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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: You dopes asked for it
Al Kennedy The Guardian
Wednesday 24 Oct 2001 AL Kennedy praises the government's noble motives for legalising cannabis Ministry of Information Leaflet No. 23 (Inner City) Hey, you crazy kids - hot news from your wartime cabinet. Yeah, man, we mean you. We're the hip government who like to bury good news and help you forget the bad. And what's our great news this time? Well, only what you've been asking for - we're bringing you Back Door Legalisation of Cannabis. We're bombing the shit out of the Afghans and now we want you bombed with righteous shit, whenever you like. But don't you squarejohns out there worry - this won't mean everyone's tok ing up in the street. Less risk and easier availability never produce increased consumption. Look at mobile phones if you don't believe us - just because they're everywhere and cheap, it doesn't mean every schoolkid is yakking into one. There are no more of them today than there were 10 years ago. Yes, anyway. We want no one to be alarmed about the current rates of cannabis addiction (that we've buried) or the research into its physical and mental effects (that we've buried), we want you to concentrate on the upside, man and be coool. Maryjane is niiiice. That's the thing. You like it, we let you like it, you like us (Until the lung cancer and all that other stuff kicks in - but, frankly, you'll probably die of some other drug first, right?). Liking is the thing to concentrate on. Addiction? No - liking, being fond of. And if the evil weed stays in your bloodstream for a couple of weeks so that physical dependence is insidious, and if it robs you of the ability to alter your emotions and mental state under your own steam - well, that's all right with us, pally, because ganja makes many of you mellow, lazy, helplessly apathetic. And, just between ourselves, we loove a whacked-out electorate. Too stoned to vote/complain/organise/urinate in the space provided? - well, just stay as sweet as you are. Or get a little more hooked, actually. Cheap gin, freely available laudanum - British governments have a fine tradition of doping their voters and we'd like to keep it up, so let's everybody get higher. Yes, introducing physical dependence with a cosy, non-threatening, non-injecting trainer-drug will lead to higher rates of addiction - I mean, fondness - everywhere, but guess what? We don't care. Here's the skinny. The only people who can't sustain addiction aren't middle class, so they don't count. Or they're middle-class junkie drunks who've blown all their money and turned into smelly street people and nobody likes them - I mean, dispensable as a Washington postal worker, or what? Okay, we admit, drug use causes pathological behaviour, random violence, habit-financing theft and (lip-smacking good) habit-financing prostitution. But we sincerely believe we can confine that sort of activity to, um, the darker-coloured areas of Britain and the people who are Not Like Us. Misery, screwed lives, abandoned potential, wasted NHS millions and the kind of physical impact that wars produce - not interested in any of that, matey. All those nasty worries can be instantly disappeared by one deep inhalation of - passive electorate. And, if you don't trust us, trust the CIA - they've been using drugs to destabilise regimes they don't fancy and render populations incapable of protest for decades. And pleeease keep thinking that your spliff is a symbol of leftwing rebellion - that's just sooo right on. Skip all that stuff about the CIA and some really embarrassingly psychotic rightwing regimes making millions out of drugs. Skip the part where you end up trading off union protection for coke and speed to get you through your yuppie workload - like, who cares if a bunch of stockbrokers end up impotent and paranoid, anyway? And skip the replacement of a welfare state and social inclusion with booze, pot, H and E to keep the schemes tucked up, quiet and happy. We'll be just fine, as long as the city and all of those mean Toxteth-types don't swap gear. Which is a sure thing, babies, they don't exactly move in the same social circles. Okay, so drug sales actually display capitalism in its most cynically pure form - sell a product no one needs, the consumption of which produces dependence, and therefore a need no longer confined by income, morality, or sanity. Market to the underclass as a temporary fix for permanent social ills and sell, sell, sell, secure in the knowledge that it will take years before legal action and mass fatalities affect your profit margins - if indeed they ever do. That fact that this could be a description of those hip dudes at BAT and Philip Morris shouldn't cross your mind. Nor should you consider that we will soon (just between ourselves) be granting spliff licences, for highly-taxable spliffs to - well, our goood buddies the tobacco companies. The same companies known for spiking their products to make them extra-addictive, obfuscating medical details, encouraging smuggling, manipulating soft targets and describing smokers as "not rocket scientists". Well, if they think tobacco smokers are easy to fool, boy are they going to looove conning dopeheads. Yes, they're going to have one fabuloso time and - hey - so are we. So hang loose now, breathe in deep, and remember - you asked for it and, man, are we going to give it to you, over and over again.
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