a number of my Welsh friends speak Welsh as well as English but said its only used in the North and rural areas. One girl I knew normally spoke English but if she was on a bad comedown and PMT and the same time would often refuse to speak anything other than Welsh (whether or not anyone understood her, that way people left her alone).
I’ve noticed that penalties in the devolved countries (Wales and Scotland) are often thigher than in England, though England’s are now catching up. This seems a paradox as Scotland and Wales actually have more left wing elected governments and are tolerant with other issues (for instance more music events get licensed in these countries).
The reasons for this are complex, interlinked, unpleasant and there is no chance of a bright side any time soon. One reason is that when devolution came, both countries were subject to a lot of pressure from the English right wing “not to be soft on drugs or we will take away valuable investment and give it to Asia” (they did this anyway). There are darker reasons. its not even the politicians and media who are totally to blame. the UK is a democratic European nation and the adult public here are not all complete muppets.
it is other people just like us, who don’t take drugs, but choose to judge those who do and openly want to see them suffer, either as revenge and retribution for what has happened to folk they know either now or in the past. they know its not politiclaly correct to call for open retribution (even harsh Asian countries have wised up loads) but they still want to see it and call for it in the media and vote for politicians what take a hard line. Even at work and in “real life” a lot of younger people are shocked and some even slightly pissed off that a guy like me has a high paid ICT job and may be above them in the corporate ladder and isn’t in prison or mental hospital.
I’ve seen many anti drugs campaigners and enforcers hail the declining quality of some drugs as a victory in the war on drugs.
What pisses me off most is we have something which is worse than a harsh foreign nation’s politicians and authorities having the balls to say up front “drugs have high prison sentence and the death penalty” and put the resources into enforcing it, instead its a devious underhand system giving young people mixed messages, letting them do a bit of drugs (especially if they are middle class, live in a more affluent area but are not normally prepared to continue with drugs or any sort of dissent after their 20s)
but if they dare “have fun for too long” the system strikes hard, dragging them down to the gutter to suffer long term from contaminated drugs, long term health problems or even “lenient” penalties which sting people 10-20 years later when their records are checked for long term careers.
Now the harsh Asian nations are abandoning the death penalty in droves for more caring approaches (for instance the1log would have better treatement in a Malaysia rehab these days!) this malice should be seen for what it is, but too many folk outside our circles persist in it. Worse, its infecting the mindsets of previously tolerant nations, as I’ve noticed even the formerly 100% accurate Dutch drugs charities being ambiguous about how much contaminated stuff is around (in such a way that the message clearly given is the same prohibitionist one as England).
