Sunday 3 January 2010

Might As Well Herd Cats


Just a couple of days after the Wail and Torygraph trumpeted the success of a no smoking prison on the Isle of Man, comes news of the inevitable unintended consequences, if the Star is to be believed (yes, I know).

TEABAGS have been banned at a non-smoking jail after lags used them in cigarettes instead of brewing up.

... instead of quitting, ingenious inmates poured out the contents of teabags and rolled makeshift ciggies.

[One former prisoner said] "Many inmates turned to teabags and some even tried smoking dried banana skins. Then the governor decided to ban teabags and replace them with granules so we couldn’t smoke them."

Probably the only people who would find this remotely surprising are bansturbators who still cling to the belief that all will instantly bow down to their personal whims without question.

Thousands of years' evidence of the human condition available for study, yet some still don't get it. Coercion is not a reliable tool for social engineering, nor will it ever be.

Much as placing road humps down one road will force traffic onto other roads which, in turn, will require the same restrictions; So does banning something lead to an alternative being found which also requires banning. In this case, the only winner is the increased profitability of the black market by a manufactured upsurge in demand.

One day, the righteous may work out that people are naturally resistant to irrational authority, and infinitely imaginative, and mischievous, as a result.

What fun.




7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Isle of Man Prison bans teabags
as they may be used for smoking

That is the sort of headline that the freedom blogworths should be
blasting across web/blog/twitter/
facebook and all other sites for
ages to illuminate the purile
paranoia of the total prats in the
civil service.

50 a day Olaf

Angry Exile said...

Post title reminded me of something.... oh yeah.

More worrying are the smarter bansturbators, the ones who've figured out that pushed people push back but that putting an arm around them means you can bring into following you. They'll be the ones behind terms like denormalisation and they're far more dangerous in the long term than the spittle flecked shriekers that they're beginning to replace.

Oldrightie said...

They may ban fags but I bet the drugs still flow freely.

Anonymous said...

hahh hahh tea, banana skins, been there done that (rehabilitated now mind you)

you'd be surprised what people are willing to smoke.

-prepare for a ban on toilet paper, lol ;)

Witterings from Witney said...

Is the phrase T Hee relevant here?

Rob F said...

I've done the banana skin thing, too.

Some wag told me that it had a similar effect to smoking marijuana. He lied.

Mind you, I didn't know that they were supposed to be dried, first. Might explain why the fucking things wouldn't stay lit. Boom, boom!

Anonymous said...

Yet more evidence of our weak and spineless society. In my day all the screws would now be hanging from the burned out prison rafters.