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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: The Devil's Advocate Barry Beelzebub Bristol Evening Post Tuesday 09 Sep 2003 Column The editor of this impressive organ telephones me in a conspiratorial whisper. "This cannabis malarkey?" "Err, yes?" "Well now that it's legal, where can I get some?" Ah, the poor deluded fool. If only life was as simple as that. I advise him to stick to the Turbo Shandies (half of Stella and a bottle of Smirnoff Ice) and hang up. Mind you, he does have a point. Mr Plod may have decided that he will no longer prosecute people for having the odd puff in the privacy of their own halls of residence or Habitat-clad living rooms, but those who use the weed must still enter into a criminal act when they buy it. Worse than that, if they're not careful then a wannabe Yardie on a push-bike will sell them half an Oxo cube or the sweepings from the tea caddy. What we need is a reliable, State-controlled source of wacky baccy and then we can tax it. I'm deadly serious about this. We are allowed to kill ourselves with alcohol and tobacco, as long as we pay the Exchequer billions of pounds in tax for the privilege. Yet if we want to smoke cannabis, we have to give our hard-earned cash to a chap with a big hat, a fur-collared coat and a BMW who promptly uses it to pay for his next crack cocaine or heroin shipment. And some new guns. And some 9ct gold jewellery from the Argos catalogue. Why are The Powers That Be seemingly content for us to keep on funding an illegal trade which is at the heart of our 21st Century crime wave? Without the drugs business, we'd have almost no burglaries, little car crime, not very many muggings, hardly any beggars, far fewer homeless people, no ugly prostitutes & it speaks for itself. And we'd also have a damn sight fewer social workers, outreach officers and other public sector employees leeching off the underclass to keep themselves in brown rice, sandals and annual fortnights in Tuscany. (Maybe that's the hitch. We'd take the Yardies off the streets, only to replace them with thousands of disenchanted Guardianistas, a far more dangerous mob as far as Mr Blah is concerned. They come armed with votes, not Uzis.) So let's get it sorted. You want to smoke dope? Fine. But your 20 Benson and Hempseed are going to cost you a fiver, £4 of which will be tax. That's a lot cheaper than it'll cost you on the street. And it's millions a year out of the drugs barons' pockets. And millions a year into education, or health or transport instead. Non-smokers who don't want a whiff of the West Indian Woodbines can take the Jack and Vera Duckworth route: Hash Brownies on sale at your local baker's shop under the trade name Cannabiscuits. If it's good enough for Emily and Norris, it's good enough for me. And if we're then brave enough to give heroin and crack away on street corners, accepting that a few idiots will take too much and kill themselves, we'll also have done away with 90 per cent of the crime which currently afflicts us. And a lot of dim-witted Scousers. This is not a great leap to make. We have already this week accepted the decriminalisation of cannabis use. If only we had a Government with real guts, we could solve this cataclysmic problem for once and for all.
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