims in this country by linking their religion to something it has little, if anything, to do with (imagine giving a catholic grief in this country for the cocaine epidemic in this country?!). It's produced for morons who's only grasp of the real facts are gained from leaflets like this or what some half cut bloke at the bar spouts at their local.

You can't make it up. The leaflet says people should "heap condemnation" on Muslims and it is time for them to "apologise" as it claims they are responsible for 95% of the world's heroin trade. The vast majority of cocaine comes from South American countries where the vast majority of people are catholic. Are catholics therefore responsible for Britain's cocaine epidemic? Should we start standing outside catholic churches to "heap condemnation" until they "apologise" too? Heroin is grown in Afghanistan because of the climate and the economic situation there, cocaine is grown in Bolivia etc because of similar reasons. The religion of country has little, if anything, to do with it. This leaflet is clearly there to blame muslims for something which has nothing to do with their religion or them. I'm sorry for being blunt but if you cannot understand that you are a moron.

One that I saw on website, but bizarrely never heard it chanted at Ewood: You better watch out, You better beware, He's good on the ground and he's good in the air, Santa Cruz is coming to town. I personally think poor old Gamst needs a decent song, he's been with us four years now and he never gets a song sung for him. I personally think he changed his name from Pedersen to Gamst so we'd maybe sing a decent one! Truly inspired