Nearly Free

So the good news today is that Tracy Lewis, the codeine lady, has been acquitted. The bad news is that she may have to hang around for a fortnight while the Public Prosecution decide whether they want to appeal the verdict. Given the sensitivity of this case, they may make their decision very quickly, in which case she will be free to go.

What a shambles. I am disgusted and totally ashamed by this case. The lady has had to spend eight weeks in jail for nothing! I know that the UK legal system is capable of similar cock-ups and miscarriages of justice, but not generally over an issue of such doubtful criminality. By which I mean that in this case what she did is nothing like a crime in most of the rest of world, it is only made a crime because for some obscure reason codiene is a controlled drug in this country.

Another interesting, possibly related article in today's Gulf News . Four doctors have been deported for alledgedly selling prescriptions for (unspecified) narcotic drugs to anyone who wanted them.

A psychiatrist commented to Gulf News:
"As a medical professional I am outraged at such conduct but some of these arrests are set up by the police. Drug enforcement agencies send a patient who falsely claims he is sick. We, as doctors, are sometimes duped by the informants and write them prescriptions. How are we supposed to know they are making up these symptoms?"

How often do you see reports on criminal activity in this parish that include the phrase 'the suspect was arrested in a sting operation'? It seems to me that CID spend more time turning innocent people into 'criminals' than they do in chasing the actual wicked perps that are running loose out there. It ticks me off, so it do.