Its Been an interesting Few Days  - 21 February 2005

Its been an interesting few days. I recently read, with some consternation, an article in the Daily Bigot aka Mien Kampf aka the Daily Mail. It ran a headline entitled Cannabis Caused a 14-Year Old to Kill, and Still they say its harmless by Melanie Phillips. Jesus, no WAY!, goddamn it I don't like that! 14 year old boys killing people whilst high on marijuana!!!!!!! Where do I start, how do I deal with this, what other signs can I look for? thank heavens Mel has provided some more pointers. He listened to MARILYN MANSON too! and  he was into PORN, and sex with girls at 14, how completely UNBALANCED!! No wonder he went and committed murder.

 Hell, where do we from here, I think at the last count approximately 1 in 9 people are regular cannabis users with over 44% of young people trying it, Christ! DON'T GO OUT YOUR DOOR! If you hear Marilyn Manson playing and the person listening to it has dyed their hair jet black and has red eyes run for your life. Any second that person could suddenly loose the distinction between reality and fantasy and do you over obscenely with a spatula instead of giving you the whopper with fries and kids meal with crap plastic toy you ordered. In the blink of an eye he or she could switch from being say a nursing student with a penchant for black, working for extra cash, into a knife wielding maniac who regards you as the gatekeeper for the seventh level of hell. I mean every day I switch on the news I see a report of how one of the 8 million UK citizens that have either tried Marijuana or are regular users has flipped and caused mayhem and murder.

 Every day. Um?

If I had the opportunity I would like to ask Mein Kampf, specifically the dullard that wrote the article, should I fear all 14 year olds in case they like, Marilyn Manson, Cannabis, sex, or the occult? Or rather is it a combination of these things that are the pre-requisite for violent deluded murder, or are there other things we don’t know about, like he was a vegetarian as well, I don’t mind hating them.

Could I also ask the scare monger that penned this hysterical nonsense, and I class it as hysterical in many ways, not all in the side-splitting sense, if she can base her invective on any form of personal experience? I doubt it. I've seen her picture. I nominate her for a spliff, if nothing else just to see her eat her editors' spleen with HP sauce as she so obviously  believes that this can be the only outcome.

As a person does she feel she has contributed to the greater good of society by writing what she has or, rather, is it unnecessarily continuing to cause huge harm to a portion of the population that just doesn't need crap right wing baseless bandwagon bullshit demonizing them?

 Well, this subject does hold an interest to me as I am firmly, and unquestioningly proud to call a small proportion of the incredible 8 MILLION people in this country that have smoked cannabis, my friends. Having known them for a good many years and come in contact with a plethora of others that are of similar ilk who find themselves plagued by an ignorance that realizes that its own survival depends on instilling fear into people. I find such journalism, wrong. 

So, what is it that I'm ranting about?. For the purposes of this article I have taken some choice cuts from Melanies' err work and I have put these points to a close friend who, without a doubt, can be considered a very heavy user of cannabis and has been for the past 5 years, once I had removed all Marilyn Manson records, references to the Devil, and spatulas. I should stress that I asked him to be honest and as frank as is possible, he agreed as long as he could remain anonymous and not be called frank, to which I have agreed and from now on shall call him Deep Joy.

Interview with Deep Joy based on the article penned by Mel  of the Mail. 

Legion "Hey Deep how are you?"

DJ "Fine thanks bud."

Legion "Good, good. Listen, I want to put some of these points to you, would you mind?"

DJ "I want to eat your spleen"

Legion "I rather imagined you might so I brought pork scratchings"

DJ "Goooood call dude"

Legion "yea man"

Ok, so the real Q&A then.

 Legion “DJ you read the article can I have your initial reaction please.”

 DJ “Not entirely sure if I should be laughing, crying, or running for my worthless life. This is just bad news mate. She starts by being as graphic as she can be about what happened without actually making a fucking snuff movie to emphasize it. That’s beside the point though, it’s just scaring people, making them feel instantly disgusted.”

 Legion “You will have to excuse me but it is disgusting mate.”

 DJ “Oh look I’m not questioning the severity of the crime. However to induce an emotive response in such a manner is pushing you seriously away from objective reasoning because you have to feel disgusted when you see it, not to would be abnormal.”

 Legion “so you are saying that this is a form of mental conditioning designed to set an emotive balance in favour of repulsion?”

 DJ “Yup as soon as you read it you are socially bound to expect a resolution to the story by evoking a required emotional response that is a pure opposite of the initial feeling of disgust. Crime and punishment”

 Legion “You weren’t so distracted?”

 DJ “I’m not a mollusc”

 Legion “This is going to be a long one. Alright then, can you tell me about some of the claims she makes here? That it causes a deficiency of emotion for example.”

 DJ “Interesting, I have been a user for 5 years, heavy for the past 4. I initially thought that yes, she could be telling the truth but there are long periods of time when I’m stoned and I feel just great. I enjoy everything simple as that. I suppose that if there is a result of this then when not stoned some things can appear mundane in comparison.”  

Legion “ I need to clarify a point here, are you saying that when you are not stoned things seem less emotive to you?”

 DJ “No, I feel about them as I did prior to being stoned. Just less emphasized”

 Legion “Ok, she goes on to clearly and definitely state that it was the boys consumption of cannabis that caused him to kill so violently”

 DJ “Yes, I notice she appears a lot more definite than the judge on the part of cannabis in this who was clear that there could have been a contributing factor rather than a solid link.  Obviously she knows better. Look I’m not for one second saying that cannabis has no fucking effect, of course it does, that’s why we take it. It’s just that in all my years of smoking this stuff I have never ever felt it was necessary for me to in any way hurt anyone. I fucking love everything when I’m stoned. Even Kebab”

 Legion “But this article is stating that delusion is a forgone conclusion with this stuff”

 DJ “I’m not disputing that it could happen. I don’t doubt there’s risks, serious ones. I am under no damn illusion that what I am doing could have ramifications in the future. It’s just that I have observed a history of cannabis and it’s been around a bloody long time and I’m sorry but I just can’t see the reports of a huge section of the population currently in a state of advanced dementia running around whacking people. So until history changes I will consider this a reasonably safe thing to do. However, like I said I’m under no illusion that there are dangers and specifically to younger people. I pesonally think that under 25 is dangerous and that’s why I feel very damn strongly about legalising this so that it can be properly regulated. Although this is just a feeling and I can’t offer proof to justify that.”

 Legion “I wasn’t expecting you to cast such a shadow over this, I was rather thinking you may defend cannabis”

 DJ “I defend my right to use it more than the puff itself. Look it’s this simple, if anyone out there says this is safe, they are lying, simply because none of us know what will happen. This drug, when inhaled induces euphoria not unlike the feelings associated with falling in love. It has to change the brain chemistry to do it, but then so does alcohol. There is no definitive answer, this poisonous article in the Mail shows this to be the case. What I do feel, and strongly is that when articles like this appear they serve to create fear, real fear amongst users. While this may give this bitch the equivalent of a stiffy I’d like to point out that yes, we can suffer depression, we become reclusive, we stop talking, and we can become psychotic, but then how could we not? People like Mel won’t let us be anything else, she demands society treat us this way and she will use base invective to get the general population to follow her agenda. Users cannot step forward to talk about their drug use, as a result there are few methods available to users to discuss some of the reactions to cannabis use. This will always exist as long as fear is allowed to be so disseminated by the press. We have to get this into the open, I am convinced that there would be a  reduction in the number of people that may suffering mental problems as a result of use if it could be properly normalized.”

 Legion “Ok, well I think that’s answered the emotional deficiency question.”

 DJ “Yea. I get angry at this level of ignorance though. I think I read somewhere that the guy was smoking 600 joints a day or something mad like that. No fucking way, really that’s impossible, pass out well before the 5^th normally. We need to be adult about this, I mean we as a nation need to really grow up. Is this nation so damn perfect that we can all stand up on our moral high ground and if so why is it the case that 9 million of us are sitting at home feeling like a bunch of arses for doing something that makes us smile.”

 Legion “Ok one final point, she says that the drug cruelly and cynically preys on those whose lives are most empty of meaning and purpose. Your feelings?”

 DJ “I am full of feelings that I have a purpose to have a spliff and go write a love song for m’lady. She really likes them. Then she has a spliff and we have sex, with meaning. One final point though, I noticed that the article poured scorn on all the world and yet neglected to mention the parents role in the matter. How the hell did a family let a young boy fall so far, I wonder if they read the Mail. I mean if you were a user experiencing problems and your parents were repeatedly pointing to articles like Mels in the Mail as a reference, would you want to talk to them?”

An interesting interview which has caused me many moments reflection. I never believed that it was as clear cut as the Mail article indicated. Indeed one of the reasons I started to look harder was because of how strongly worded it was and how little it seemed to reflect on what I knew to be true about people I associated with. It seems that there is much to debate about the long term effects, however what seem obvious is that it must be brought under some sort of regulation so as to remove the stigma and thus promote an atmosphere of responsibility through education. It is also clear that irresponsible reporting in this area truly is earning money from other peoples’ misery. So further investigations took place and I would like to end this article with a quote from Ms Phillips  regarding people campaigning for the legalization of cannabis.

‘Many of these campaigners are themselves – or are the parents of users and are therefore either unwilling or simply incapable of acknowledging the acute dangers of a moral collapse.’- Mel Quote

Some numbers for you Mel:

Alcohol Related Crime statistics 2001/2002 in England and Wales  

Homicide        319

Common assault 841,770

Wounding      309,730

Sexual offences  18,848

Burglary in business  159,998

Criminal damage  3,151,896

Robbery from individual  43,440

Robbery from business  9,185

Theft from a person  80,080

Theft of a pedal cycle  50,050

Theft of a vehicle  42,900

Theft from a vehicle  202,800

Attempted vehicle theft  91,910

Other theft and handling 192,920

Total 5,364,316

That’s over 5 million crimes in a year, each and every one alcohol related.

 I would enjoy the Mails’ " wine column" if only I didn’t feel that the paper  was either unwilling or simply incapable of acknowledging the acute dangers of a moral collapse.

One final point, with over 100,00 casualties a large portion of which are civilian (that’s non combatant, men, women, and children) in Iraq attributed to the allied invasion, may I request that the Daily Mail provide a list of the Prime Ministers drinks cabinet and indeed information on his record collection so I may pour equally senseless, foaming-at-the-mouth-levels of derision to all members of society that associate with these things. Bach maybe, or is it Jazz that little murderer is into?

I apologize DJ rang me with two other facts he’s found out. One, he noticed that the mails readership is approx 9 million which, given that at least some of them will have tried weed, makes Mel a Minority. Also to the left of this  tirade of insidious nonsense is the Daily Mail comment  which opens with the line:

 “THIS country has much to be proud of, tolerance, literature, architecture, music, freedom of speech.”- Quote from the Mail Comment

 Oh  my  God.