What did the Police do to deserve this?

If they would just go out an buy an entry level mountain bike for £2k

Don't be silly. They wouldn't stoop to a £2k peasant bike, they'll be too busy wheelie-ing down the high street at rush hour on a Sur-on.

What do kids who are born into broken homes and poverty on sink estates do to deserve this?

It suits politicians to have tbem as "examples to be made of" in a 5 year election cycle, rather than invest in root causes with a 20 year pay back.

Morally reprehensible, short-sighted and ultimates more expensive.

I'd love to see a party campaign to address this a long term plan.

More cash - SNP?  They have pumped a lot of money into deprived urban areas and put in a lot of support

<br />*ducks and covers*

squirrelking - my understanding is NED = non-eductated delinquant.  Now it may be that the derivation/etymology has been added after the fact, but its how I have known the term since I first heard it used along side YUPPIE and DINKY in the 80's.

A lot of dispute about Ned.  I think its a backronym ie after the event.  I have seen a  few explanations and the term is certainly much older than the 80s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_(Scottish)

the middle class kid and the working class kid will get the same treatment if busted but the chances of being busted are much greater if you are from Niddrie than from balerno.

I instinctively agree with the sentiment, but are kids still getting "busted" for mere possession of a "doobie" these days? About 25% of 16-24 yo Scottish people use drugs (excluding alcohol), and cannabis is the most popular drug of them all. Scottish police favour warnings over arrest/ charge/ prosecution for possession alone, and have done for years. I can't find any figures or even media reports of people being arrested for mere possession of cannabis in Scotland recently (tbf it wS just a couple of minutes of casual googling).

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/thousands-of-scots-caught-with-cannabis-let-off-with-a-warning-1445548
https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-crime-justice-survey-2019-20-main-findings/pages/18/

someone mentioned above attitudes towards cannabis and being busted.  the middle class kid and the working class kid will get the same treatment if busted but the chances of being busted are much greater if you are from Niddrie than from balerno.

TJ - the same treatment? perhaps - although that doesn't guarantee the same outcome.  The Lord Advocate allows cops to issue a recorded police warning for minor possession offences.  How that discretion is applied is somewhat opaque, but even ignoring any bias by the cops, once you've been offered such a resolution you have a choice - accept it, or reject it and get reported to the fiscal.  Affluent ned might get advice from parents - who may be better informed, can afford to get legal advice.  Poor ned will only qualify for legal aid if he's in the cells, so his choice is get locked up for hours, talk to an over worked underpaid solicitor on the phone who will certainly not have time to understand the nuance of the circumstances of the accused/the alleged offence/quality of the evidence against him or perhaps follow the advice your parents/peers gave you of say nothing!  Affluent ned's lawyer might talk them out of it completely (or in a case where a warning wasn't going to be offered talk them into a warning).  If they both reject the police warning, the PF might offer a fixed penalty.  Probably £100 to be paid in 28 days, no conviction recorded.  Affluent ned has another escape option.  Poor ned can't get that sort of money together in time to pay so will be in court.  If affluent ned goes to court he can afford to be represented - even if he's bang to rights a good lawyer will milk the incompetence of the prosecution for minor offences and insist on proof of the substance, pick holes in corroboration etc where there's a good chance the crown will drop the case to focus on more important matters.  Poor ned probably won't get legal aid for a simple possession case, so has to represent themselves.  If both convicted in court, the poor ned is telling a story where they can't afford to pay a fine and will end up paying it off a little bit a week for 6 months or more, whilst the affluent one has the cash or has parents with the cash so its paid off immediately.  Go back to your grim existence scraping by on even less for six months probably isn't going to teach any lessons or make you less likely to turn to drugs for an escape.

Good analysis poly

Pca

Simpke pessesion is not looked forbut come to the attention of police as a ned might well do and they find some action has to be taken.  Thats where there is a higher chance of the ned being busted

I instinctively agree with the sentiment, but are kids still getting “busted” for mere possession of a “doobie” these days? About 25% of 16-24 yo Scottish people use drugs (excluding alcohol), and cannabis is the most popular drug of them all. Scottish police favour warnings over arrest/ charge/ prosecution for possession alone, and have done for years. I can’t find any figures or even media reports of people being arrested for mere possession of cannabis in Scotland recently (tbf it wS just a couple of minutes of casual googling).

Its much rarer than it was but still happens - perhaps they refuse the police warning, piss the cops off in some way etc.  Potentially because of some historical record (how many warnings before a warning is pointless?).  Probably most common to be prosecuted along side something else - so you get done for pissing up a close then the drugs added on top, or you get caught shoplifting and a drug charge too.  You wont see media reports because the media don't bother going to the lower courts unless theres a celebrity there!  Class A's are treated like this too now.  Your Balerno bam is probably as likely to be in possession of cocaine as the Niddrie ned is cannabis!

Yeah sure it might still happen in theory - but that's my point. Where is the evidence to support this statement:

someone mentioned above attitudes towards cannabis and being busted.  the middle class kid and the working class kid will get the same treatment if busted but the chances of being busted are much greater if you are from Niddrie than from balerno

if statistically speaking no-one is being busted for cannabis anyway? Half a million users a week in Scotland and how many arrests?

There are tons of reasons why growing up poor results in uneven and unfair treatment by the state compared to growing up rich. Is this one of them?

OK - that wasn't my claim so I can't say if its more likely to get "busted" in Niddrie than Balerno.  There's ~500 police warnings a month issued across Scotland for cannabis possession.

0.5M users per week ?  That doesn't stack up against the official government data: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-health-survey-2021-volume-1-main-report/pages/13/ which says 6% of all adults used cannabis  in the previous 12 months.

That link also say more likely to use drugs if in an area of deprivation, so logically you might be more likely to get "busted".

Where is the evidence to support this statement:

My gut feeling really from what I have seen.  Drugs market has split IMO in the UK with neds having a low quality product sold in a risky manner ie street exchanges,  The middle classes have access to much better product distributed in a much less noticeable way. so its less liely to come to the attention of the police.  as poly says most drugs busts are accidental.

Biggest one i saw when working with the police came about because to cops saw someone chuck a pizza box out of a car window,  they went to have a word, smelt cannabis and searched the  car.  found a kilo of weed.

More cash – SNP? They have pumped a lot of money into deprived urban areas and put in a lot of support

Fair point, I was thinking wider than the specific Scottish situation, being blinkered by my flag of St George and not having such a progressive party to vote for.

Poly - I would guess the 10% of the population in the last month is rather more accurate than 6% in the last year judging by the constant wiff of weed.

Even in my day the police didn't care much about cannabis,  last thing they want is paperwork and off the streets for a kid with a joint or two, as long as you're not daft in winding them up or puffing in their face you'd be fine, same nowadays, christ we have a few houses round here that absolutely stink of weed all the time, nobody cares as they do it in their property and aren't being anti-social.

Where you grow up doesn't mark you for life, being in a broken home, yes that's more likely to influence, but there's always chances, and the mates i had who ended up in jail or worse, well they tended to choose the wrong friends to hang around and prone to peer pressure within those groups, growing up in Scotland the biggest issue we always had was bloody drink, lost too many of my old mates to that, we still treat drinking like it's nothing as well, way worse than a bit of dope.

Anyone who wants a simple explanation of why inequality and deprivation persists this explains it well.  american but the same stuff applies here

0.5M users per week ? 

That's what Tommy Sheppard of the SNP says (at Q312) but I think you're right that it's a very high number and he probably just misspoke in reference to a figure brought up by someone else in the same meeting.

https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/9504/html

In any case, you have a very large number of users and a very small number of arrests and no evidence to show arrests are unfairly or disproportionately higher in poor areas. Back to the main theme...

That's a really interesting link @politecameraaction

I dont agree with your second claim though an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

For example this paper argues that smaller incomes and broken family background are both factors leading to an increase in delinquency
https://www.cairn.info/revue-francaise-de-sociologie-1-2011-5-page-63.htm

Re: my previous comment about scumbags, scroungers & catholics

That was a reflection on the idiocy I got bombarded with on a daily basis in a previous job. I thought it was fairly obvious (especially with the bit about catholics) that it was not in any way serious or my opinion. I really should have known after PCA's comment fell flat, clearly we have actually fallen that far down the rabbit hole.

So apologies for offence caused, I'll consider my words more carefully in future.

For example this paper argues that smaller incomes and broken family background are both factors leading to an increase in delinquency

That's a terribly interesting article but it's totally irrelevant to the assertion that

attitudes towards cannabis and being busted.  the middle class kid and the working class kid will get the same treatment if busted but the chances of being busted are much greater if you are from Niddrie than from balerno.

and I think in this case absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

Squirrelking - to me it was about a subtle as a hammer in its obvious satirical content!