Party Vibe

this is 100% true; Professor Nutt even clearly points out that dead drug users stop being counted as problem users at both national and EU/UN level which makes the figures look better (and he would have been part of the team collating these figures).

Unfortunately as the UK remains a comparatively affluent nation with a higher birth rate than and lower age of motherhood than many other European nations many politicians and middle class people who are not parents are openly prepared to sacrifice lives if they think it saves money in taxes (this applies to a lot of other social issues other than drugs legislation).

I noticed the week after the laws came in there was a spate of drug related deaths at an EDM festival in the USA which overwhelmed the local 911 services and they were struggling to pin it down to what exact substances were involved.

I can’t help but think that this is exactly what might happen if supplies of chemicals which had just been made illegal across the water were to be sold off on the global markets cheaply and these were subsequently used to bulk out stocks of more expensive controlled substances such as MDMA without paying heed to the risks of interactions or gross overdoses.

Of course these are just “dead foreigners” to the UK govt so wouldn’t be counted and existing drugs laws merely shift the problems out of UK/Europe to other foreign nations anyway….

I’ve already expressed my concerns over the older “middle class professional” users turning to more unhealthy and less effective substitutes (and therefore still burdening the NHS later in life) but I can also remember when 10 years ago the region I now live in (East of England) went zero tolerance on party drugs and raves; as a consequence of drugs/gang related murders and a predator murdering 5 sex workers (it was something like 10 young people below age 30 dead in the space of 7 months).

This clampdowb took a few years to implement and was more “successful” in some regions (such as affluent middle class Suffolk and North Essex) but although it stopped the overt “anti-social” (but relatively harmless) street level behaviour like noisy raves and parties in the short term and pushed drug use a lot further underground it didn’t stop drug use amongst young people for shit. What happened was many of them went directly to hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin and got badly addicted; the ones who have already died (either from OD or suicide) were the lucky ones as the remaining ones are just thrown on the scrap heap anyway.

@tryptameanie 984723 wrote:

How long did they continue with that policy GL?

its still running and now extends to the alcohol friendly venues. it is near impossible to put on a music event in this town without jumping through all kinds of hoops; even the Church of England get restrictions put on their venues!

On first glance it looks like a total success but the reality is are often too scared to drink in town for fear of being grassed up to their employers by their work colleagues via social media (younger people are now worse for this than the older generations!) – most of the addicts my age have died or the “lucky” (?) ones are rotting away in sheltered housing amongst the seniors and younger people with any sort of mental health problem are jumping from the Orwell Bridge one every few months. Although this seems like a high body count its overshadowed by road collision casualty figures so overlooked by the politicians and those who aren’t directly affected by the incidents.

in areas outside the big towns they are closing schools for lack of children and although there is all this paranoia about immigrants very few actually want to remain here particularly if they are or become parents and have to send their kids to school in England. Even native English people now try and leave East Anglia if they start families although things are no better in London or anywhere else down South TBH.

it applies to everywhere, all night time venues, pubs, and nightclubs. Even late opening supermarkets are constantly being monitored by trading standards. A load of these venues have indeed closed in recent times – some TBH won’t be missed but sadly it has affected a lot of the venues that weren’t full of troublemakers but attracted young lively crowds into different genres of music whilst the London based “night time economy” chains just about scrape by.

At least the real ale and gastropubs are still running and the beer is good enough for me to tolerate the infestations of hipsters these places invariably attract but I haven’t been for ages as I end up drinking way too much and also putting on weight (when did you last see a thin real ale drinker :laugh_at:)

TBH most of my real life friends (I do actually have some but unfortunately increasingly rarely manage to visit them) have drastically reduced or near enough stopped any use of substances over the last few years including alcohol. and the sort of people I tend to associate with are punks, anarchists, hippies, musicians and artists etc – I fully understand why they have made these decisions and respect them for it but for someone who grew up in the hedonistic 80s/90s its still a bit of a shock……

@tryptameanie 984734 wrote:

Well I can see things are OK for the middle classes still lol.

that is actually the truth and why Ipswich and its surrounding areas aren’t completely depopulated with a sign asking the Vikings to invade them again :laugh_at:

In the last 10 years Ipswich has actually a lot more “upmarket” – although the port is still a big part of the local economy most of the heavy jobs are automated and the non UK workers aren’t even allowed off the boats anyway due to anti-immigration paranoia (in spite of there only being 10 crew on a large cargo ship anyway who get paid way more for their jobs than they would for anything land based); the rest of the employers are financial services and IT companies and about 90% of the population are people who used to live in London/SE but moved here for work.

Bear in mind too that British Telecom was a major employer of locals (rather than just short term staff) until recently; most of them are now middle aged and still raise their extended families within the town (which is why the place is full of middle aged hippy real ale drinkers and prog rock fans :laugh_at:)

TBH I don’t consider life to be too bad here (its otherwise a relatively safe and very diverse multicultural community) but am really glad I moved here in my mid 30s rather than in my youth.

That said locals who did grow up in Suffolk have told me the same party scenes occured here as in SE England and London (where I did spend my 20s); unfortunately it looks like the area actually became a “victim of its own success” with regards to parties/hedonism in the 90s/2000s…

you still have to pedal e-bikes (its no longer permitted for them to work as “small mopeds” without pedalling) – they have been widely seen in East Anglia for years (I wasn’t the first person in Suffolk by any means to start riding one and when I lived in SE England rode an “old style” touring bike); cycling has always been popular in the East although there are still significant hills outside of the coastal areas.

E-bikes were available in Ipswich as early as 1980 (although improved by the Dutch, Germans and Chinese over the years) – there is one in the local transport museum! (there is a long tradition of designing electric vehicles and eco-friendly transport in the East of England…)

Even with the weight of the accu (these are made by Samsung and are powerful but lightweight, and the charge will easily take you 30km) it only weighs the same as a standard urban bike in NL or DE (25 kilos) – the 250W extra power is equivalent to having the power of an extra person pedalling.

So you can easily carry 16 kilos in the panniers and still go uphill at 20-25 km/h or 30+ km/h on the flat (which is double the speed you would achieve on the same bike unpowered).

As cyclists in the UK and outside of big towns in Europe tend to ride longer distances anyway e-bikes are becoming increasingly popular across Europe; although if I go to Germany I’d have to slow down in many areas as the 30 km/h limit is for everything with wheels; and there are cops who enforce these traffic rules (I posted a film up of them; they pulled over loads of people for relatively minor violations and they even have bank card readers to collect the fines!)