Labour, the Tories and Cannabis
Posted on Wednesday 18 July, 2007
Filed Under Politics
Few things in life are safe for all of the people, all of the time. Even traces of nuts in a restaurant meal can kill those unfortunate enough to suffer from certain allergies.
And sure, cannabis is a mind-altering substance. Some medical studies reportedly show that prolonged heavy use can result in psychosis. With no relevant expertise in the subject, I’m happy to take the specialists’ word for it. But alcoholism can – and in countless cases every year, does – also have that effect.
I’m told available varieties these days are several times more potent than the stuff I freely consumed as a 1970s teenager and a 1980s student. But does that necessarily mean greater consumption? Surely today’s kids only need toke on one or two stronger joints, instead of the half a dozen or so typically passed around when me and my mates used to spend the evening getting wasted back in the day?
Yet in the space of about a week, both the Tories and Labour have hinted at the possibility of reclassifying cannabis as a class b drug, rendering simple possession theoretically liable to five years in prison and an unlimited fine.
This, despite the fact that the first cohort of the hippy generation is probably squandering some of its old age pension on the odd quarter now and again, if only to relieve the rheumatism pains.
This, despite dozens of MPs having openly admitted trying the stuff, and despite the leader of the Conservative Party himself having been grounded at Eton as a schoolboy after being caught with a joint.
If it wasn’t an inappropriate wisecrack in the circumstances, it would be tempting to ask what either Iain Duncan Smith or Gordon Brown have been smoking. The debate should be about decriminalisation instead.
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19 Responses to “Labour, the Tories and Cannabis”
Legalise it and regulate it. Standard strengths of cannabis. Money for the taxman.
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/johann_hari/article2758791.ece
The article above appears to refute many of the scare claims
Never mind that. All Lit up? Boom boom. Anyway over in by-election land apparently Tory Supporting hotheads are pretending that one of the candidates has hanged himself. Will Cameron stop at nothing? Sputnik and Skunk excepted?
I’m not a microbiologist or pharmacologist, but I believe that the stuff they grow now, usually hyponotically(?) is as potent as LSD. Anecdotally, my friend’s teenage son had a paranoid episode recently which the doctors put down to his consumption of ’skunk’. I know it is difficult, because psychotic symptons don’t appear until late teens anyway, so he may have been about to develop it anyway. I was wondering the other day about all those politicians who grew up in the ’80’s and ’90’s (and floated around the Lefthowever mildly), there must be some skeletons in their cupboards whcih will emerge over time.
The claims about rising cannabis strength are problematic; see the excellent debunking by the ever-reliable Bad Science a little while ago:
http://www.badscience.net/?p=389
Why should it be on decriminalisation?
And if you mean legalisation, why don’t you say so?
To be honest I don’t know where I stand on this. In a past life I used to wind up RSL members by supporting legalisation. But now I am not so sure.
It does bother me that you quite often walk past people in the street you are quite openly smoking the stuff. What are they off to do? Drive a van? Serve a customer? Clean a hospital? Drive a train?
Maybe I am just getting old.
LOTB
“It does bother me that you quite often walk past people in the street you are quite openly smoking the stuff. What are they off to do? Drive a van? Serve a customer? Clean a hospital? Drive a train?”
Oh God no, please let’s hope they’re not going to serve a customer under the influence!!! How awful. Perhaps they’ll forget to say ‘Have a nice day, Sir’ in the way that you you prefer them to – or say it in a not quite sincere and a little uppity way.
Well, driving a van … probably not. But if it brightens up a chore like cleaning hospital bogs, what’s the problem?
but I believe that the stuff they grow now, usually hyponotically(?) is as potent as LSD.
it ain’t. Nowhere near, unless it’s improved by a factor of about 20 since I gave up three years ago.
Or acid’s got really, really shit.
Dave – yeah, exactly. I just wondered why serving a customer was listed in the same breath as driving a van or a train.
Go into a pharmacy and as you are being served ask yourself if you would be bothered if the staff were stoned.
Drop the prolier than thou guff. Or maybe you all love to be abused at the counter.
I think it might be better if the Home Secretary was still stoned.
And there’s surely a difference between smoking one or two spliffs and being stoned? It’s not really going to make someone abusive.
The way the media makes such a fuss about these things is ridiculous. Is it really a surprise that numerous members of the cabinet- young people in the 70’s and early 80’s- have tried cannabis? Plenty of cabinet ministers, and at least one PM, have been alcoholics.
“Or maybe you all love to be abused at the counter.”
How often do stoned people ‘abuse’ someone else? What you don’t like, LOTB, is that the shop staff won’t snap to attention when you walk in. I hate all that forced obsequiousness, that fake ‘customer service’ stuff that people on the minimum wage are forced to engage in. I’m not trying to claim proletarian credentials, but I have done several shop jobs as a part time student and it’s absolutely fucking shit – you may be dressed down by a supervisor for ‘not smiling enough’ or not using the correct (company recommended) ‘greeting style’ for customers.
Anyway, I just thought it was very revealing that a Blairite puts retail ‘customer service’ on the same level as traffic/rail safety – says it all really.
I deal with the public (though not in a shop) and hate the whole customer service politeness bullshit too.
Anyway, I don’t see what proletarian credentials have to do with it. Most of the heavy weed smokers I’ve known have been as middle class as you like, including most of the students at the grammar school I attended.
It’s not really going to make someone abusive.
Although it might make them a bit vague and inattentive, and even foster lack of interest in the job.
“He said My oh my, I’ve suffered too long
(This cigarette seems to be very strong)…”
LOTB
There is a differnce between decriminalisation and legalisation.
The dividing line is between people who are quite happy to see drugs rip the heart out of communities and destroy people lives and rising gun crime – this camp include the government and everyone else who backs the current utterly failed policy of criminalisation and prohibition.
The other camp are those who want to reduce drug dependency and addiction, reduce organised crime, reduce drug related crime generally and help the victims – this is the policy of decriminalisation.
No serious person is arguing for legalisation that I kknow of.
Were all drugs legalised , then it would be legitimate business to produce, sell and advertise them, and perhaps provide premises where they could be consumed, and there would be an exploasion of use, and huge profits made – ultimataly out of addiction and misery.
Decriminalisation makes possession and use by individuals legal, but does not make the trade legal, and for example illegal import or wholesale distribution would continue to be as illegal as now – but with much lower profits. There might be a lot of nuance here, for example if addicts were given diamorphine on perscription, it would reduce crime, undermine the profits of the illegal heroin trade, and gretaly reduce the number of new addicts (becasue the doctor would only prescribe to existing addicts, and the illegal trade introducing the drug to new people would be commercially unattractive)
I am surprised anyone could not know where they stand on this, unless you can perhaps produce some eveidenc ethat the current policy is working?
But I forgot, it is not supposed to actually work, it is only supposed to appease daily mail editorial writers. you know, swing voters in marginal seats, that is all Labour stands for now isn’t it. Not reducing human misery, just wining elections by appeasing the prejuducis of ill informed swing voters in middle wallop.
Just because people have developed stronger strains of pot doesn’t mean that people have to smoke them. If it was legal then there would be many varieties available, in different strengths, just as there is with alcohol. The ’skunk’ is more like drinking whiskey or other hard stuff. But that’s not what most people would choose most of the time.
“Anyway, I just thought it was very revealing that a Blairite puts retail ‘customer service’ on the same level as traffic/rail safety – says it all really.”
See how fuckin’ tolerant you’d feel if you were given the wrong drugs for your child at a chemists because the pharmacist serving you was toked up to relieve the boredom of serving. Thats just one case why “retail customer service” can be on the same level as traffic/rail sagety ….. silly cunt.
BTW I think taking of all drugs should be fully legalised.
Various libertarians have argued for legalisation. They are “serious” people even if you disagree with them.
OK, Andy – why are you surprised? It’s not black and white to me.
Though I presume you argue for the delegalisation of tobacco – a drug that kills millions more that any other and makes massive profits for the likes of BAT .
Or are you just one of those pragmatic unprincipled shits like what are in New Labour?