2005
The Proof Is In The Puff…
My title comes from a Glade air freshener ad that entertains me every time I see it.
legalization is a hot topic. If we legalize weed then everyone who tries it will go on to become smackheads/junkies etc. etc…and the other general arguments that the Proud Upstanding Members Of Parliament in the UK tend to come up with. My view on the situation is summarized very well in a song by a UK Garage band The Streets. In ‘The Irony Of It All’, a drinker and a pothead talk about their respective evenings. The drinker says how he is a proud upstanding citizen, hates those law breakers and people who mooch off the government and how he likes to go down his local of an evening to get trashed and smash people’s faces in. The pothead goes on to talk about how he likes to stay up all night smoking puff and discussing the world with his friends before going to sleep at 6am. One of my favourite lines is:
‘Um, well actually according to research
Government funding for further education pales in insignificance
When compared to how much they spend on repairing leery drunk people at the weekend
In casualty wards all over the land’
(If you want to see the whole song, go here)
So, booze and cigarettes, nice legal taxable drugs that kill thousands. Pot, evil illegal drug that, in the words of a leaflet I came across while doing youth work, would only kill you if someone dropped a kilogram block of it onto your head from a tall building.
All of these drugs can be abused. But why should two be fine, and one be illegal? Well, perhaps the immense amount of money received by the government both in the US and UK has something to do with it…
When will pot become legal? As soon as the government finds out a way to make money off it. That’s when.
