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OK - that wasn't my claim so I can't say if its more likely to get "busted" in Niddrie than Balerno. There's ~500 police warnings a month issued across Scotland for cannabis possession.
0.5M users per week ? That doesn't stack up against the official government data: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-health-survey-2021-volume-1-main-report/pages/13/ which says 6% of all adults used cannabis in the previous 12 months.
That link also say more likely to use drugs if in an area of deprivation, so logically you might be more likely to get "busted".
Where is the evidence to support this statement:
My gut feeling really from what I have seen. Drugs market has split IMO in the UK with neds having a low quality product sold in a risky manner ie street exchanges, The middle classes have access to much better product distributed in a much less noticeable way. so its less liely to come to the attention of the police. as poly says most drugs busts are accidental.
Biggest one i saw when working with the police came about because to cops saw someone chuck a pizza box out of a car window, they went to have a word, smelt cannabis and searched the car. found a kilo of weed.
More cash – SNP? They have pumped a lot of money into deprived urban areas and put in a lot of support
Fair point, I was thinking wider than the specific Scottish situation, being blinkered by my flag of St George and not having such a progressive party to vote for.
Poly - I would guess the 10% of the population in the last month is rather more accurate than 6% in the last year judging by the constant wiff of weed.
Even in my day the police didn't care much about cannabis, last thing they want is paperwork and off the streets for a kid with a joint or two, as long as you're not daft in winding them up or puffing in their face you'd be fine, same nowadays, christ we have a few houses round here that absolutely stink of weed all the time, nobody cares as they do it in their property and aren't being anti-social.
Where you grow up doesn't mark you for life, being in a broken home, yes that's more likely to influence, but there's always chances, and the mates i had who ended up in jail or worse, well they tended to choose the wrong friends to hang around and prone to peer pressure within those groups, growing up in Scotland the biggest issue we always had was bloody drink, lost too many of my old mates to that, we still treat drinking like it's nothing as well, way worse than a bit of dope.
Anyone who wants a simple explanation of why inequality and deprivation persists this explains it well. american but the same stuff applies here
0.5M users per week ?
That's what Tommy Sheppard of the SNP says (at Q312) but I think you're right that it's a very high number and he probably just misspoke in reference to a figure brought up by someone else in the same meeting.
https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/9504/html
In any case, you have a very large number of users and a very small number of arrests and no evidence to show arrests are unfairly or disproportionately higher in poor areas. Back to the main theme...
That's a really interesting link @politecameraaction
I dont agree with your second claim though an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
For example this paper argues that smaller incomes and broken family background are both factors leading to an increase in delinquency
https://www.cairn.info/revue-francaise-de-sociologie-1-2011-5-page-63.htm
Re: my previous comment about scumbags, scroungers & catholics
That was a reflection on the idiocy I got bombarded with on a daily basis in a previous job. I thought it was fairly obvious (especially with the bit about catholics) that it was not in any way serious or my opinion. I really should have known after PCA's comment fell flat, clearly we have actually fallen that far down the rabbit hole.
So apologies for offence caused, I'll consider my words more carefully in future.
For example this paper argues that smaller incomes and broken family background are both factors leading to an increase in delinquency
That's a terribly interesting article but it's totally irrelevant to the assertion that
attitudes towards cannabis and being busted. the middle class kid and the working class kid will get the same treatment if busted but the chances of being busted are much greater if you are from Niddrie than from balerno.
and I think in this case absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
Squirrelking - to me it was about a subtle as a hammer in its obvious satirical content!