Episode 3 The Big Questions

APPLAUSE Good morning. A warm welcome to the

Big Questions from Hutchesons Grammar School in Glasgow. I'm

Nicky Campbell. Lance Armstrong admitted he was a liar and a cheat.

He taken drugs when winning all seven of his Tour de France

victories and lied about it since. His public confession to Oprah

Winfrey, which he said too late for most people and that's my fault. Is

it ever too late to confess? Former racing cyclist, Richard Moore said

Lance Armstrong's confession is to preserve himself rather than

cleanse his soul. This Buddhist says the Konger it takes to confess,

the longer it takes for forgiveness to be granted. These days it seems

that girls are encouraged to grow up as fast as they can. Our next

big question, are girl being robbed of their innocence? This girl's

youth worker say there is too much pressure on girls to worry about

their looks and to be appealing to boys. This sociologist says that

society is more open about sex. The All Party Parliamentary Group for

Drug Policy Reform called for legal drugs to be sold in shops. Baroness

Meacher said it is time there was a legitimate supply. This doctor says

there are chemicals that are wrecking young lives and doctors

have no drugs to save them. Welcome to the Big Questions.

I view this situation as one big lie. I repeated a lot of times. I

made made those dicircumstances and I am here to say sorry. Lance

Armstrong confessed to Oprah Winfrey, but he had no answer when

she asked why he had denied these allegation for -- allegations for

13 years. Is it ever too late to confess? Richard Moore what kind of

a confession was this? It is difficult to know as you mentioned

he is a liar as well as a doper and there are two offences there.

Perhaps one can be forgiven and not the other. When someone has lied

for so long and very convincingly it is difficult to know if what he

is saying now is the truth. There are partial truths in there, but

you have a problem of how much confidence can you invest in in

this guy. He has lied until a few weeks ago and although he tried to

distance himself from this terrible creature who he referred to as the

third person who lied for so long, it will take longer than that.

Do you think there is an element of lying to yourself all along?

think so, yeah. He did mention, although he was apologising, he did

say that at the time it didn't feel like cheating and so, I think that

that is a culture of cheating whereby you know, we have seen it

in other cultures of cheating, whether it be MPs expenses where

people don't think they are doing anything wrong. The wrongdoing is...

Until they are caught? wrongdoing is kind of validated by

the behaviour of those around them. Tim, what do you think, the

Scottish Humanists, the whole notion of confession? Well, if you

confess something, you have got got to do it in a timely way and you

need to do it to the people that you have actually hurt.

APPLAUSE It is about finding... You have to

go to the person you have hurt and say sorry. There is another apology

a few years ago, Tony Blair apologised for Britain's role in

the slave trade and its part in the Irish famine. What he didn't do is

leading us into an illegal war in Iraq.

He doesn't believe it is an illegal war.

The notion that you can go into, you know, a dark box and tell

someone your deepest secrets and be absolved of your sin, it doesn't

work for people like me. What you have to do is tell, you know, you

have to apologise directly to people. Yeah. Yeah.

APPLAUSE ? Jimmy Savile is a papal knight.

We don't know if he apologised for the awful things he did. So it is

only humanity that can forgive and it is only human beings that should

apologise. Well, this is a good point to bring

Liz in. You are editor of the Catholic observer? That's correct.

You believe, let's ask you if first. Confession is good for the soul?

Absolutely. With no disrespect, we have different opinions, but the

sacrament of confession is not a get out of jail free card. The

sacrament of confession is a step to make reparations. You have to

have a genuine act of contrition and you have to, it is a promise, a

hope, to make amends to the parties that you have offended and it is

not going into that confession box and speaking to one man. The prise

acts as a conduit between the confessor and God.

If Jimmy Savile was and you mentioned Jimmy Savile, if he was

as we here he was a devout Catholic, a papal knight and he made a

genuine and full confession near his, near the time of his death.

Would that wipe the slate clean? Not at all. Your act of confession

is a step towards making amends and we will all be judged, I believe,

when we die. We will have to stand up for the life that we lead and

explain our self to God. So an act of confession would be a step in

the right direction, but it is not wiping any slate clean.

It doesn't work work for me, you have to say sorry to the people you

have hurt. Which I agree with. You are too young to remember this

Nicky. There was a a scandal when the then Secretary of State for War

had affair. He resigned and vanished into the east end of

London where he did good works as a volunteer cleaning toilets for a

charity. Now, I think, people agree that he redeemed himself by what he

did and whether it is Lance Armstrong or anybody else, it is,

you know, what Lance Armstrong can do is take a leave out of his book,

get off the bike, clean some toilets and come back in 30 years.

APPLAUSE Surely the point is that that act

of confession isn't a kind of buying forgiveness, it is the

journey of forgiveness. It is the point that there are a series of

broken relationships there. Relationships to be repaired,

require that act of forgiveness and you need to open that door. Now it

maybe that to to got to the point where you can sorry to the point

you really need to, you need to confess to somebody else to begin

to make sense of the awful thing that you have done. So that the

confession is part of that process, rather than a sense of wiping the

slate clean. We live in a world that want it instantly and human

relationships are more complex so this is the beginning of that

process rather than saying I can get it sorted and I want it.

Is there a danger with the notion of confession, the Catholic notion

of confession, if you think you can wipe the slate clean, it gives you

encouragement to carry on sinning because you can deal with it.

the Catholic sacrament of confession doesn't teach you that

you are wiping the slate clean, it teaches you that you are putting

yourself in a a position to seek forgiveness. I think it is also

something that people, it is fantastic that our society is

recognising the value of confession either as a sacrament or just as a

human act. You know, people are saying that our society has moved

past religious routes, but here we are talking about something like

confession and I find that very encouraging.

APPLAUSE OK. I disagree when he says it

doesn't matter whether Lance Armstrong meant it. There has to be

genuine contrition. If you look at that case, he was asked a few weeks

ago to say what he said to Oprah Winfrey, but to the world doping

board and give them evidence be asked to be questioned and he

refused and there is a gap there. I am a Christian, but I am not a

Roman clath lick, I don't go to a priest to confess, confess confess

but if I speak to the people I may have hurt or I pray to my own God

and just in the way that this lady has spoken, we have to find our own

peace in our own way and fin the way we can move forward.

The Lance Armstrong's confession is not a good example. You have to be

sin veer as part of that -- sincere as part of that journey.

Is it doing more harm than good if it is a partial confession?

comes back to what Tim said. What matters now is what he does now to

make real the words that he said. Pay the money back? He has got $11

million in his pocket. It is what he does over the next 10 or 10 or

20 years. Well, he can he can stop whining

about the fact that he got a bigger sentence than other people.

He said, "I don't deserve the death sentence." He is maybe still

justifying it and trying to vindicate himself? And saying that

it is not fair that eleven other people involved in this with me

only got six months and and refusing to help the anti-doping

board and it maybe a step on the the journey, but it seems to be a

small step that got him a lot of coverage in a way that he wants to

rehabilitate himself and gone on to make more money and have more

future success. What about the illegal aides for

sportsmen? That's wrong and I think motivation in terms of what he is

doing is really important. I think the other thing is that Oprah

Winfrey's in the business of entertainment. That's why she is

doing this programme. For him to go on Oprah and this celebrity media

circus. APPLAUSE

I agree totally. I don't think we can think of it as some journey. It

was a media circuit. That's what he is used to and that's what he has

done all along and he is still doing it. A number of advisers

would have come up with that strategy and talking to people I

don't think it has worked. I think it backfired.

It was interesting that Ruth that he referred to the sporting ban as

equivalent to a death sentence and this perhaps hints at his biggest

problem that for somebody who has only ever known competition, he

cannot envisage a life without competition. If he mansion to get

over -- manages to get over that problem that could be his path

towards finding some peace with himself at least.

I think he needs some help and there is clearly a lot of anger

about him and about Savile, but in a case like this what you need is

restorative justice. You need to bring the person who has done the

wrong against the people who he has done it and help him understand why

he has done it and that is a process we should be adopting more.

That's an important point. This is very much about Lance Armstrong

himself and I'm sure he is self centred and his vote vation was

something -- motivation was something else. I don't think he

was thinking about the wrong he did. Too often the focus is on the

perpetrator and not on the victims and we need to turn that around and

think about the victims. The point is, is it ever too late to confess?

Absolutely not. What do you think about this

confession? About Lance Armstrong's if he was going to apologise to

everybody that he hurt and damaged, it would take him a long time and a

long road. There are many millions of people who have been full of

admiration for him and he has done this for so long that it would take

up a great deal to unravel the pain and the damage that he has done. He

has only started on his own journey of admitting to what he has done in

a way that he can explain to others. Is that what any of us have to do

in a situation like this? It is important that you start with

yourself and you recognise that you have done something wrong and and

once you have you have done that for yourself, you can explain it to

other people and you have to take your place in asking for

forgiveness and apologising and do what you can to demonstrate that

the process of confession starts the process of rediscovering

yourself and putting yourself back into a place in the community where

you are doing something worthwhile. Have you been through that that?

Yes. What did you have to apologise for?

I embezzled money and I was sen to prison for it. The punishment is

For me it started in prison and it went on from there and it is seven

years and it is still going on. APPLAUSE. The act of confession

does not release you from what you have done. It is how you moved on

and have you -- how you build something new beyond that. Everyone

has these different views on things but it does come down to how you

live with yourself and how you sleep at night. I think lots

Armstrong is going to have some difficulty with that, unless he

takes some pills or stop laughter Macros. That is how we got into

this mess in the first place -- unless he takes some pills.

LAUGHTER. Did you get to say sorry? I did apologise but they were dead

so I could not a have restorative justice. If I could, I would. But

it is impossible. So I have to do it to society at large and not to

individual roles. It is about Emma O'Reilly, Betsy, the people who are

still furious, and if you are going to make a proper confession, does

it necessarily mean, as the world Dougan authority seemed to suggest,

that you will have to implicate others -- the anti-doping agency.

It is a huge step and it is about all those different relationships

and then lie in different shapes and forms. Does he have the right

to implicate others? He has to begin with himself but the others

also have to live with the fact they have chosen to do things that

are wrong as well and if a light is shining on them, they need to make

a choice as to whether they make the confession themselves or

continue to be in denial, but as we often see, concession is not just

about, I have realised I have done something wrong and I want to

confess, there is also the point way you are challenged and you need

to confess as well. There is nothing wrong with that in itself

but it will come back to his capacity to live up to his word.

Regarding restorative justice, you also need to be ready for that. It

is a good thing but the participants need to be ready for

it. It is not just saying, I apologise. The person receiving the

apology needs to be ready to receive that as well. That is a

part of the journey as well. you think about implicated others,

grassing people up, if Armstrong had done that they could be moral

questions? It may have been difficult to do on the Oprah

Winfrey programme but there is a time and a place. The apology must

be given to the people that he heard. The admission needs to be

made with the authorities under oath -- people that he hurt. Former

team-mates of Armstrong have won a kind of redemption by grassing on

Armstrong in particular, and it is odd because in normal society it is

about taking responsibility for your misdemeanours and confessing

to those but in sport, such a tangled web of people, doctors,

drug companies, governing bodies, it is a tangled web and the only

way for Armstrong to possibly win redemption in the cycling world is

by opening that whole structure down. Good morning. Certainly

people have a responsibility if they know crimes have been

committed, they should definitely tell. There are many people

particularly in the media who knew about Jimmy Savile's crimes and did

not say anything and that man has died without being brought to

justice. APPLAUSE. You must see the at a lot.

It is about having the right culture and the right understanding.

A -- you must see this a lot. case of Jimmy Savile is a good

example. We felt and the media failed to have the right culture in

place for people to stand up and say, that is not right. Come

forward. You need to be brave enough to stand up. That is for the

whole of society. The difference is now it is that people did come

forward when Jimmy Savile was active and they were not listened

to and that is what puts people off from coming forward. What is the

point if no one is listening? a different culture now. The yes.

Thank you very much indeed. APPLAUSE If you'd like to add to

that debate, just log on to bbc.co.uk/thebigquestions, and

follow the link to where you can join in online. Or follow the

discussion on Twitter. We're also debating live this morning from

Glasgow: SShould it be legal to get high? And are girls being robbed of

their innocence? Tell us what you think about those topics, or send

us your ideas for future debates or any general comments you'd like to

make about the programme. The aforementioned Jimmy Savile.

The Jimmy Savile inquiry has shown there is nothing new about young

teenage girls being treated as sexual objects. But now this

happens at even younger ages, with make-up and provocative clothes

being targeted at under-tens. Are girls being robbed of their

innocence? Kim Smith, you think that is very much the case. Was it

ever thus? Have young girls not always wanted to be older girls?

Dress like them? Behave like them? It is natural for children to want

to grow up but I think perhaps one of the differences when I grew up

in the 70s was that was often seen as an act of rebellion. You tested

the boundaries by the close that you war. Now -- by the clothes that

you were wearing. Now girls that do not dress in a certain weight or

have an obsession with their body image may be ostracised. They are

often bullied and seen as being different. It is a conformity to an

identity that may not fit the individual child. There is also

pressure on boys to conform to a certain masculinity. Why is it

getting worse? It is difficult to say but certainly one influence we

are concerned about is a lot of the messages in a culture. Music videos,

advertising, television, that includes more content that his

sexual, but particularly with messages about sexual violence like

violence against women and that is translating to lots of young boys

and girls seeing that that is OK. That it is normal for your

boyfriend to be controlling and obsessive. That is affecting how

young people are developing their own identity and personal safety

and the risk of not being able to develop healthy, reciprocal

relationships. Is their validity in this or is this a bit of moral

outrage? The issue is often framed in terms of, our young girls being

robbed of their innocent? Innocence is taking as being a natural

quality and popular culture will take it away. We don't understand

what we mean by him -- by innocence. Childhood. And as a culture we

associate childhood by innocence but what do we mean? Innocent from

what? Children inhabit the same world that we do? Sexually aware?

Sexually active? They are two very different things. I don't think

anybody would argue that children should not be sexually aware. The

danger often missed if they are not sexually aware.

APPLAUSE Yeah. Necessary. definitions of sexual activities.

Pretty big. My conception might be very different to that of a nine-

year-old. Well, yes. It is not helpful to frame this in terms of

morality because young people need to have good quality information

and support from adults, teachers, parents, or other adults, faith

community leaders, to be able to develop their own sense of self-

and to enter into relationships where they are not at risk of being

harmed or causing harm but that is where the difficulty comes because

there is a lot of pressure, reinforced by peer pressure, to

behave in a certain way which could put them at risk. We have got

competing discourses and perhaps young women are more under pressure

from these competing discourses. You mentioned St Agnes, the patron

saint of virginity and chastity. How many of those are for men, to

protect their virginity and tough titty? A discourse is attempting to

shape not just the way young women look -- they ate virginity and

chastity. The ubiquitous nature and accessibility of porn and now, some

would argue that that teaches objectification? Pornography has

been around since people studied drawing. Accessibility is different

but pornography was a round since I was a young woman. Somehow I have

managed to escape objectification myself and a lot of young women do.

We have the capacity to act differently and so do young people.

You got the director of 18 beauty pageant in the UK. Is there

anything wrong with a 13-year-old walking down a catwalk in make-up

and a short skirt? You can take it another way, is there anything

wrong with young girls doing dance competitions since the age of six?

They are being judged on their looks. They are not just been

judged on their looks, it is about the whole package, that is a

misconception. From the age of 13 it is deemed in this country that a

girl is able to make a decision and if they want to do it for a chosen

reason, whether it be to build self-confidence or just have fun,

is there anything wrong with that? Do you have children? No. How does

it builds up confidence? We have many contestants that were very

timid and quiet and I had one dad ring the up and say, my daughter

came to you and she was really quiet and now she has the self-

confidence and she wants to go out and do other things. That is the

key. It is about building confidence. A whole bunch of other

young women lose their competence as a consequence of the kind of

things that you do -- lose their confidence. They cannot achieve

this perfect model you have created. I can promise you you would not run

a teen beauty pageant without the catwalk. You require that as part

of the central piece. You are destroying the capacity for young

people to discover who they are as young people before they get to

adulthood. If you give them a platform to do it, you can allow

them to do it. We have had contestants that are size 16.

is wrong with that? Nothing at all! You said, we have even had

contestants that are size 16! Because people think beauty

pageants only allow people who are a certain size. Did they win?

have had a winner that is not size 6. It wasn't a size 16? No, not in

that age category. But it is difficult. Rachel is twitching!

is very uncomfortable. We are talking about young women, their

body shape, this size. There is a real gender dimension. It is less

to do with sex, it is more to do with gender and equality.

APPLAUSE. I think over a number of years, this has not gone away, we

have always talked about this, particularly of girls for a long

time, but where is the public discourse about how we teach boys

how to behave? Where are the role models? That may sound old

fashioned but where it can we show them to be as successful man you do

not have to be dominant or an alpha male, but you can be a gentleman

that looks out for other people's meets. To tell boys that it is OK

to not be the best person on the football field and the hardest boy

in the class but it is much better to have these kinds of personal

relationship and contribute to society? You got such a rapturous

round of applause from this gentleman. Good morning. I take

that point, if she doesn't mind. I have to say that if there is

anything missing from the education system and the way we allow young

boys to grow up into men, it is we are not teaching them properly how

to be gentlemen and that is what it all comes down to. If we teach

young boys how to become gentleman when we grow up, I think half the

problems we have today would be You are nodding? It goes back to

they they talk about women and sexlisation of young ladies, you

look at what happens to blokes. You watch these TV shows. You are

supposed to have the six pack. You are supposed to have this. You are

supposed to have that as the male in today's world and it seems to be

pushed away and everybody seems to take it back towards girls rather

than towards, well actually it is on both sides of the fence and it

needs to be looked at as a hole. -- whole.

If you look in the last few generations, when I grew up, we

were out on our skates and we were free spirits. We had a great

childhood and there is time enough when girls get to 16 and boys for

that matter to start start doing things like walking up and down

catwalks. It is important that we let them be free spirits because

life is so complicated later on. Who are the shows for?

themselves. They are for themselves. The events that we hold are closed

events and for their own... But you are not making money out TV. This

is comodification of young women for business interests.

We offer them a chance to progress. Take for instance, we had a teen

winner who went on to win our event and we took her over to America...

So are you a not-for-profit company then? We fund... You took her to

America and chapped? She got scouted when she was over there and

she is a Bollywood movie star and she was offered that opportunity

because of that. But is that the ultimate? It is about making money

and using young women to make money The biggest problem that we have

got here the discussion is about sexlisation of young girls...

you understand why people think, if you have 13-year-olds on the

catwalk that people think you are sex liesing them? We don't have

them in skimpy clothes. They have their own fashion round and we have

the Sportsround and they have the formal round. We spoke to the

people that we needed to speak to make sure that we don't put them in

that situation. The problem is in this country there is no gof no gof

governing body. We have been trying to fight for a governing body, but

the Government say no. You have done this. What's your name?

Melissa. Did you find it helped your self

esteem. My first pageant I went in, I was

second. I went to the UK final and I was taught how to be a lady,

project myself and a few years later, I carried on with pageanting

and I grew in confidence. It made me go for different jobs. I

contacted the Prince's Trust and now I have my own business. Well

done, but 17 is a lot older than 13. It is a different ball game when

you are 17. You are getting ready to become a young lady, but the

fact is that we have got the internet these days. We have got -

people have got so much pressure on on them from from their peers to

act in a certain way. They are not having home cooked dinners with

their family anymore. We need to to preserve our youth and let our kids

be young when they are young before it gets too complicated.

There is a lady back there. Hello. The problem is a much bigger one,

it is about society as well. We have forgotten what is important

and what should be a good role model. We glorify people who are

famous for the sake of being famous rather than saying to our young

people, "Look at this person. Look at what they have achieved. Look at

what they stand for.". We have back shallow. We are a shallow

reflection of the things that are important and that's at the heart

of the problem. APPLAUSE

In our society now, if we look at our society in the span of history,

women are achieving more. Women are more educated and indeed, you could

argue and more protected girls than ever before. Up until the 1870s

there wasn't really a proper concept of childhood. The age of

consent was 1 in this country and if we look at biblical, the Virgin

Mary was between 10 and 12 years old. Mohammed's first wife was ten.

If you are running the argument that because there is universal

sufferage and some women succeed in areas they didn't before... More

than before. That is possibly showing a view that most women and

most men wouldn't agree with. It should be the norm that your gender

isn't taken into consideration when you are going tor something like a

job. It should be the best candidate. There has been a change.

There has been a change in consumerisation when it comes to

women. I'm 34, so I am not that old. I remember growing up that major

department stores would have a kids section and the clothes in the kids

section would be different from the clothes in the adult section. Now

they are not. Now they are similar. You have got companies who are

selling toddlers shoes and the gimmick is you get a free piece of

make-up for the toddler when you sell shoes to a three-year-old.

That's something that changed in my lifetime. I am not sure there is a

legislative solution for that, but it is something that we as society

have to discuss. And division by gender that is something that has

changed. Starting from the cradle upwards and in a way that sets a

stage for girls behaving certain characteristics and boys other.

Rachel, what about the Elizabeth Buttle Sloss, sexualisation of

girls softens abuse. Do you buy that argument? No, we have been

talking about Jimmy Savile. 1970s in terms of prolific abuse and we

are talking about sexualisation now. I don't like to draw those

correlations because we tend to start thinking about is it

something about girls rather than it something about... No, we don't

think that, but do some people think that? Probably, they do,

probably they do. So Elizabeth Buttle Sloss is right? She is right

to say that some people think that. She is trying to explain police and

judges not taking it and gangs of men doing it? That's to do with

with gender. For a long time we have had victims of sexual crime,

not being taken seriously. Is it something to do with them rather

than the actual perpetrator. I think one of the things we are

seeing is the comodification. We live in a society that is totally

comodified. Also the clothing ranges. You are seeing, what you

are seeing is a blurring of age distinctions, nos adulghts wearing

-- adults wearing clothes that make them look older and young people

wearing clothes that make them older.

There is a story, to become ready for heaven you have to be like a

child and you need a child - childhood is preparation for

adulthood. The free spirit is a good example. If you remove the

childhood bit and force young people to be adults, they are not

ready to be adults and good adults and the adults we want them to be.

We're losing something in our growing up, by not being children.

Thank you very much indeed for that. APPLAUSE

Thank you. If you have got something to say about that debate,

log on to our website. Send Us your views about our last

last big question, should it be legal to get high? We are in

Salford on 27th January, Leicester on 3rd February and Cardiff on 10th.

Here in Glasgow the local hospitals are seeing many, many more young

people needing emergency treatment after taking so-called legal highs.

They have reported a 358% rise over the past year. The trouble is, the

users seldom know what was in the drug. Leaving doctors at a loss

knowing how to treat them. Others say the drugs should be banned.

Should it be legal to get high? Baroness Meacher, we have heard how

dangerous the drugs are. People don't know know what is in them,

how they are going to react and how they will react to prescribed drugs

they maybe. For those who say ban them, stop them, what's your

answer? Well for 40 years we have had a policy where if you take a

drug, have a little bit of cannabis in your pocket, you are a criminal.

OK, in that 40 years, we have had a a 20 fold increase in the use of

cannabis. The people who device the policies believe that if you

criminalise people, we will have a drug-free world and there will be

no problem. OK, here we are 40 years on, 60 million ecstasy

tablets were taken last year, bought from illegal suppliers. The

policy is not working. That's the starting point. Legal highs have

come on the market. One new high arrives in Britain every week,

every six days actually, a new substance. The young people have no

idea what's in the substances. They buy these things, how on the web,

Chinese laboratories are producing them. They arrive on the door mat

in the child's home. The child picks it up and goes off and takes

it. High an e-mail from a guy of 32, he took ket mean for a little while.

It is a tranquilizer? He has had his bladder removed and two kidney

operations and many more operations. Some of these legal highs are

dangerous and many people don't know know which one is dangerous

and which one might be harmless. All we are suggesting as the all

party Parliamentary group, we need clear information. We have a

classification that says all these things, if they are imprisonable

offences. Young people know it is it is rubbish. If you take heroine

or crack cocaine, you are going to be in trouble. There are other

things illegal, where you could take them, I would never advice it.

I would never advice anyone to take a drug.

Do you believe ecstasy is in that tablet? With cocaine and heroine.

That's misleading young people. We need good information. Young people

don't want to damage their bodies. If they had descent information

from the Government, they would avoid the bad stuff including

heroin. Glasgow Royal Infirmary. This needs

to be regulated. They did this experiment in New Zealand and they

came to the conclusion, the people who roe duced this -- produced this

should be responsible for the safety safety just as in the

regular pharmaceutical industry? believe it should be regulated.

However, it can take up to ten years for a prescription drug to go

through human trials. There is not that link to research, we have no

evidence base and these drugs are being taken by individuals. We have

to remember that there are individuals involved here, you know,

we have got parents, relatives coming through. Some of these

people are nearly dying from these chemicals because there is not the

evidence to say they are safe. Baroness Meacher? A lot of these

drugs have been researched for many years by the standard

pharmaceutical companies and the Chinese plough through this

information and fiddle around with them and put them on the market. I

agree with you, we have got to be careful here and to do a really

good job, research job, it takes 15 years, but what, if I may say so,

there are, I am not suggesting that all legal highs should be be

regulated. Not at all, I am suggesting a small number, maybe

two or three, where there has has been a lot of research on these

things, where we do know there is a limited harm. These things should

be in my view, regulated so that the young people have very clear

information on the package. These drugs are dangerous, like owe. --

like Tabak ta like tabacco. You have identified the big problem.

Do you agree with the logic? We are dealing with a huge amount of

cheamicals here. -- chemicals here. We had a particular case, you are

right that was researched in the 60s and it was found to be toxic.

Suddenly, it was flooded on to the market and sold as ecstasy. Also

people don't know what they are getting. They might have illegal

drugs mixed in with legal highs and regulation would help to avoid that.

But we have problems with prescription drugs being exploited

as well. Even if you regulate these, you don't get rid of the problem.

We need to look at the problem today. I lost my daughter three-

and-a-half years ago to a legal high and then there were seven new

substances on the market, but actually moving on to the end of

2012, there were over 70 substances detected. We haven't got the

faintest clue what's in these things. Our kids are out there

playing Russian roulette with their lives. There is no education in it

schools at the moment. Let's go to the politician. I will

come back in a wee second. Ruth, it is legal, you know, if you are of

an age to get, what's the word I can get used, trollied. Hammered.

It is legal to get high. As a Conservative Party politician, you

should be, you know, you should be bolstering people's freedoms and

rights, that's the new Conservative Party, not the old-fashioned one!

Why is it not legal to get high p You have been framing this debate

purely in a public health message. Drugs is also to do with community

safety and criminal justice. I represent Glasgow which has sued

problems in some areas about drugs and the safety of citizens -- huge

problems. Not just people who go to hospital but the people who live

around those people and I don't think you can have a discussion

about drugs that is purely based on public health, you have to look at

community safety and criminal- justice as well. The right to get

high? I think you are right to say it is not just about public health.

We should be framing the discussion in relation to public health but

the laws are not making the streets safe. I am working with young

people in Edinburgh who are getting involved in criminal networks they

would not be involved with if the drugs were regulated so they are

damaging their health and getting involved with criminals. It seems

bizarre to me that this seems to be a consensus that we accept that in

alcohol policy there is a legitimate public health policy for

government to intervene and regulate the market in alcohol and

yet we decide for other drugs that we leave it open to criminals. That

is just crazy. I just wanted to pick up on a very important point

about young people getting involved with criminals. One of the aims of

having a small number of substances regulated is to pull them away from

drug dealers because one of the big things that is happening at the

moment is the young person goes along for a little bit of weed and

the drug dealer says, I have something much more exciting. It is

probably heroin and crack cocaine. If we can get some safer things out

of that and into chemists it would be much safer. I am meeting young

people who are given drugs on nothing and it is a way to

introduce them to stronger and more addictive and dangerous substances.

Are want to hit this gentleman. am back indeed. -- I want to hear

from this gentleman. Will you be selling some of this stuff in the

future? That is another point. We are responsible for supervising the

sale of staff with small amounts of codeine, normally for pain relief,

and we already have a massive debate in pharmacy regarding trying

to combat the issue of opiate addiction. Addiction to those drugs.

Because although we sell them for legitimate reasons, like pain

relief, sadly there has been cases where patients have purchased them

systematically from a number of pharmacists and we are having a

very big debate and discussion about how we can actually minimise

this problem because it is a massive problem worldwide and as

far as education is concerned, I agree, we need to enlighten young

people. What is wrong with getting higher? A lot. As you just said at

the start, the rise of 358 %, enormous, and you are seeing all

sorts of problems kicking off... there anything wrong with getting

high? Are absolutely not. I am a drugs work in the drugs charity and

be primarily deal with cycle stimulant drugs. We see a lot of

legal hives. 75% of our crisis intervention it is around alcohol

and only 5% is around legal highs. Alcohol has been around for

centuries. Legal highs on you. They have only been around a couple of

years. -- legal highs are new. Ketamine is a prescription drug. I

use it on patients in a controlled environment on a weekly basis for

what it was intended for. It has been led to abuse. Codeine, another

abuse of prescription drugs. If you regulate drugs, you do not take the

problem a way, but I am all for regulating the chemicals to ensure

their safety but ultimately we need to get the message out that people

need to take responsibility for their actions.

APPLAUSE. If they were regulated and there was an element of

decriminalisation it would make your job a lot easier for us stop

absolutely and we would welcome that. However, alcohol is the

biggest problem we have got. The combination of alcohol and drugs.

The problem about illegal drugs is the term. We hate it. -- legal

drugs. Because they are called Legal there is the inference that

they are Safe. Legal drugs have legal substances in them. It is

like getting vodka with methylated spirits in them. It is not. It is

going back. If we can tell young people and inform them, we do not

want decriminalise large numbers of young people. That is not what this

is about. They do not know what they are taking. The only people

who know what they are taking up the evil people that peddle this

misery. Which is worse for Public Order? Alcohol or drugs? Alcohol is

worse. But this is a wider issue, it is committee safety, health,

civil protection. -- community safety. If alcohol is the problem,

a wire are you suggesting we do the same with drugs as with alcohol --

why are you? What we have created is a context in which young people

think that the best way of having a good time is to get hammered, with

alcohol or drugs, and... When it were you last time it? Longer ago

than I care to remember. The other thing is escapism, particularly

from poverty. We need to do with the root issues that take people to

the context where they are saying, I need to escape by taking these

pills, rather than talking about the legislation because that would

not sort it. We assume the legislation will sort it.

difference with this, I agree that alcohol is a huge problem,

conventional drugs are a huge problem, but legal highs are not

what it says on the tin. We had been talking to 14-year-olds Bob le

Brocq my daughter was a medical student, a student mental and an

athlete. She had some alcohol at an awards dinner and her old boyfriend

gave her half a dose of a legal high, it closed up her respiratory

system and she died. It can happen to anybody's child. These chemicals

can cause depression, psychosis, you can lose your bladder, damage

your eyesight. It is life changing. In school, we get them to fill in

questionnaires and say, what are legal highs? They say they are safe

and their friends take them and it is fine. Then we should do my next

film from our Foundation and then they fill in the final part of the

questionnaire and they say they are angry and feel misled because they

did not know they were taken a combination of toxic chemicals.

Former heroin addict and you work with people with drug problems.

What Baroness Meacher is suggesting, we did it work? I spent half my

lifetime getting higher. I was a heroin and crack cocaine addict for

a long time. I am absolutely baffled, baffled, why society today

would push legal highs forward, encouraging children to use drugs

that are dangerous. Although it says they are illegal, it doesn't

mean they are safe at all. APPLAUSE. They are dangerous. We to

minute. This lady has lost a child through this. How many people have

to die before it becomes illegal? Make it safer then. There have been

multiple deaths to a graduate from these chemicals. -- multiple deaths

in Europe from these chemicals. think it is really important to

recognise that some of these drugs are incredibly dangerous, as you

say, but we have got to accept a lot of young people, a minority,

but a lot, I going to experiment and take things. Many of them. They

find the means. Their parents have got purses in their kitchens. What

we have to do is to accept the reality, that a lot of young people

will take things, or alcohol and other things. It was not accepted

40 years ago and we failed. Hang on. A what message are we sending two

young people? Are led Baroness Meacher finish at point. If we had

the starting point of accepting the reality, then we have a clarity

between the safer and the really dangerous, then we have very good

and clear educational information that is accurate, at the moment

government information is misleading and inaccurate, I don't

think we will be sending the wrong message because the message would

be, or risk, danger. We would know what was in it. Yes. Hang on. They

would know what was in it. They would know what the side-effects

were. Why put a box on the shelf in the first place? There is a bottle

of whisky there. A couple of audience members, please. Good

morning. Ruth Davidson referred to the public order effect of drugs. I

don't know about her but I would much rather walk through a crowd on

Friday night in Falkirk who have spent the evening smoking dope and

who have just had to a bottle of Buckfast. I would feel a lot safe.

I certainly would not have a black eye it is the person had been

smoking marijuana at! -- if the person had not been smoking

marijuana. If we had the boxes on the shelf and not being sold by the

man who sells heroin, it would not lead on to the next thing. The onus

must be on the dealer to prove they are safe for human consumption. We

know they are selling them to kids and they are living footballer

lifestyle as a result and that should not be allowed. The even if

we do regulate drugs, it will be a small number of drugs that will be

regulated and young people will still look at other drugs to get a

hold of us. The police have powers to get rid of some drugs but others,

legal highs, we have no powers. We can take alcohol and fireworks from

people. Can we take these drugs from people that are killing them?

No, we can't. I have come back to you! I have never spoken to royalty

before, I am sorry, Baroness of. am not royalty! I totally disagree

with you though. I think this is a false argument. We are not arguing

against prevention and education. Effective education and prevention

has to happen. We are saying the regulation at the moment is not

working. Nobody would suggest that we allow these drugs supplies to do

the same thing that the alcohol industry has been doing. They

should not be able to advertise. The outlets should be strictly

controlled. It is not the same thing. It would take years. We are

looking at five years. We have to leave it there! Thank you very much

for taking part. APPLAUSE. The debate continues on