Need I say more?

Woke this morning to the news informing me that cannabis users can be up to three times more likely to develop a psychotic illness, such as schizophrenia. This in a week when at least nine members of Gordon Brown's new cabinet, the nerve centre of British politics, admitted smoking cannabis while at University. There are 23 members of the cabinet which means nearly half of them collapse firmly into into the cannabis-user zone. When the news about their youthful indiscretions first broke I thought it kind of humanised them, made them more interesting, more in touch with the rest of society. I also expected some really interesting new legislation, new laws encouraging us to take more time to smell the flowers, or policies suggesting we stay up late eating cold beans from the tin while listening to the Floyd very loud but no! Instead it has served as a preamble to a tightening up stance on cannabis. You'd think it would have taught them something wouldn't you? Instead it seems to have turned them all into zealots. Despite the dangers, (and to be honest I'm more worried about the tobacco than the dope) young people who want will still get access to cannabis and a host of other nasty and dangerous substances just as those cabinet members did in their day but instead of the radical approach of having the nerve to make it licenced and controlled by the state it will continue to be supplied, to those who want it, by gangsters and criminals. It will mean that in order to get it they will need to mix with pushers and dealers I would have thought that was fairly dangerous. I know young people don't have to use cannabis, in fact they probably shouldn't but if they want to they will and maybe those who confessed last week should remember who they used to be. That might help them to think of strategies to help all young people, not just those who use cannabis, to learn from the mistakes they are bound to make rather than this hypocritical and hysterical preaching. There again maybe they are all psychotic.