Dealing with drugs
Of the many reasons you discussed for legalising drugs, the most compelling is that by doing so we could improve public safety (12 September, p 30).
I am a 34-year police veteran who fought on the front lines of the “war on drugs”. I saw that prohibition doesn’t reduce drug abuse but does hand huge profits to murderous gangs and cartels who will do anything to control the illicit market.
If we legalised and regulated drug production and sales, it would wipe out the perverse profit incentives we’ve inadvertently created and the killing would stop, as it did when we took control of the liquor trade away from Al Capone’s gangster cronies at the end of alcohol prohibition.
The proposals on drug legalisation in Clare Wilson’s article do not go far enough. Drug legalisation, as described in the story, would never work or find enough votes to make it into law.
There are two problems. First, most existing drugs are simply too dangerous. Legalising crystal meth would be crazy. Secondly, the inertia involved with the existing system is too large to permit straightforward legalisation.
There is, however, another way. Why not allow the drug companies to design, test and certify recreational drugs. The government could set the safety standards for new recreational drugs, which probably already exist on the back shelves of drug industry research facilities. In fact, some existing pharmaceuticals, like Prozac and Ritalin, are close to being recreational drugs.
Drugs from a government-controlled process could push existing illegal drugs out of business: would you rather have crystal meth cooked in the kitchen of a trailer home or a professionally designed and produced drug? If one of the new drugs causes too much trouble it can be banned. Legalisation need not be an all-or-nothing process.
Red response
I was intrigued by Daniel Elkan’s article on how people react to the colour red (29 August, p 42).
The finding by Russell Hill and Robert Barton that 55 per cent of bouts in Olympic combat sports were won by the competitor wearing red makes me think that the Japanese may very well have been exploiting this effect for centuries. I had the opportunity to closely examine a number of kabuto helmets worn by samurai. Each helmet has a small brim at the front to shield the wearer’s eyes from the sun, which if I recall correctly has a finish of bright red lacquer on the underside.
The reflection from the brim would give the wearer’s face a reddish cast, perhaps increasing his apparent fierceness, affording an advantage during combat.
The bright red colour of freshly exposed arterial blood could account for many of the experimental observations that Elkan reports.
Most of us feel shocked at the sight of serious bleeding. This could be regarded as an evolutionary asset in that it induces an adrenalin rush associated with a sensation of distress or awareness of danger and enables us to do what is necessary, whether this requires helping the injured or “finishing off” the enemy.
It is not too big a stretch to imagine that bright red clothing worn by one competitor could cause an unsettling response in the other player, blunting the precision of reactions and plans.
Christchurch, New Zealand
Elkan’s article put me in mind of the L眉scher colour test first published in 1948.
The test purports to reveal personality traits by having people place eight coloured cards in order of preference. The basis of operation is a claimed difference in the vision system’s reaction to the different colours, or at least their relative brightness.
The results were uncanny to the point where I was embarrassed to use it on friends. I wonder if any of the researchers had run into this 60-year-old work.
Southfield, Michigan, US
This question remains unanswered: how and why is perception of the colour red so influential, given the high prevalence red-green colour blindness in males?
Elkan quotes Barton as stating “…red stimuli are perceived as dominant and they cause negative effects on performance in those viewing them”. Should someone have told Napoleon before he took on Wellington at Waterloo?
Totescore, Isle of Skye, UK
No DNA database
Clare Wilson thinks having a national DNA database is a good idea (12 September, p 30).
The proposal is a terrible idea. DNA is like any other form of physical evidence: it can be planted, tampered with, or removed. DNA evidence in court is given by “experts”, who could be bribed to alter or present the evidence in a way which benefits whoever is proffering the cash.
It is not difficult to envisage a scenario where someone with lots of money and friends in the right places would be more than capable of framing a famous or important person to get them out of the picture. Want to get rid of a political rival? That’ll be 拢100,000. Or are VIPs to be exempt from the database?
How much more Orwellian does Wilson want to get?
Old fat
Jo Whelan’s article about brown adipose tissue (BAT), which converts food calories to heat (15 August, p 38), reminded me of my communications with a researcher whose interest lay in BAT and the mechanisms for activating it.
In the 1970s, I was told by a researcher at the University of Oxford that women working in English munitions factories during the second world war complained of feeling hot and unexplained weight loss.
It transpired that chemicals involved in the production of munitions were responsible for “switching on” existing BAT deposits that were previously thought to disappear from the body in early childhood.
Subsequent research by the same group was unable to identify anything that was safe enough to use clinically as a BAT activator and so work stopped. I am pleased to see that interest in the subject has reawakened, but to suggest that BAT’s existence in adults has been discovered only recently is wide of the mark.
Less than appy
I’m disappointed that New 杏吧原创, which should surely be editorially independent, sees fit to dedicate an entire five pages and front-cover billing to what is a thinly disguised advertorial for Apple and iPhone (22 August, p 32).
What are we to expect next? A cover story on how GlaxoSmithKline has almost single-handedly eradicated world disease?
Climate predictions
Charles Lansdale wonders why we should believe predictions about climate change 50 years into the future when computer modellers sometimes fail to accurately predict the weather a few days in advance (15 August, p 22).
Perhaps if he stopped to consider how even a child can reliably predict that it will be generally colder in winter than in summer and hotter in Florida than in Iceland he might have the answer to his own question.
Spending my money
Dave Riddlestone (15 August, p 22) tells us that the defence community argues that “global warming research is a funding cash cow”.
This from the defence community. Please stop, the pain of laughter is unbearable! Surely this violates the Geneva Convention on torture?
The Science party
In part 1 of the “Blueprint for a better world” (12 September, p 30) it is argued that in politics “so-called common sense and good intentions are no substitute for hard evidence”, and Richard Dawkins suggests the world would be a better place if everybody learned to think like a scientist. So now all we need is somebody with enough time and money to form a new political party, the Scientific Democrats, which would commit to funding a systematic review of multiple randomised trials, the results of which would directly determine policy.
For the big issues such as education, crime and climate change, panels of our most distinguished scientists could be called upon to help formulate the research proposals, but in addition the public could register on the Scientific Democrats website to vote on what areas additional research money should be spent. Anybody want to take up the task? You’ve got my vote.
Feeling warmer
Contrary to the research that relates cold drinks to a less friendly and warm impression of a person (12 September, p 46), I have found that my friends warm noticeably towards me when offered a gin and tonic, plus ice and lemon, which although acid only adds to the warm feeling.
Washing water
Brian Wootton need not wait for washing machine manufacturers to go back to producing dual-inlet goods to make the most of his solar water-heater panels (12 September, p 27). I know of no important part of the washing machine cycle that demands cold water. If he has a source of free, or very cheap, warm water he can simply connect it to the single inlet on the machine.
For the record
鈥� Harry Truman, of course, only won one presidential election (15 August, p 5). The first time round he succeeded Franklin Roosevelt after the latter’s untimely death.