Source: The Orcadian

Pub Date: Thursday, 3 July 2003

Pub LTE: Cannabis Plea

Author: Hamish Crisp

 Well, apparently Biz Ivol's case is finally to be heard. It is well-known that stress can be a key exacerbant in MS leading to increased spasticity. Bearing this in mind . The people responsible for the God-less and inhumane outrage must surely have comprehended the potential repercussions of their behaviour.

By "THEY", I mean whoever is responsible for this innocent woman being identified as a criminal. None, apparently, are willing to stand up and identify themselves, and endeavour to provide logical and moral justification for the consequences of their actions precipitated by this barbaric law.

But the most troubling of puzzles is who exactly they are. No one will accept responsibility for this outrage , and stand up and present themselves to the populace whose interests and well-being they purport to represent. It is ludicrously ironic that despite being blatantly at odds with public opinion, it is the public who'll be paying the bill.

If they do speak, it's usually to tell us that their hands are tied by the law, their law. It's bewildering for us poor folk to trace a ray of common sense through their pomp and circumstantial morass. Their reasoning is becoming Hatter-esque.

But nothing has changed.

I would suggest prison, where her life-quality and care would surely be greatly improved.

They can't provide the resources to help us live meaningful lives, yet, bizarrely, there is never any problem providing resources to harass and persecute us, or, even more disturbingly, for military action.

It is truly unnerving that the World seems to've gone mad, and the lunatics have taken over the asylum. It is their law that merits being judiciously scrutinised.

The law is an ass, and never misses an opportunity to remind us.

What gives them the right to deny medication to those who have been given a slow death sentence by God, destiny or whatever you believe in? What makes you think they should die in pain so you can make money and have a job?

What we do with our own bodies that doesn't endanger the lives of others is not the Government's, nor anyone else's business. Tobacco kills 120,000 people a year in the UK - cannabis kills none.

Yet the government spends 100 million pounds a year subsidising the tobacco industry. Of course cannabis should be legalised. Why on earth would we want to prohibit something that can help so many people? It doesn't make any sense.

Cannabis users experience a fraction of the physical harm caused by the legal medical and recreational drugs, and suffer virtually none of the social costs. It makes absolutely no sense why it is illegal anywhere.

Attempts to simply prohibit human behaviour out of hand are woefully misguided. Prohibition creates problems worse than the ones the policy is meant to solve. In such a case, a rational re-evaluation of policy is clearly in order.

Dozens of official reports from around the world, as well as common sense, all conclude that trying to prohibit cannabis causes more problems than the cannabis itself ever could.

Less police time spent on enforcing the outdated laws on cannabis would free up more police time to deal with the far more serious problem of crime. Our courts are crowded with people who stole or hurt someone or acted stupidly while they were drunk.

The predictable "soft on drugs," "coddling criminals" and "sending the wrong message to children" triteness will erupt, but the message future generations inherit from the present softness on stupidity and coddling of nitwits may be a gene pool depleted of intellect.

Instead of promulgating disinformation in order to support a personal prejudice, THEY must face up to their responsibility to bring intelligent, clear-headed and objective thought to this question.

Cannabis is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known. No one has ever died from an overdose, and it has a wide variety of therapeutic applications: relief from nausea and increase of appetite, reduction of intraocular (within the eye) pressure, reduction of muscle spasms, and relief from chronic pain.

The idea that something ought to be criminalized because it isn't "harmless" is a key feature of the authoritarian mindset. It's an idea that allows for the criminalisation of just about any imaginable activity, since almost nothing in this world is harmless.

Cannabis isn't harmless, but it isn't nearly as harmful as, for example, alcohol and tobacco - substances that cause thousands of fatalities every year (no one has ever died from an overdose of cannabis.)

What makes it all so increasingly ludicrous is that while all the unworldly sword-waving and shield-rattling is going on, we medical cannabis users have been quietly going about the essential business of establishing medical cannabis supply chains, working closely with our GPs and disabled support services throughout the country.

They simply have no comprehension of the societies they represent. It is a sick joke.

And on the issue of 'real' crime on Orkney: On December 8, last year 'the Orcadian' reported "Four properties targeted in child porn raids".

Since then, only one person has been named and identified. It's awfy queer, and disturbing that pot-using cripples appear to be identified as a greater criminal threat to Orkney than paedophiles.

"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)