Heard of joined-up thinking, Cleggy?

SpEaKing out in a powerful arti cl e yesterday, lib dem Health Minister norman lamb pledged that mental health would be a key issue if his party f orm a coalition government once more.

‘This has probably been the first ever election where mental health has s t arted t o be recognised as the crucial issue it is for millions of people across the country,’ he wrote on the Huffington post website.

The promise of ‘care for mental health’ is even on the cover of the lib dem manifesto, with nick Clegg pledging an additional £ 3. 5 bill i on over t he next parliament to ‘develop a clear approach on preventing mental illness’. all very well, but the lib ASKED by Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine whether he was ‘dazzled’ by the prospect of being Deputy Prime Minister during the last coalition talks, Nick Clegg claimed he had never been interested in power ‘for power’s sake’. He added: ‘Frankly, you could call me Mary Jane and it would all be the same to me.’ He’s been called much worse. dems also want to legalise cannabis. Have they ever heard of joined up thinking?

The manifesto says the party will ‘establish a review to assess the effectiveness of the cannabis legalisation experiments in the United states and Uruguay’.

and it continues that they will ‘ legislate to end the use of imprisonment for possession of drugs for personal use’.

last year, Clegg wrote a foreword to a london school of Economics r e port, which suggests the state should control cannabis sales.

Yet on the Royal College of psychiatrists website i s the following warning: ‘ There is growing evidence that people with serious mental illness . . . are more likely to use cannabis or have used it for long periods of time in the past.

‘Regular use of the drug has appeared to double the risk of developing a psychotic episode or long-term schizophrenia.

‘ Resear c h has strongly suggested there is a clear link between early cannabis use and later mental health problems.’

so much for trying to prevent mental illness. Classic lib dem inconsistency.