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So here we are in the country where free speech is legal but you need to be very careful what you say, while marijuana is illegal and the whole place stinks of it.
asserted
place → publish → it
For yes, it is still very much against the law, even to possess this pungent drug.
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it → possess → drug
The offence – on paper – carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison plus an unlimited fine.
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offence → carry → prison
But if you think this is enforced you must be joking.
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you → think → ?
Even police who try to do so find their efforts end up in ‘out-of-court disposals’, i.e. the offender is let off.
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offender → try → disposals
Generally, officers don’t bother to waste time and effort on an offence the courts don’t care about.
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courts → bother → offence
The Daily Mail easily found examples of this.
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Mail → find → this
Up in Middlesbrough, we saw a young woman calmly fashioning a spliff in plain sight of indifferent passers-by, quite untroubled by fears of arrest or punishment.
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woman → see → arrest
In Birmingham, we came across a man rolling a joint on a train while nearby police officers ignored him.
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officers → come → him
Other passengers looked on but did nothing.
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passengers → look → nothing
Who can blame them?
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Who → blame → them
The drug’s reputation as ‘soft’ and ‘peaceful’ is rapidly wearing thin.
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reputation → wear → ?
Commuters in New York, where the drug is legal – but smoking on the train is banned – have been stabbed for upbraiding dope smokers.
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smoking → smoke → smokers
British author Ross Grainger has spent years compiling court cases from all over the country in which horrible violent crimes have been committed by cannabis users.
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crimes → spend → users
He produced a grim book of such cases called Attacker Smoked Cannabis.
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He → produce → cases
And he notes: ‘The law against cannabis possession is barely enforced in Britain.’
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law → note → Britain
As to why this might be, he points out that ‘Big Cannabis, as a lobby, is as real and insidious as Big Tobacco’.
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Cannabis → point → Tobacco
Incessant campaigns to soften the marijuana laws, often with billionaire backing, claim it is safe, mild and healthy.
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it → soften → backing
But those societies that have relaxed their laws have paid a gruesome price.
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that → relax → price
In Britain we still bone-headedly refuse even to notice the signs.
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we → refuse → signs
A man smokes from an oversized spliff at a pro-cannabis rally in Hyde Park, London, while surrounded by onlookers
A young man rolls a cannabis joint on a public train.
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man → smoke → train
In New York, where the drug is legal but banned from being smoked on the train, commuters have been stabbed for upbraiding weed smokers
Few have reported, for instance, that the killers of murdered soldier Lee Rigby were long-term marijuana users or that the Nottingham home of the crazed killer Valdo Calocane ‘stank of weed’ according to his neighbours.
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home → ban → neighbours
In the US, doubts grow daily.
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doubts → grow → US
The former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson has described a conversation with his wife, Jackie, a psychiatrist, which changed his mind.
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which → describe → mind
Jackie used to work at a grim mental hospital, a sort of American Broadmoor called the Mid-Hudson Forensic Psychiatric Center, which looks from the outside like a prison, with barbed wire.
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which → use → wire
Berenson explained: ‘It’s full of the criminally mentally ill – defendants judged not guilty by reason of insanity.
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It → explain → insanity
Most have been diagnosed with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia that provoked them to violence against family members or strangers.’
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that → diagnose → members
Berenson describes the decisive conversation with his wife: ‘A couple of years ago, Jackie was telling me about a patient.
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Jackie → describe → patient
In passing, she said something like – “Of course he’d been smoking pot his whole life.”
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he → say → pot
‘“Of course?” I said.
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I → say → ?
“Yes, they all smoke.”
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they → smoke → ?
’
And she did not mean tobacco.
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she → mean → tobacco
Berenson went on to write the book Tell Your Children, denouncing the rush to legalise marijuana that has swept North America over the past 15 years.
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that → go → years
And the signs are that the tide is now turning there, largely thanks to the unavoidable suspicion that the drug makes many of its users dangerously mentally ill.
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many → turn → users
Even the radically Left-wing New York Times, which in 2014 supported legalisation, is now retreating thanks to the disastrous results of the mass use of the drug.
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which → support → drug
In February, it confessed its mistake, saying: ‘It’s time for America to admit that it has a marijuana problem.’
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it → confess → problem
At the same time, the equally liberal Washington Post has reported the collapse of Portugal’s 2001 experiment in decriminalising marijuana and other drugs.
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Post → report → marijuana
Touted for years as proof that going soft would be just fine, the country has seen crime rates soar and its streets descend into squalor, which the police blame on drug use.
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police → tout → use
Even Nigel Farage has publicly toyed with the daft idea.
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Farage → toy → idea
The great guru of America’s pro-pot campaign, Keith Stroup, admitted in a 1979 interview that he planned to use medical marijuana as a ‘red herring’ to get the drug a good name.
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he → admit → name
…and 57 more, not listed.
The Aporia
