LETTERS: Tobruk, drugs and plastic bags

"WAS the scuttling of Tobruk a failure? It was supposed to settled on the sea floor in an upright position, not on its side.”

An aerial shot of the ex-HMAS Tobruk after it was scuttled. Picture: Contributed

Scuttle fail?

WAS the scuttling of Tobruk a failure?

It was supposed to settled on the sea floor in an upright position, not on its side.

A lot of money was spent painting directional signs in special paint for the guidance of future divers.

With the ship on its side, are these signs dangerously misleading?

Can the wreck now be safely used for recreational diving?

Perhaps the powers that be would answer our queries?

FREDERICK F ARCHER

Bundaberg

Drug laws

ALTHOUGH in the minority, lunatic "Reefer Madness” warriors, are at it again.

US New Jersey Democrat state senator recently told journalists "if we legalise recreational marijuana, they're going to put up stores that sell cupcakes with marijuana, candies with marijuana, sex toysand oils with marijuana, lipsticks with marijuana, all those kinds of products that kids can get and people can get. And the number of people who've never used any type of drugs goes up substantially in terms of drug use”.

Quite the contrary.

Government-sponsored research shows that legalising weed actually reduces teen drug use, opioid addiction, as well as prescription drug use.

A Washington State Institute for Public Policy-commissioned study found that since legalisation, marijuana use by adolescents dropped by a whopping 4 per cent in six years.

Recent research in Canada, "Marijuana for Medical Purposes”, found marijuana can effectively manage pain, reduce dependency on tobacco, alcohol, and replace a number of prescription medications, including antidepressants.

Meanwhile, here in Queensland people are still prosecuted for marijuana deemed a dangerous drug.

The time for a thorough review and rethink of drug laws is long overdue.

As people become more aware of the government's misguided propaganda and the actual demonstrated benefits of cannabis, prosecution will make criminals of ordinarily honest people.

Governments' easiest response to law-abiding citizens is to do nothing, but when a government neglects the rights of the people, resistance, even insurrection, is a sacred and mandatory duty.

Change doesn't just happen. You have to make it happen.

DIETER MOECKEL

Wonbah

Plastic bags

THIS current fiasco regarding plastic bags perfectly illustrates the lack of lateral thinking that takes place in politics.

To appease one group we ban single-use plastic bags, mind you, for good environmental reasons.

The only flaw in that argument is that a high percentage of those bags are used at least twice and we introduced good laws in the past that these bags had to be biodegradable.

That makes a huge part of the ban useless.

We have to be able to transport our purchased supplies from shop to home, so enter the re-usable plastic bag which we originally had to purchase but in some cases are free.

These bags are not biodegradable, use considerably more energy to produce and introduce a huge concern about health factors in two basic areas.

The first being a health risk to the owner as they are carriers of multiple diseases but more importantly to innocent checkout attendants and other shoppers when contact with the bags is made via hands or left on the equipment.

The use of these bags has been promoted by the multinational companies.

This opens up the possibility of legal action due to health issues as there is a complete lack of cleaning instructions.

All in all, these bags become a huge problem that far exceeds the positives of the single-use ban.

We now come to the real politics side of the problem.

If we had some intelligence in this area we would have legislated that any replacement bag had to be single use and preferably constructed from recycled materials and, of course, environmentally sound.

Enter paper bags, all the problems are eradicated and guess what, years ago paper bags were supplied by grocers and, of course, using paper bags has a job-creating motive as well as ticking all of the environmental and health boxes.

All this begs the question: Why should multinational companies dictate in these type of situations due to the absence of good law making?

They obviously had a cost for the purchase of the single-use bag now that has been turned around to them making a profit on these new multi-use bags, so who is better off? Work that out for yourself.

R HENDERSON

Sharon