|
Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
|
|
UK: Spliff fails to make our doctor feel good Tom Baldwin The Times Friday 26 Oct 2001 DOCTOR TOM narrowed his eyes as he excavated his nose with an elegant red polka-dotted handkerchief and complained: 'I'm just not getting the click. There is such a concept, I believe.' The click? 'Do you mean a hit?' I asked. 'No, I mean the click, it's what I always say when I'm first beginning to feel drunk.' Well, far be it from me to argue with a medical man, especially Dr Thomas Stuttaford, former Tory MP, Times columnist and hammer of the health industry. But he wasn't supposed to be getting drunk. He was supposed to be getting stoned. Still, at least he had tried. The idea had been to get a pro-legalisation MP to smoke a spliff with Dr Tom, whose warnings about cannabis causing penile shrinkage and impotence have struck fear into the heart (do I mean heart?) of the nation. Tony Banks, former Sports Minister and long-established advocate of decriminalising cannabis, has always insisted that he does not take the drug. He abhors smoking but, a bit like Marie Antionette, had said that he would try cannabis if we let him eat it in cake. The dope was accordingly bought (yes, that's right, on Times expenses) and Nigella Lawson=92s cookbook was consulted. Then Mr Banks backed out, saying, uncharacteristically: 'I don't need the publicity.' It is true, he does not, but he might need the drugs. A replacement was lined up. Jon Owen Jones, the Labour MP whose Bill to legalise cannabis was before the Commons yesterday, said that he would happily pose smoking a joint with Dr Tom. We arranged to meet him outside the Ritzy cinema in Brixton, South London, where cannabis has been effectively decriminalised for months. David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, announced this week he wanted to do the same across the country, so that no one would be arrested for possessing the drug. I had rolled two joints in the lavatory of the pub, and we were all feeling slightly nervous. The Home Secretary's new plans notwithstanding, this would still be a fairly heroic example of civil disobedience from a sitting MP. And so it would have been. But when Mr Owen Jones turned up, he announced that he had changed his mind. 'No matter how foolish a law this is, as an MP I cannot be seen...' he began to say. 'What do you mean? Will you at least hold it when we do the photos?' I interrupted. 'Not if I have to light it. I have to go back to the Commons to vote in a minute and I'm in bad enough odour with the whips as it is without taking drugs on the streets of Brixton,' he replied. 'I'll light it,' I said, 'and you pass it to Dr Tom.' 'I won't pass it to anyone because that would be supply,' the MP said. 'I won't tell anyone,' I said, unconvincingly. He passed it to his researcher, who gave it to Rebecca, who was Dr Tom's researcher. Dr Tom, meanwhile, had taken an aspirin, 'not because of the headache but for the coronary arteries'. A black man began shouting at us about 'white men in suits smoking ganja - wha-aaat sort of example of that is it for the children?' 'I'm doing this for science,' said Dr Tom, magnificent in his dark suit which, he pointed out, had come from a 'fairly good tailor'. I said to Mr Owen Jones: 'Go on, just have one puff'. He said: 'I want you to make it absolutely clear, ABSOLUTELY CLEAR, that I did not inhale.' 'But you have before, haven't you?' Dr Tom said. 'You made that clear when we had that debate in the Oxford Union.' Mr Owen Jones was off, going back to the Commons to vote. Dr Tom said: 'He chickened out.' Rebecca said that she was feeling 'mellow and spaced'. I said: 'How about a cup of tea or a drink?' 'I can't drink,' Dr Tom said, 'because that would spoil the experiment.' Simon the photographer said he knew a place where we could go. So we wandered around Brixton. Then we had a cup of tea. Dr Tom finished his joint, holding it between his thumb and forefinger like a pro. He still could not feel anything. 'Fifty years of drinking at least half a bottle of red wine a day has, I fear, removed any tendencies in that respect. When I had a general anaesthetic, it took quite a lot to put me under. 'I'm having quite a tense day. I've been correcting a chapter for my latest book and I've written a piece for The Times. But I'm just as anxious as I was two hours ago. I'm doing this in the name of science, you know.' Both Rebecca the researcher and Simon the photographer were looking fairly mellow and spaced. 'Are my eyes dilated?' she asked. 'A little,' said Dr Tom. Simon the photographer wanted to tell Dr Tom about his war experiences and how he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. I couldn't shut them up. So I sat thinking it was strange that Mr Owen Jones and Mr Banks, who wanted to legalise cannabis, would not take it. But Dr Tom, who thinks that it should still be banned, was happy to try the drug 'in the name of science'. The same reluctance had been shown by Tory MPs. Alan Duncan wants all drugs to be decriminalised but he would not go to Brixton. Peter Lilley, who has led calls for the legalisation of cannabis, said: 'I'm a doer not a trier' - whatever that meant. Francis Maude, one of the 'Shadow Cabinet Eight' who sabotaged Ann Widdecombe's zero-tolerance policy before the general election by admitting that they had tried it, said: 'It's not my style.' Nicholas Soames, the Bunteresque former Armed Forces Minister, suggested that the dope would have to be laid down for 25 years before he would smoke it. Simon the photographer had finally stopped talking about his war experiences. Rebecca was giggling. 'No,' Dr Tom said as he hailed a taxi, 'I'm still not feeling anything. Less than half a tot of gin. Absolutely nothing, no, nothing.' Where are you going? 'I have to attend a meeting of the Royal College of Physicians in Regent's Park on biological warfare. It's quite important, you know.'
After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back.
|
This page was created by the Cannabis Campaigners' Guide.
Feel free to link to this page!