Category Archives: Opinion

Opinion

Can Scotland mimic Portugal’s approach to the drug crisis?

By Gregor Boyd

For many years now. Scotland’s drug crisis has been widely reported on. According to the National  Record of Statistics in Scotland. The number of deaths has continued to rise. 2021 saw a slight decrease in the number of drugs with 9 less than the year before.

Dundee has been dubbed the drug capital of Europe. With drugs being readily available and even purchasable online. It’s never been easier to find a supply. Despite attempts by police to clamp down on it. The people of Scotland continue to suffer and the impact this causes on local health services that are already struggling. Attempts by campaigners to change the laws surrounding drugs have been met with resistance.

Treating it as a health problem and not a criminal issue is seen by many as the way forward, emulating the approach taken by Portugal. This revolutionary method was adopted as a policy in 2001.  The policy decriminalised all personal possession, consumption and acquisition of drugs. 

This approach removed the criminal nature associated with being caught using drugs. This health-based policy saw benefits with decreases in drug use, drug death and more people seeking treatment, leading to other countries wanting to adopt similar methods due to the popularity of the policy.

Scotland’s attempts to mitigate this crisis have seen campaigns supporting the idea of injecting clinics where users can safely dispose of needles. People in shops are also being trained on reversing opiate overdose with Naloxone kits. Despite the steps put forward by the Scottish govt on proposed Injecting clinics, this has been knocked back by the UK government. A working solution in countries such as Denmark and Canada is to keep needles off of streets, prevent unnecessary drug deaths and mitigate some of the dangers users may face when trying to inject.

The problems facing Scotland’s drug population were also exacerbated due to the Covid-19 pandemic as places took steps to mitigate the spread of the virus. The isolation people had to undertake made things harder for many addicts who might have depended on social interactions or in-person meetings.

The Minister for Drug Policy Angela Constance has been in touch with the newly appointed Conservative MP Jeremy Quin, Minister of State for Crime, Policing and Fire in an attempt to collectively work to address and tackle drug use across the United Kingdom.  The UK government’s hardline approach to the drug policy published earlier this year appears to be a 3 tier structure starting with Fixed Penalty notices moving upwards in severity to mandatory drug testing and awareness courses and finally, formal court proceedings resulting in potential confiscation of Passport/Driving Licence.

News, Opinion

Spotify Wrapped 2022: Why now is the only time we are all happily sharing our data

By Julie Dvorakova

It is that time of the year again. Whilst many are looking ahead to Christmas, Spotify users keep refreshing the green-black app, waiting for the annual early Christmas gift – their Spotify Wrapped.

Spotify Wrapped is an extremely popular feature that creatively summarizes all the data  Spotify, an audio streaming platform, has collected about each one of its users over the year.

That means after ‘unwrapping’ this thoughtful digital present, you can explore your most listened songs, and artists or realize the (let’s be honest, shocking) amount of time you’ve spent listening to music and podcasts.

The truth is this data is also so nicely presented that many can’t help it and share the visual analysation of their listening habits with their friends, colleagues, friends’ pets, and simply everyone who follows them on Instagram or Twitter.

Spotify has, according to the newest statistics, 456 million monthly active users worldwide, which makes it the most used streaming service. It is the go-to app for listening to music, podcasts, guided meditations, or audiobooks. Yet for many users, the reason that made them switch from other streaming services to Spotify, or even start using audio streaming service for the very first time is just the irresistible Spotify Wrapped.

It is like seeing all your friends sharing their favourite memories from a trip you did not go on. Suddenly, all you want to know is how many minutes you have spent with your headphones on, instead of interacting with people. You want to know what is your most played song of the year, or what would be the soundtrack to your movie.

All you need to do to get this life-changing information about yourself is to subscribe to Spotify and wait till the beginning of December. Sharing the visualized data and becoming a part of the global, social media-based discussion is then fairly easy. And Spotify is very well aware of this.

The concept of Spotify Wrapped began in 2013, seven years after this go-to music streaming service was developed in Sweden. If you are looking back at the pre-pandemic years and can’t think of any Spotify Wrapped, well done for confirming the statistics. Spotify’s early Christmas gift which is as aesthetically pleasing as we know it today, came out as a ground-breaking concept in 2020, with over 1,2 million mentions on Twitter.

In 2020, 62% of people in the UK said they use Spotify at least once a week. Globally, Spotify is getting more and more users every year, and it does not seem to change. In fact, it is safe to say in the upcoming hours and days we are about to see Spotify everywhere on social media, whether that’s Instagram stories, Twitter, Tik Tok or memes. Spotify Wrapped is about to become the go-to small talk topic, enjoying its once-a-year moment of fame.

Features, Opinion, Sport

WHY OUR PROSPECTS ARE LEAVING – THE SAD STATE OF SCOTTISH FOOTBALL

By Zak Williamson

There has been an emerging trend in football over the last few years of young Scottish talent being wooed away from playing in the Scottish Premiership to play abroad.

Whenever a new, exciting prospect emerges, it is only a matter of time before they are linked with a move to what many would consider greener pastures.

A prime example would be former Hearts fullback Aaron Hickey, who burst onto the scene in 2019 at just 17 years old, playing 33 games and becoming the youngest-ever player to play in a Scottish Cup Final.

After an outstanding debut season, Hickey was linked with many different clubs throughout the continent, eventually settling on a move to Italian Serie A side Bologna for a relatively low £1.5 million.

This is even after Hickey was linked with a move to Celtic, who reportedly tried to sign the young Scot on ‘5 or 6 different occasions.’

Speaking to the BBC, Hickey stated that his decision was influenced by the opportunity to play against some of the biggest names in Italian football at the time such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Paulo Dybala.

The move eventually paid off for the former Hearts man, as he was able to secure a dream £18 million move to Premier League side Brentford back in July.

This blueprint of Italian clubs signing young Scottish talent has continued in recent times with Aberdeen’s Lewis Ferguson and Hibernian’s Josh Doig securing moves to Bologna and Hellas Veronas respectively, costing the Italian sides £3 million each.

While it is undeniable that the Serie A is of a better standard than the Scottish Premiership in its current form, it still feels as if Scotland is getting the worse end of the deal.

Firstly, the prices commanded by the players are far too low. While the Scottish Premiership may not be among the richest in Europe, it still has players of considerable talent playing in it.

When Aaron Hickey’s fee to Brentford is compared to what Hearts received for him, there is a massive difference, almost 10 times less money than Bologna received for the player.

The current state of the Scottish game has led to clubs releasing their hottest young prospects for a fraction of what they are worth, accepting what is essentially pittance for players who could develop into real, world-class talent.

When questioned by Sky Sports about Serie A clubs’ sudden interest in Scottish talent, former  Bologna scout Francesco Strozzi stated his belief that “the Scottish Premiership is an incredibly, incredibly underrated league,” and “it doesn’t have quite enough attention in the eyes of many scouting departments around the world.”

This shows that there are those who recognise how much of a goldmine the Scottish Premiership can be when it comes to young talent. The problem is that clubs from the Serie A are essentially taking advantage of the poor financial state of the Scottish League to turn over a profit.

Teams in Scotland will often be incentivised to accept offers far below the value of their key players due to the lack of financial backing received from the league itself, among other things such as poor tv deals.

One high-profile example of this would be the ‘cinch’ deal, which saw online car retailer company cinch become the main sponsor of the Scottish Premiership for 5 years back in 2021. The deal saw £1.6 million in sponsorship money shared between all 42 clubs in Scotland’s top 4 leagues.

This amounted to just £38,000 for each club. While it may be useful money to teams in the smaller leagues, this is an absurdly small amount for teams in the top flight and shows why teams jump at any chance to make money from player sales, even if the sale is way below the player’s worth.

While the cinch deal has recently been renegotiated to allow more finances to go to clubs in Scotland, it is still unlikely to make a huge difference when it comes to clubs in the top flight.

When looking at Scottish football today, it is hard to imagine that Celtic won the European Cup in 1967 with every player born within 30 miles of Celtic Park. Or that Rangers and Aberdeen won European trophies of their own in the 70s and 80s.

Although times have changed and the game has moved on, there appears to be a lack of belief in young prospects in Scotland, whether it be at the club level or international. Take former Rangers full-back, Nathan Patterson, as an example.

When playing for the Ibrox side as backup to James Tavernier, he was playing regular first-team football and even scoring a goal in the Europa League. Yet it took him a £12 million move to Premier League side Everton for him to become a regular starter for Steve Clarke’s Scotland.

A similar situation would be Liverpool’s Calvin Ramsey, who made his first start in the Champions League before receiving a call-up to the National Team.

Perhaps this puts things into perspective for why so many young players are looking to play outside of Scotland. It is the only way to receive the attention and recognition they deserve.

If top-level sides in England and Italy can see the worth of these players, then why can’t our national set-up do the same?

Teams in other countries are taking a chance on Scottish players who may have been thought of as ‘not good enough’ or ‘too young’ and giving them a chance to break into the first team.

They see the value in Scottish football, so perhaps the teams and governing bodies within Scottish should start doing the same and stop selling ourselves short at every opportunity.