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I don't want to be flippant or dismissive about this news:

Cocaine floods the playground: The Times

...because it is very serious in many ways, including many that are not being questioned in this latest bit of moral panic on drugs, but I thought it was an interesting contrast with some of the policies of South American leaders and would be leaders who want to feed coca to school children for the good of their health.

Now, it should be said that, as President Morales of Bolivia claims, himself a former coca farmer, coca is not the same thing as cocaine, just the raw material and one that in its natural state has claims to many therapeutic benefits. In fact I suppose it's rather like castor beans, which can make beneficial castor oil or terrorist weapon ricin depending on what you do to it. And these kids are breaking the law and putting themselves in danger as a result (though less from the drug itself than from the system for policing it and the underworld that controls it as a result).

But we must use these examples as reasons for opening up the debate, increasing peoples' understanding of the issues around controlled drugs.

The Coca-Cola in the schoolyard vending machine we're now so concerned about after Jamie Oliver started its long history as an extract of coca leaf, and now threatens our children's health in its own insidious way. We should not let President Morales and putative president Ollanta Humala of Peru be drowned out by the paranoia of narcotics nutters in Whitehall or Washington. These countries have millennia of experience of beneficial use of coca. If we're going to be a global village, we need to understand them.

And Transform seem to have a less panic driven response.

Over at Guido's he's got a discussion going about the possibility of pursuing a private prosecution after the CPS decided not to press charges in the cash for honours investigation. At the very least such a challenge would force all the evidence out in the open. There is still apparently some notion that Lord Levy and others will themselves prosecute the police for wrongful arrest, also thereby bringing all the evidence out - if they dare.

I can't imagine many readers of these pages do not also keep an eye on Guido's blog but in case you don't, I've got a link to Guido's Pledge-Bank entry in my sidebar (or here) for you to sign up to support such a move. It does NOT involve any financial commitment at this stage - it is merely to try to gauge the level of potential support. So if you want to see the peerage posse have their day in court, you might think about signing up to this.

Remember - a decision not to prosecute is not the same thing at all as an acquittal - it merely means that the CPS don't think they can prove something beyond a reasonable doubt in court. The posse should not be so smug or shrill in their denouncement of the investigation when it seems clear from the CPS statement that there probably are areas where there could be a case to answer.

Apparently the Palace of Westminster is exempt from this draconian smoking ban.

Given that the staff already went on strike because they were being treated differently, and worse, than other public servants, I think this is appalling. If it is an argument about protecting workers' health why are they any less worthy of that protection?

Disgraceful. Abolish the lot of them, I say. We can do without Westminster.

If you rely on the Guardian for your news you won't have seen the cure for hiccups mentioned in the BBC report of the Ig Nobel awards: Teen repellent is Ig Nobel winner

Apparently, "a finger up the rectum cures hiccups". So now you know. It'll no doubt make the scraping of fingernails down a blackboard less excruciating as well...:)

Too much information for the Guardian presumably!

I don't really have a lot of time for the Greens in Oxford - their politics that is - as individuals I get on well I think with all of those I know. They go their own way and do their own thing and are rarely to be relied on, as our joint administration in the run up to 2002 on the City Council proved.

But they have a one party crypto-communist state in East Oxford, so there's no meaningful opposition to them on the East Area Committee, at the moment at least. But it is unusually refreshing to see them turn down the offer of an intrusive state run CCTV system on the Cowley Road. I'm not sure about their alternative of bobbies on bikes and (more!) road safety measures on a road that has become a bit of a joke anyway for the way vehicles now have to weave dangerously in and out of the path of buses and pedestrians, but good on them for resisting the encroachment of further state surveillance in the area.

I've never felt unsafe down there, except perhaps on leery Wednesday when the university sports teams are on the drunken prowl, and it is well surveilled naturally by all the people using it at all hours of the day and night - and by bouncers at the pubs and clubs every few yards. So there is no need in my mind for yet more electronic eyes.