I’ve never taken drugs or drunk alcohol, says Zack Polanski
The leader of the Green party, Zack Polanski, has said he has never taken drugs or “even drunk alcohol” in his life, but wants to legalise all drugs and regulate their use.Polanski was asked on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme if he had taken drugs at university.“I’ve actually never taken a drug in my life, or even drunk alcohol, but I still don’t sit here as the fun police,” he said.“I very clearly believe people should be able to do what they want to do.It just wasn’t for me.
”He told Kuenssberg that politicians who admitted taking drugs and then advocated for incarcerating drug users were taking a “hypocritical approach”, when a “public health approach” was needed to prevent deaths.“It’s about legalising and regulating.If someone has a problematic relationship to drugs then surely the answer is to make sure they’re seen by a medical professional who can help them,” Polanski said.Keir Starmer, who has previously said he “worked hard and played hard” at university in response to questions about whether he used drugs at university, accused the Green party of being “high on drugs, soft on Putin” during prime minister’s questions last Wednesday.Polanski, a member of the London assembly, said hearing Starmer “making cheap jokes delivered badly” about drug use from the dispatch box was “pretty disgraceful” and that joking about Putin and Russia was also “pretty vile”, especially when he was not in the House of Commons to defend his party.
Illegal drug use was “very racialised”, he said, with innocent young black people far more likely to be stopped and searched for drugs than their white peers.“We’ve had ministers both from the Labour and the Conservative government who have openly said on record that they’ve taken drugs, yet they’re putting in prison people who have taken drugs, and very often, again, it’s disproportionately young black and brown people.”He initially evaded a question about whether legalising class A drugs – including heroin and cocaine – could send a message to young people that the use of dangerous drugs was OK, telling Kuenssberg: “First of all, we could talk about alcohol, which can sometimes be one of the most dangerous drugs, and actually we need a public health approach to that too.”When pressed to answer the question, he said: “I think the danger is happening right now, which is where we’re pushing it [dangerous drug use] into street corners and into a black market … The war on drugs is not working.In fact, it’s making drugs more dangerous.
“What we need is a grownup conversation, based on evidence, taking a public health approach that looks at prevention, intervention and makes sure that afterwards, people can get the support they need.”Asked whether he was teetotal as a matter of principle, he said: “Not at all.I just grew up in school where a lot of my friends were drinking and, in fact, taking drugs.And often it felt like someone needed to be sober.”Earlier in the interview, he told Kuenssberg that a surprising fact about himself was that he used to breakdance.
“I’ve always liked dancing without taking drink or drugs,” he added,“If anyone wants to do it and they’re doing it safely, I’m really glad people are having a good time, but we know lots of people aren’t taking it safely, so let’s make sure they get the support they need,”
Why TikTok’s first week of American ownership was a disaster
A little more than one week ago, TikTok stepped on to US shores as a naturalized citizen. Ever since, the video app has been fighting for its life.TikTok’s calamitous emigration began on 22 January when its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, finalized a deal to sell the app to a group of US investors, among them the business software giant Oracle. The app’s time under Chinese ownership had been marked by a meteoric ascent to more than a billion users, which left incumbents such as Instagram looking like the next Myspace. But TikTok’s short new life in the US has been less than auspicious
US authorities reportedly investigate claims that Meta can read encrypted WhatsApp messages
US authorities have reportedly investigated claims that Meta can read users’ encrypted chats on the WhatsApp messaging platform, which it owns.The reports follow a lawsuit filed last week, which claimed Meta “can access virtually all of WhatsApp users’ purportedly ‘private’ communications”.Meta has denied the allegation, reported by Bloomberg, calling the lawsuit’s claim “categorically false and absurd”. It suggested the claim was a tactic to support the NSO Group, an Israeli firm that develops spyware used against activists and journalists, and which recently lost a lawsuit brought by WhatsApp.The firm that filed last week’s lawsuit against Meta, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, attributes the allegation to unnamed “courageous” whistleblowers from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa
We have lost so much of ourselves to smartphones: can we get it back?
In 2003, the Stanford social scientist BJ Fogg published an extraordinarily prescient book. Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do predicted a future in which a student “sits in a college library and removes an electronic device from her purse”. It serves as her “mobile phone, information portal, entertainment platform, and personal organiser. She takes this device almost everywhere and feels lost without it.”Such devices, Fogg argued, would be “persuasive technology systems … the device can suggest, encourage, and reward
Elon Musk had more extensive ties to Epstein than previously known, emails show
Elon Musk had more extensive – and more friendly – communications with the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein than previously publicly known, according to documents released on Friday by the Department of Justice. Emails in the files appear to show the two cordially messaging each other on two separate occasions to make plans for Musk to visit Epstein’s island.The documents include Musk and Epstein emailing in both 2012 and 2013 to determine when Musk should make the trip to Little St James. Neither exchanges appear to have resulted in Musk visiting the island, due to logistical issues.“Will be in the BVI/St Bart’s area over the holidays
What good is a social media ban when screens are rife in classrooms? | Letters
Your recent coverage of children’s screen use (How screen time affects toddlers: ‘We’re losing a big part of being human’, 22 January) highlights an issue that still receives remarkably little attention: the amount of screen time built into the school day. While politicians debate bans on social media for under‑16s, and teachers report children trying to swipe the pages of books, it is puzzling that the question of screen time in schools is left out of discussions.Every morning, most primary school children are greeted by an electronic whiteboard glowing in the classroom, often left on all day. Lessons are delivered as slides, tablets are used for activities, and many schools require homework to be completed online.When it rains, “wet play” means more screen‑based entertainment
AI-generated news should carry ‘nutrition’ labels, thinktank says
AI-generated news should carry “nutrition” labels and tech companies must pay publishers for the content they use, according to a left-of-centre thinktank, amid rising use of the technology as a source for current affairs.The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said AI firms were rapidly emerging as the new “gatekeepers” of the internet and intervention was needed to create a healthy AI news environment.It recommended standardised labels for AI-generated news, showing what information had been used to create those answers, including peer-reviewed studies and articles from professional news organisations. It also urged the establishment of a licensing regime in the UK allowing publishers to negotiate with tech companies over the use of their content in AI news.“If AI companies are going to profit from journalism and shape what the public sees, they must be required to pay fairly for the news they use and operate under clear rules that protect plurality, trust and the long-term future of independent journalism,” said Roa Powell, senior research fellow at IPPR and the report’s co-author
‘Menopause gold rush’? Boom in hi-tech products as stigma starts to recede
Paying kidney donors won’t solve the problem | Letters
Creature comforts in times of grief | Letters
On Polymarket, ‘privileged’ users made millions betting on war strikes and diplomatic strategy. What did they know beforehand?
‘Chilling’ hacking network is targeting vulnerable children, charity warns
NHS medical negligence persisting in England ‘despite 24 years of warnings’