Skip to main content
Skip to main navigation
Skip to talk navigation

Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Unflip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Unflip

1 2

News

Tory MP Crispin Blunt 'outs himself' as popper user

36 replies

LurkingHusband · 20/01/2016 16:58

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35363865

A Conservative MP has told the House of Commons he is a user of the popper recreational drug and a ban on its supply would be "fantastically stupid".
Ex-minister Crispin Blunt said users of the drug were "astonished" by talk of a ban and respect for the law "would fly out of the window" if it happened.

(contd)

OP posts:

Report

LordOfMisrule · 24/01/2016 16:16

I'm a poppers user too.

ppeatfruit · 23/01/2016 13:23

Yes but at least booze and fags are slightly less acceptable than they used to be, esp. fags.

I love the way ex heroin users still smoke normal cigarettes and think it's ok but they are apparently worse (or just as addictive).

ArcheryAnnie · 23/01/2016 13:12

Ophelia I've still got a scar on my calf from falling asleep with an insufficiently-wrapped hot water bottle years ago!

I don't even drink (not teetotal, just rarely/never get around to it), never mind take drugs, but I applaud any MP who is prepared to be open about their drug use. He's right, too - for the younger gay men I know it's a totally normal thing. Education about possible side-effects, especially for people with heart problems, would be a good thing, but a blanket ban without considering the wider implications of instantly criminalising a large number of people seems to be not very sensible.

(And like hundreds and thousands of other people, my dad died from fags, and my mum from booze, neither of which anyone is going to criminalise anytime soon.)

LurkingHusband · 22/01/2016 14:39

Is there a bodily autonomy angle here ?

OP posts:

0phelia · 22/01/2016 14:36

A mate of mine had a bottle of poppers in his pocket and fell asleep. He woke up with severe burns down his thigh, the lid had somehow leaked. Horrendous! Other than that unlikely side effect, they're no more harmful than spirits.

ppeatfruit · 22/01/2016 14:33

The only problem with that attitude Cotedazur is that if people come to grief then the very overstretched NHS has to pick up the pieces I apply that to idiots who climb mountains in bad conditions etc. too.btw.

CoteDAzur · 22/01/2016 12:56

My one sniff of poppers made my ears burn. Not an experience I sought to repeat.

I have been told that it has very interesting and pleasurable effects when used shortly before orgasm, and that is by heterosexual couples.

I'm with you in general, OP. Everyone should be free to eat, drink, snort, or otherwise ingest whatever the hell they want. It is none of government's business what people do with their bodies in the pursuit of good fun, whether it is dildos or ecstasy pills.

QueenStromba · 21/01/2016 21:56

That would be why they look like normal poppies to me then!

ForalltheSaints · 21/01/2016 21:27

I was at university with him- we even spoke about the Falklands War in a shop! This surprised me even more than when he came out a few years ago. Brave of him as I suspect those who want him deselected will use it against him.

ppeatfruit · 21/01/2016 17:48

It's the large seeds they ain't small believe me

MsBojangles · 21/01/2016 17:48

Poppers remind me 1998, good times.

LurkingHusband · 21/01/2016 17:46

I vaguely recall it takes a lot of poppies to get any useful amount of opium.

Anyway I love poppy-seeded bread.

OP posts:

Oldraver · 21/01/2016 17:37

There are opium poppies all over the shop were we live..the police would be inundated

ppeatfruit · 21/01/2016 17:18

No I don't think they are. But an english couple were taken to a police station for growing them, accidentally like us, (reported by a mean neighbour). No doubt the police laughed about it.

LurkingHusband · 21/01/2016 17:13

we're in France btw.

No idea about French drug laws. I doubt they're much more sense than UK ones.

OP posts:

LurkingHusband · 21/01/2016 17:12

How did you know they were opium poppies? I just googled them and they look like bog standard poppies to me.

from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papaver_somniferum

It is also valuable for ornamental purposes, and has been known as the "common garden poppy", referencing all the group of poppy

Balance of probabilities, see a poppy in the UK - it'll be an opium one. Quite legal. So presumably opium isn't dangerous, whilst cannabis (any sort - the whole genus is banned) isn't. Or that's what the kids will think.

OP posts:

ppeatfruit · 21/01/2016 17:11

I googled them, They were shaggy and pink, not standard looking at all, we're in France btw.

QueenStromba · 21/01/2016 17:05

How did you know they were opium poppies? I just googled them and they look like bog standard poppies to me.

LurkingHusband · 21/01/2016 17:03

Oh yes I agree, in my garden last year we had opium poppies, just literally appear, if a neighbour had felt unpleasant enough we could've been put in chokey (we did nothing with them btw.).

Why ? It's not illegal to grow them ? (Yet another idiocy in the "War on Drugs" (c)). You can grow acres of the things. As indeed, is being done in Didcot.

OP posts:

coffeetasteslikeshit · 21/01/2016 16:29

Couldn't agree more OP. Have you seen this: www.ted.com/talks/ethan_nadelmann_why_we_need_to_end_the_war_on_drugs/transcript?language=en?

ppeatfruit · 21/01/2016 16:27

Oh yes I agree, in my garden last year we had opium poppies, just literally appear, if a neighbour had felt unpleasant enough we could've been put in chokey (we did nothing with them btw.).

I love the true story that the reason alcohol wasn't banned was because the whiskey manufacturers were among the committee members who were discussing the issue in the early 1900s.

And of course anything that IS banned is catnip for rebellious yoof.

LurkingHusband · 21/01/2016 16:20

Just heard an item on the radio about the 'poppers' they're not as bad as alcohol but have nasty side effects for some people.

Who cares ? What business is it of yours, mine or (and especially the governments) what people choose to put into their body. Bearing in mind little things like:

Foxgloves are poisonous.
There's enough nicotine in a cigarette to kill a child.
1 litre of scotch is enough to kill an adult.
Walking in rush hour city traffic is like smoking a small cigar.
Any half competent chemist could take out a minibus of people with what's found in most bathrooms.

As soon as the state starts to stick its nose into peoples business - especially when that business is in private and hurting nobody but themselves then we need to be very careful.

The "War on Drugs" (c) was not, is not, and will never be anything to do with peoples health or happiness. It's everything to do with using the machinery of state to try to enforce somebody elses moral code.

If the state were really serious about wanting to "save lives" it could start by banning cars - the cause of 3,000 deaths a year. Failing that, it could ban alcohol - cause of 8416 deaths in the UK in 2013 (deaths due to all illegal drugs in 2013 = 1,957).

Or, the Grandaddy of them all, tobacco related deaths (c. 100,000 every year).

So what's banned and what's not has nothing to do with logic, science or reason, and everything to do with the fact that (revenue raising) drugs are "good" and untaxed drugs are "bad".

Chatting with MrsLH yesterday, and I suspect the future will see the public leading the way (by behaviour) and the legislators having to catch up. With austerity giving a helping hand. In my own city already, the police are starting to warn that "crime is changing".

There's also a nasty streak of paternalism about banning anything - it's very much "is this a book you would like your wife or servants to read" type of attitude.

By all means ban/control trade in drugs (one of the states roles is to regulate trade to promote a healthy economy). But it's ridiculous that I can (and do) brew enough beer to flatten a touring theatre company, but plant a hemp seed, and it's chokey for me.

OP posts:

ppeatfruit · 21/01/2016 15:27

Crispin Cxxx should start a campaign to ban alcohol in the H Of C apparently the bill for it every year is many many many thousands of pounds, that would save some of the taxpayers' money (sorry no link to the correct amount).

Just heard an item on the radio about the 'poppers' they're not as bad as alcohol but have nasty side effects for some people.

MephistophelesApprentice · 21/01/2016 15:24

People in the UK wouldn't recognise that if it was paraded in with fireworks in the New Year.

You might be surprised.

Out of morbid curiosity I checked the comments on a Daily Mail "all drugs are bad and this tiny anecdotal example is why" article. I then checked every other one I could find to verify, but it certainly appears as if the majority of readers agree with "legalise, regulate, tax and educate" for most drugs short of heroin.

There are massive rifts between what the public want and what the political/media class think we should want.

LurkingHusband · 21/01/2016 14:33

a sensible or evidence based drugs policy

People in the UK wouldn't recognise that if it was paraded in with fireworks in the New Year.

Remember kids. You can prove anything you like with facts.

OP posts:

Unflip

1 2

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.