A real and fully deserved battering.

[melv]

Can't help but laugh at this incident.

 

http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/Hanley-oatcake-seller-helps-police-catch-man-spat/story-21935861-detail/story.html

[mbycars]

Can't help but laugh at this incident.

 

http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/Hanley-oatcake-seller-helps-police-catch-man-spat/story-21935861-detail/story.html

 

Yes lets laugh at someone who's life has reached gutter level! The guy may deserve all he has got, but maybe things have gone sadly wrong and spiralled out of control we just don't know the facts. Until we do lets NOT laugh about the incident.

[JOHNNYAITCH]

Personally I don't laugh at homeless heroin addicts and what their addiction drives them to..but each to their own I guess

[geosname]

Can't help but laugh at this incident.

 

http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/Hanley-oatcake-seller-helps-police-catch-man-spat/story-21935861-detail/story.html

 

Very strange story indeed....

Everyone cheered?.. at 7.30am?

The oatcake man asked him to leave?... leave what?.. the street?

He wouldnt give him an oatcake but wasted several poured over his head?.. what drugs was he on?

No problem with punishment for spitting or assault.

Is it funny?.. in a sick slapstick sort of way I suppose it is, batter over the head, if your into slapstick.

Is being homeless funny? being a drug addict? spitting? throwing money away? the price he charges for oatcakes?... I dont find any of those things funny

[SourceOfTheTrent]

Hats off to the oatcake man for defending himself.

 

No one makes anyone take drugs, becoming an addict is self inflicted although it is true young, uninformed and naiieve people are often targeted by dealers. However, the court evidence says that this guy was 18 when he started on heroin, so in my book it's self inflicted.

 

I find it hard to have much sympathy for hard drug users and I say that having experienced a good friend dying through heroin use when I was quite young. I've come to the conclusion that if we REALLY want to tackle the drugs problem it will take an unpalatable dose of brutality, particularly towards the dealers / pushers and those addicts who do not / will not respond to the plethora of expensive assistance offered them. They're a hideous cancer on decent society and should be cut out accordingly.

[davidatpreston]

Hats off to the oatcake man for defending himself.

 

No one makes anyone take drugs, becoming an addict is self inflicted although it is true young, uninformed and naiieve people are often targeted by dealers. However, the court evidence says that this guy was 18 when he started on heroin, so in my book it's self inflicted.

 

I find it hard to have much sympathy for hard drug users and I say that having experienced a good friend dying through heroin use when I was quite young. I've come to the conclusion that if we REALLY want to tackle the drugs problem it will take an unpalatable dose of brutality, particularly towards the dealers / pushers and those addicts who do not / will not respond to the plethora of expensive assistance offered them. They're a hideous cancer on decent society and should be cut out accordingly.

 

That all sounds fine, but unfortunately does not work at all. Even countries with the strictest drugs policies (death penalty even) have a growing problem. This growing problem will happen everywhere worldwide as long as there is money to be made, as greed is the main factor here.

However, you might like to look at the problem a little more widely. 95 per cent of the world's heroin comes from one tiny cesspit of a country called Afghanistan. It would be very easy for the US and possibly the UK (and other EU states) to destroy the production facilities but they have consistently failed to do so - why? I honestly don't know and even if it is because they don't want the opium growing farmers to starve (which I don't accept for a second) they could actually BUY the opium crop and destroy it, or pay the farmers more to grow something else.

Why hasn't this happened ? You tell me.

If this were done, and at the same time the drugs were legalised and controlled tightly then the profiteering drug barons would be out of a job. Addicts could go to a centre for a controlled clean dose, full education could be given to kids from about aged 8 (as in Holland, where after a programme of showing small children heroin addicts suffering badly but with the addicts agreement, hard drug usage plummeted). Crime levels would drop - ask policemen anywhere and they will tell you that a massive proportion of burglaries are due to desperate addicts.

The problem could be solved but the will is not there because of corruption, graft, greed and profit.

[Andyregs]

I can see both sides. Though i hate spitting, and don't think the oatcake seller did anything wrong.

[SourceOfTheTrent]

That all sounds fine, but unfortunately does not work at all. Even countries with the strictest drugs policies (death penalty even) have a growing problem. This growing problem will happen everywhere worldwide as long as there is money to be made, as greed is the main factor here.

However, you might like to look at the problem a little more widely. 95 per cent of the world's heroin comes from one tiny cesspit of a country called Afghanistan. It would be very easy for the US and possibly the UK (and other EU states) to destroy the production facilities but they have consistently failed to do so - why? I honestly don't know and even if it is because they don't want the opium growing farmers to starve (which I don't accept for a second) they could actually BUY the opium crop and destroy it, or pay the farmers more to grow something else.

Why hasn't this happened ? You tell me.

If this were done, and at the same time the drugs were legalised and controlled tightly then the profiteering drug barons would be out of a job. Addicts could go to a centre for a controlled clean dose, full education could be given to kids from about aged 8 (as in Holland, where after a programme of showing small children heroin addicts suffering badly but with the addicts agreement, hard drug usage plummeted). Crime levels would drop - ask policemen anywhere and they will tell you that a massive proportion of burglaries are due to desperate addicts.

The problem could be solved but the will is not there because of corruption, graft, greed and profit.

 

I agree with your point about Afghanistan and have often wondered why we (the 'developed' world) haven't tackled it in some way, along with other producing areas. However, they only produce because there is a market and we don't do much to clamp down on it in our own country. I can't agree that the understanding / theraputical / educational approach is or has been very successful and whilst I don't advocate abandoning it altogether what I do advocate is a genuinely tough stance on, as I said, the hardened users and dealers. When I refer to brutality I don't see a capital punishment approach as being any sort of panacea; the brutality refers to a lesser emphasis on weight of evidence against people involved in drug use and sales, much harsher consequences following conviction (eg, true confiscation of assets / removal of cash benefits / open prison accommodation as opposed to providing social housing to users / removal from society for persistent offenders, etc.) and, more importantly, a massive increase in the detection / arrest rate for drugs offenders.

The use of drugs is NO excuse for offending and should not be allowed to be offered as mitigating circumstances. As you say, drug users are a significant proportion of offenders which is why we should tackle it. 40 years of 'softly softly' approach has failed miserably but, as we can all agree, there doesn't seem much will from governments to really eradicate or even reduce the problem.

[Tosh]

Yes lets laugh at someone who's life has reached gutter level! The guy may deserve all he has got, but maybe things have gone sadly wrong and spiralled out of control we just don't know the facts. Until we do lets NOT laugh about the incident.

 

I agree with this, the incident itself is kinda funny but the bigger picture isn't. Not everyone lives the perfect life, or is fortunate to do so.

[JOHNNYAITCH]

Without the Opium precursor bought from those Afghani poppy fields there would be a global shortfall of Morphine and Codeine for hospitals.

 

Might be why he suggested that the US/EU could consider buying the crops

[JOHNNYAITCH]

legalise drugs, put the dealers out of business, pay the growers in order to control the supply, educate the young properly on this, treat the addicts, punish them if they don't seek or accept help and commit crime to feed their addiction, tax it, licence it..basically be grown up about it

[melv]

Yes lets laugh at someone who's life has reached gutter level! The guy may deserve all he has got, but maybe things have gone sadly wrong and spiralled out of control we just don't know the facts. Until we do lets NOT laugh about the incident.

 

Laughing at the incident (he spit at the guy because he couldn't get a free oatcake)

NOT laughing about being homeless.

In the end he got more than he expected,he got multiple oatcakes.They just weren't cooked.

[JOHNNYAITCH]

You can't divorce an incident from those taking part in the incident..had it been someone with say a mental handicap would it still be OK to laugh at the 'incident'

[melv]

You can't divorce an incident from those taking part in the incident..had it been someone with say a mental handicap would it still be OK to laugh at the 'incident'

 

He fully deserved what what he got for the disgusting spitting he did.Maybe he will think twice about spitting at someone next time.Absolutely NO reason at all to spit he could have pass on any disease.

[geosname]

Hats off to the oatcake man for defending himself.

 

No one makes anyone take drugs, becoming an addict is self inflicted although it is true young, uninformed and naiieve people are often targeted by dealers. However, the court evidence says that this guy was 18 when he started on heroin, so in my book it's self inflicted.

 

I find it hard to have much sympathy for hard drug users and I say that having experienced a good friend dying through heroin use when I was quite young. I've come to the conclusion that if we REALLY want to tackle the drugs problem it will take an unpalatable dose of brutality, particularly towards the dealers / pushers and those addicts who do not / will not respond to the plethora of expensive assistance offered them. They're a hideous cancer on decent society and should be cut out accordingly.

 

Does that include drunks/smokers/obese people... and people who supply food/smokes/booze?... what is a "decent society"? One that says some can get treatment but others cant?... one that extends the licensing hours so more people can drink more, be more abusive and fight more?.. one that allows politicians to claim more in expenses than some earn as salary?... one that hands out 12 weeks for spitting and gives rolf what?

Did the oatcake man have a go because he was upset or to get his face and business all over the front page?

Thailand has a serious drugs problem, although they wont admit it, smuggling carries the death penalty, 20 years in the hilton for 20 E tabs. Hiking up sentences wont stop it, it has to be controlled from growing it to the use of it.