Sunday 27 April 2014

Legislation: A Magic Wand, Apparently

It's been a very busy weekend in Puddlecoteville, but Mrs P and I did manage to find a little time for a restorative fry up at the local greasy spoon this morning. On our table was a well-thumbed gratis copy of the Sunday Sun containing an article not carried anywhere else as far as I can see (£). Perhaps because it was quite bizarre.
Boozy kids age 17 need liver swaps warns prof
CHILDREN are boozing so much some need a new liver by 17, a surgeon has warned. 
Prof Rajiv Jalan said: “These youngsters are drinking from the ages of 12, 13 and 14. 
“They’re consuming, say, half a bottle of vodka a night and by 17 or 18 they have end-stage cirrhosis.”
And his solution to this?
He has now called on the legal drinking age to be raised to 21.
Err, so a legal drinking age of 18 doesn't stop some kids (a vanishingly small minority, I'd wager) of 12, 13, 14 or 17 year olds drinking, but a legal drinking age of 21 will? Do these health lobbyists really believe the stroke of a legislative pen is a magic wand?

More to the point, what is it in the mentality of public health professionals - and think plain packaging/e-cigs here - which makes them completely blind to the simple fact that kids have always been lured by anything finger-wagging adults say is forbidden?

Good grief.


9 comments:

nisakiman said...

The naivety of the current crop of 'health professionals' is really quite bewildering. I mean, do they have, or have they ever had, kids of their own? Or perhaps more pertinent, weren't they ever kids themselves? Have they forgotten already?

Christ, I'm nearly 65, and I can remember very clearly what my thought processes were when I was a youngster. I drew heavily on those recollections when I was bringing up my own children, to the benefit of both myself and my kids, I'm sure.

I'm repeating myself again here, but I really, really do despair sometimes. What hope do we have with idiots like Prof Jalan setting the agenda?

Peem Birrell said...

I had a look at deaths from alcoholic liver disease in 2012 (the most recent year available). None under the age of 20. Must be a lot of transplantation going on, or perhaps the learned professor is talking shite. I know what I think.


And 5 years of a half-bottle of vodka a day will not cause end-stage liver failure in a healthy person. 30 years, maybe. Of course perhaps Prof Ravij Jalan doesn't really have much of a clue about how much people drink....

Dick_Puddlecote said...

"I mean, do they have, or have they ever had, kids of their own? Or perhaps more pertinent, weren't they ever kids themselves?"



Precisely. This is a question to ask not only 'public health' but also politicians. They are mostly divorced from the reality of life that the majority live through. Yes, it's quite clear they went through the same life experiences as everyone else, but think that no-one else is entitled to do the same. Then they wonder why not voting is now cool and their political efforts have embarrassingly degenerated to trawling Twitter for smears against ordinary people standing for UKIP.


The arrogance is astounding.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

The Prof was saying in another article that youths are denied transplants if they are "unable to show they can quit drinking".

http://metro.co.uk/2014/01/05/specialist-calls-for-debate-on-drinking-age-as-teenagers-being-treated-for-liver-disease-4250061/



Just think about that for a minute. The NHS is letting youngsters die because of their puritanism? Really?

Ivan D said...

Further proof that evidence based rational thought and a keen intellect are not necessary to succeed in medicine. Unsurprisingly this man is a member of the Royal College of Physicians, which has been a state funded haven for medical activists for almost 500 years.

Frank J said...

What a complete f*****g tw@t! And he holds a chair? Dumbing down has gone a lot further than I thought

Hengist said...

Looks like Yank idiocy has crossed the pond, the Soviet States of Amerca
send 20 year olds to Afghnistan to have their limbs blown off and on their
welcome home they are wheeled into the gutter to enjoy a smoke and coke(cola)... Time to target the health freaks and give them someting to really cause them to fill their trousers ( or pantees)
Points to ponder on with all this London based health angst
Q IS LONDON REALLY ENGLAND ?
Q DOES ENGLAND NEED LONDON ?

John Gray said...

"Err, so a legal drinking age of 18 doesn't stop some kids (a vanishingly small minority, I'd wager) of 12, 13, 14 or 17 year olds drinking, but a legal drinking age of 21 will? Do these health lobbyists really believe the stroke of a legislative pen is a magic wand?" - Dick Puddlecote



One has to come to the conclusion, as with many things, that these people are really not very bright. My colleague in TICAP has just received a letter from David Mundell MP regarding the plain packaging issue. In it, there were lots of the usual scare stats and the conclusion that Cyril Chandler therefore has a compelling case. I'm really not sure of this mentality at all except, perhaps, that its like playing the game Patience or Solitaire. You know, there are times when not acting is the best option given the odds. However, where these epsilon sub-morons are concerned, doing anything (even if it is a big mistake) is better than doing nothing.


I think that, in summation, they can best be described as headless chickens.

DP said...

Dear Mr Puddlecote

" ... which makes them completely blind to the simple fact that kids have
always been lured by anything finger-wagging adults say is forbidden?"





Or not: maybe they are all secretly in the pay of Big Tobacco, Big Booze and Big Everything Else.


Making things illegal makes them attractive too, hence the urge to illegalise everything.

DP