In Today's 'No Shit,Sherlock! News...

Cannabis is not an effective treatment for common mental health conditions despite the global surge in patients using it for that purpose, a review has found.

No! I’m astonished to find that out! 

Researchers concluded there was “very little evidence for its efficacy” in treating anxiety, anorexia nervosa, psychotic disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder or opioid use disorder. Experts from universities in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne in Australia and Bath in England undertook the largest and most comprehensive analysis to date of the evidence for using cannabinoids – cannabis-based therapies – to treat substance misuse and mental health disorders.

Well, you could knock me down with a feather!  

Sir Robin Murray, a professor of psychiatric research at King’s College London, said: “While people such as me consider that the therapeutic benefits of cannabis are extremely limited, and the side effects common, the world doesn’t believe this.

Well, you wouldn't be the first (or only) expert who is no longer trusted as you once would have been, but in this instance you should be.

“Bolstered by the claims of the cannabis industry and the rapidly increasing cannabis clinics in the UK, many people are misled into using cannabis to treat their problems. In my view, the UK cannabis clinics operate as drug dealers for the middle class.”

The middle class? I though that they were all on Charlie? Pot strikes me as a lower class drug... 

You Didn't Get This In 'Dixon Of Dock Green's Day...

A Metropolitan Police officer who lied about her newborn daughter’s real father was caught out speaking to her lover by a dog camera in the family home.

Not skilled in surveillance techniques and how to ensure against them then!  

The sergeant’s firefighter husband “did not question paternity” when she suddenly announced she was pregnant in January 2022, a gross misconduct hearing was told.But in June of the following year, he logged on to the “doggy cam” while at work and saw her talking to a male colleague on FaceTime. He overheard the word “daddy”. It later emerged she had sent the love rat policeman a Father’s Day card.

/facepalm  

When confronted by her husband, the officer said she “had an idea” of the true biological parent - but “wanted an easy life” and hoped her husband “would never find out”. But a disciplinary panel chaired by Matt Simmons heard a midwife nearly gave the game away when she revealed her exact conception date.Officer A tried to convince the nurse this was impossible as her embarrased other half - who attended the 12-week hospital scan - would have been working a night shift so they couldn’t have slept together.Despite their child being born a week earlier than the October due date, he still had no suspicions and agreed there was a physical resemblance.

How naive was he!? 

A devastating DNA test revealed the truth in July.

i wonder who requested it..? 

Mr Simmons found Officer A wilfully provided false information at the Registry Office about her daughter’s father on November 17, 2022 and again on April 14, 2023 after the marriage. After finding discreditable conduct proved at a gross misconduct level, she was dismissed without notice.

Another vacancy at the Met…. 

Let Me Take A Guess? Is It Idiots?

Apparently yes, it’s idiots. Or as we now call them, ‘biohackers and heath optimisers:

Grey-market injectable peptides – a category of substances with obscure, alphanumeric names such as BPC-157, GHK-Cu, or TB-500 – have developed a devoted following among biohackers and health optimisers.

Like 'influencers', a modern-day pestilence spread by the Internet...

Driving While Diverse

A drug driver who ploughed into the central reservation of the M1 before continuing with a missing wheel has been jailed.

Yes, Reader, you guessed it… 

Omar Makhluf, 20, drove for several miles before finally pulling over at a service station near Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire.The crash happened on the motorway’s northbound stretch after Toddington, Bedfordshire at around 3.30pm on February 16 last year. Despite damage to his car, Makhluf, of Keel Close, Barking in east London drove on three wheels and was then filmed getting out of the vehicle at junction 14 for Newport Pagnell.

Bang to rights! 

When told the grounds for his arrest at the service station, he replied: “I didn’t do dangerous driving.”In police interview, Makhluf struggled to stay awake and yawned while officers questioned him.

That won’t have endeared him to the investigators.

He was sentenced to 22 months and disqualified for four years for this offence and other matters elsewhere in the country. 

I wonder what the ‘Other matters’ were, and why the reporter doesn’t see fit to inform us?

At Last, The 'Guardian' Sees A Problem... .

The prime minister’s spokesperson is right that “only by using a combination of reform, investment and efficiency, can we hope to turn the tide on the backlog and deliver the faster and fairer justice the victims deserve” in the criminal courts (Labour lawyers ‘blocked’ from briefing MPs on jury trials overhaul before vote, 9 March). But curtailing the right to jury trial will have a minimal effect on the backlog.

And it's not the curtailing of an age old part of our justice system - in true guardian fashion its the potential effect the ethnic minorities foisted on us that concern them most.

Jury trials are not the cause of the backlog. Furthermore, the government’s proposals will disproportionately impact Black complainants, witnesses and defendants. The random selection of jurors from local communities ensures that they are far more likely to reflect the cultural heritage of people appearing in court.

Who says this is the greatest concern? Why, of course, its one of those who've infiltrated our justice ststem and hollowed it out, of course: 

In 2025, there were only five circuit judges who identified as Black or Black British. Curtailing jury trial is bound to add to what David Lammy described in 2017 as a “chronic trust deficit” towards the criminal justice system.

Nic Madge Retired circuit judge, St Albans, Hertfordshire

Youve done enough, Nic, enjoy retirment. 

Why Do We Need These?

Calls for bleed kits to be installed in every major bus station and on bus routes in areas affected by serious violence have been backed by the London Assembly.

These kits were designed for warzones - that they are wanted in transport hubs tells you all you need to know about the safety of public transport in London these days.

Assembly Members unanimously passed a motion requesting that Transport for London (TfL) to work with the London Ambulance Service (LAS) to ensure the kits will be made available across the network. Bleed control kits help stem severe bleeding from deep wounds before emergency services arrive – a "potentially valuable method of saving lives".

Is it saving valuable lives though? 

The motion is non-binding, which means the mayor is not obliged to implement the recommendation.

Well, surely they’ll agree, since they won’t want their oh-so-valuable diversity killing one another off… 

Elly Baker, Labour's transport spokesperson proposed the motion. "I've heard too often from young people that they don't always feel as safe as they should do travelling," she said. "Passing this motion will show that we are listening to young people and backing the investigation of a potentially valuable method of saving lives."

Yes, let’s not find ways of stopping the stabbing, let’s just make it less potentially lethal when they do it. 

The Vehicle They were in, Obviously ..

OUTRAGE! about a shooting in the middle east, because those Jews have had the temerity to defend themselves again:

A spokesperson for the Israeli police said the Bani Odeh family had been killed during a joint operation with the Israeli military. Forces opened fire on the vehicle when they “perceived an immediate threat” after it accelerated, the statement said.

Asked what threat was posed by four young children and their unarmed parents...

The car itself, obviously which could hace contained a bomb.  Still, I expect Nesrine will get another column out of it.

Might As Well Ask For The Moon On A Stick, Love...

...as ask for responibility in dog owners.

"The owner and the dog had disappeared by the time we got there – there was nothing we could do." Farmer Isobel Connell recently lost eight lambs after a dog chased and attacked them while its owner looked on. Her farm in the Chiltern Hills near Henley-on-Thames has been subjected to even worse attacks - 10 years ago 68 lambs and 19 ewes were killed by two loose Labradors.

Yes, labradors. Despite what some owners believe, your fat sleepy labrador is just as likely to worry likestock, given the opportunity, as the chav down the road's semi-feral xl bully. All dogs descend from wolves after all.

"We have our phone number on all the gates and somebody rang to tell us what had happened," Isobel says. She was told there were a "lot of lambs dotted around covered in blood with a lot of wool loose". She rushed to the scene, but by then it was too late, with the lambs left either dead, dying, or heavily injured. "The dog owner was nowhere to be seen, they'd scarpered," she says. "It's harrowing, and it gets you really, really down."

Get yourself a gun and protect them yourself - you'll never be able to rely on dog owners to be responsible.

 

Such A 'Piece Of Nothing' That You Felt Compelled To Write A Column About It

I refer, of course, to the past that haunts Green party leader Zack Polanski. As his star has risen, so have the number of people ready to share their opinion on why they would never vote for him. I’ve met Greens who deplore his focus on social justice, considering it fatally undermining of the real cause, which is environmentalism. ... But then there are the people who would never vote Green because of that time in 2013, and I’m going to run through the details in full, because a lot of these Green refuseniks are hazy on them; they just know that it happened, and it gives them the ick. At that time Polanski was a hypnotherapist, and a Sun journalist approached him wanting to know if she could “boost cup with mind”.

Ah, it was that cunning 'Sun' journalist that done poor David wrong, is that the line that you're taking, Zoe?

As a twist of fate, then, it is staggering, but as an indication of Polanski’s character, it is a frippery. He wasn’t touting his services as a boob-magician. He was just a hypnotherapist being polite to a client with very strong motivation in that area. I guess the ideal hypnotherapist-later-progressive-politician response would have been: “No, the power of the mind won’t help you here, and anyway, you’re fine as you are and your insecurity is just internalised patriarchal oppression.” But we are where we are, and this story is a piece of nothing.

Well, sure, that's why you've used your column to leap to his defence, with the claim that he's just naive, not a chancer on the make. 'Stand by your man' isn't just a song it's a political statement for you then. 

Playing The Police And Justice System Like A Fiddle...

Stacy Sharples admitted to making up the allegations against ten men many of whom spent hours in police custody and months on bail. She even bragged to one of her victims that the police were 'not pressing charges. I've got away with it. Yet again.' 

But she's not boasting now, because they finally had enough.

None of the men she accused were charged. Her false allegations cost the taxpayer a 'conservative estimate' of £120,000 due to wasted police, legal and medical time, Bolton Crown Court heard.

She should be fined to pay every penny of that back. 

After Sharples was arrested, she said to police: 'You need to look into my mental health. That's all I need to say. You'll never understand, I had a s*** upbringing. 

'I'm a ticking timebomb, you flip me off and I'll flip back.'

She knows exactly wkich buttons to press. 

Sharples, of Farnworth, pleaded guilty to ten counts of perverting the course of justice. She will be sentenced on March 11.

And whay penaltys will the police face, for having gone along with her claims?