Saturday, March 05, 2005

National Party sides with Criminals

Recent political moves to force pubs/nighclubs to serve free water have confirmed Mine Hosts' belief that common sense & government need not inhabit the same dimension.

A certain National Party member of state parliment has recently been laying the boot into pubs/nightclubs for selling bottled water at $4 or more per "bottle". This ingenuous member of parliament has called for legislation to force nightclubs to provide free water.
The logic used by the good lady member: "Kids" buy ecstasy, then enter nightclubs/pubs where, being as they are high on ecstasy, they don't require or consume much alcohol. Thus "greedy" publicans sell water at "inflated" prices knowing that ecstasy users are extremely dehydrated & will want to consume large quantities of water.

Wryly Mine Host notes that the lady politician should know better. Kids don't get into nightclubs, and it is well known that once inside ALL drinks (not only water) are relatively expensive.

Mine Host has an issue with the mental competence of those who believe that purchasers of ecstasy are somehow forced to buy their essential water supplies from nowhere but nightclubs.

Why should licenced & regulated operators (ie, nightclubs/pubs) be forced to provide the antidote to an illegal street drug? If the street price of ecstasy leaves the user with insufficient funds to purchase water in a nightclub, there are alternatives: Venture to the nearest service station & buy bottled water (for 1/3 the nightclub price) for an even cheaper dose of water go to the park & drink cost free from the duckpond.

What Mine Host would NOT do were he to have a need of water, especially one brought on by an illegal act, is enter a nightclub, knowing full well the price of everything, THEN complain & whinge in the media about the price. If drug users spend too much on drugs & have not enough money left for going to the pub, perhaps revese the order of their purchases? Buy water & entertainment first, THEN purchase illegal drugs, & take up the issue of price with a corner drug dealer?

Mine Host is shocked, nay incensed, that a National Party sitting member has formed a coalition with drug users & is now complaining publicly about the price of water in nighclubs.

The price & sale of ecstasy, however, remains unregulated, unlicenced, illegal, & to date has not been the subject of complaint by either the good member or her "coalition" partners.

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