The Soviet fist for a ‘liberal’ demo
On 5 May, there are apparently going to be demonstrations in 300 towns and cities around the world, for the legalisation of cannabis. I have very strong views on legalisation (against – look what happened with tobacco cigarettes, and now there’s no going back), but I’m not going to repeat them here.
I just wondered about the choice of a Soviet fist for a pseudo-liberal demo in favour of ‘making cannabis legal’. I’m somehow left with the suspicion, many times, that lots of the loudest and angriest ‘liberals’ are really quite totalitarian at heart. They want to control every minute aspect of their own lives and quickly move on to the desire to control the lives of others.
And what do they mean by ‘legalising cannabis’, anyway? Decriminalisation of possession, or dealing?
As if we don’t have enough problems to be getting on with – we have to go right ahead and add to them, with pot pushed to 12-year-olds (“so what, it’s legal”) in the same way that Lucky Strike are.
When you make something legal, you make it acceptable, and more people do it. End of story. There is nothing to be gained by making cannabis ‘legal’ and a great deal to be lost. I’m quite sure that if people could go back in time, they would have banned cigarettes at the outset. Look at all the damage they’ve caused and the lives they’ve ruined, with absolutely no benefit. The tax revenue has been more or less mopped up by healthcare costs, pensions to widows and the rest.
Tal-biki.
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They’re also rather naive to imagine that a demo is going to be anything other than a complete waste of time.
Nevertheless some rather major scaling down of the legal sanctions IS called for. The present ones seem to have been drawn up by a committee composed of a representative of the “Insalvaw Wliedna” organisation (or whatever it was/is called), a bunch of always-nerdy-from-schooldays and perpetually bullied “tfal sew” parliamentarians, a not particularly bright priest, a housewife from Bormla, and a die-hard Lejberist, retired, all with variously sized and shaped chips on their shoulders.
I think if you keep drug laws as they are, they only benefit dealers who tend to be criminal, unscrupulous and daring.
At the same time decriminalisation would encourage people to explore drugs and we end up with a much worse situation.
Sentencing someone to 18-years prison for growing cannabis in his field is a bit too harsh.
Let’s see what Joseph Muscat will promise this motley bunch of losers.
Free cannabis and mouldy oranges from Dom’s garden in exchange for photos of their voting preferences once he is no longer ‘prattikament prim ministru”?
INSERRHU RASNA L AHWA!
“Carmen Camilleri
Today, 14:52
Once PL is in government our country’s foreign policy will be in the hands of George Vella, Luciano Busuttil and Joe Mizzi.”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120420/local/pl-motion-calls-for-resignation-of-richard-cachia-caruana.416329
Specimen of Dr.Busuttil’s communicative prowess;
http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=544431389
Luciano Busuttil
8 hours ago via Mobile.
Its another beautiful spring day. Good day to you, you, you and even you from me and my family.
Luciano Busuttil
7 April.
Bongu hbieb, l-Easter Buny gie jzurna dal-lejl u ghopllielna l-gas mill-gdid.
The clenched fist is tal-biki indeed, straight out of Pyongyang. True liberals would have gone for a middle finger.
[Daphne – The last time I saw a fist like that, it was at the Museum of Communism in Budapest. No doubt Jeffrey sees fists like that several times a day, or so he tells us on Facebook. But perhaps not, given that they approach him from the rear.]
I’m running out of tissues
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Labour-calls-for-an-end-to-north-south-divide-20120420
You are complety right. I am a cigar smoker myself and I assure you that being a smoker is nothing to be happy about. Apart from being a dirty habit it is now considered unsociable, and rightly so.
On the other hand if they desire to be hooked on drugs, so be it, as long as they sign a letter of undertaking that they will not be able, ever, to claim free medical treatment from the state. Why should they expect us to pay for their stupidity?
What’s so liberal about legalising cannabis anyway? Why is it that the word “liberal” has become the synonym for “anarchical” and “amoral”?
“Why is it that the word “liberal” has become the synonym for “anarchical” and “amoral”?”
That’s what happens when liberalism is hijacked by socialism. Liberalism can adopt elements of social justice, but it cannot be dominated by socialism.
Spot on.
The left fails when it tries to follow both without clarifying with the electorate where the boundaries are. Being inclusive requires compromise which definition is then left to plain political expediency.
Both sides end up feeling duped.
300 towns and cities in a joint effort for the legalisation of cannabis.
It is blatantly obvious that the people trying to push this cause haven’t got a clue.
They champion their own views whilst wearing blinkers, similar to the pitchfork-wielding peasants we have come to be so familiar with (especially over the past couple of months) on this island.
I am not against the legalisation of marijuana so much as I am against this cause being pushed by angry bigots who wouldn’t distinguish the communist fist from their grandmother’s. I suppose, as usual, they will be their own worst enemies in the end.
Shouldn’t an adult be able to weigh the costs and benefits of smoking a cigarette on his own, without the state’s interference?
The only thing is that smokers should compensate society for the external costs they impose…and they more than do that through excise duty. Look up how much the the UK government collects in cigarette excise and how much the NHS pays for smoking-related illnesses. You’ll find smokers give back much more than they cost.
And then cannot the same argument be used for marijuana?
[Daphne – Yes, and the same argument can be used against the law on seat-belts in cars, safety helmets on construction sites, crash helmets on motorbikes, licensed diving instructors, and so on. But the whole point is that no, you don’t get to decide for yourself whether you want to smoke or not, beyond the first few cigarettes. That’s why it’s called an addiction. Sure, an adult can be relied on to decide for himself whether to take heroin or not. Then what? And to be perfectly honest, nobody in his or her right mind actually DECIDES to take heroin, and nobody who is thinking clearly actually decides to start smoking. That’s why you’ll find that most smokers began when they were NOT thinking clearly, in their teens. I have yet to meet somebody who started smoking at 40. Cannabis is extremely dangerous. It can trigger off massive psychosis, many times with permanent damage, at times schizophrenia, mainly in young men. You don’t get to hear about it because the parents of these young men don’t go and blab to the newspapers but guard their privacy and their sons’ privacy, and rightly so. This is the bit they never tell you about. And the other bit they never tell you about is that unless you go through genetic testing first, if you are a young man you have absolutely no idea beforehand whether you’re going to be one of these.]
In my opinion, what these people are doing is something symbolic, by standing up for what they believe is right.
Isn’t that better than always complaining what “the rest of civilisation” is doing?
In this damned country where people ‘s only opinion is what the media is saying we already know from before that something will change only when this civilisation can THINK WITH THEIR OWN MIND, AND NOT WHAT OTHERS MAY THINK.
[Daphne – I think with my own mind, and it is an opinion formed over many years, when I conclude that decriminalising the sale of cannabis would be disastrous.]
Cannabis is here, it is not going away no matter what draconian laws are passed against its users.
As a cannabis user and an adult, I do not see what all the fuss is about. I do not use tobacco or alcohol but prefer to use cannabis, so why should I be labeled a criminal to use an ancient plant that is less harmful than those other two?
Its decriminalization and its regulation will do more good to keep it away from children, if that is a bona-fide concern that parents have.
[Daphne – You are wrong-headed to believe that. If you were a parent, you would know that the first problems begin around the age of 13 with the legal stuff, alcohol and cigarettes, precisely because they are legal. There is no reason to believe that legal cannabis would be any different. And if you are a parent, you shouldn’t be smoking cannabis.]
I always found it odd at the overkill and heavy handedness that the establishment deals out to cannabis users, who to a person are not hurting anyone including themselves.
[Daphne – Well, that’s probably because most people think ‘adult who smokes cannabis’ = ‘loser’. And in many cases, but not all, they are right. More accurately, grown men and women who smoke cannabis just come across as weak and in need of a crutch. It’s not a good look – about as attractive as a heavy drinker. But that’s not the point. The point is that it’s a high risk substance to one class of young adults, and nobody knows beforehand whether they are in this category.]
I suspect that the real concern Big Brother has concerning cannabis is that you might think outside the box under its influence, so not to be a good consumer anymore and you will question authority more than before, not good for the bottom line.
The author Graham Hancock has also alluded to this very fact. Even alleged mind control victim Cathy O’Brien says that cannabis is the only substance that is not allowed in mind control programming, as it is detrimental to it.
[Daphne – Not to be rude or anything, but you sound just like a pothead. Thirty years ago already I was bored by this kind of weirded-out talk. You can just imagine how much patience I have for it now. Cannabis doesn’t help people think outside the box; it just makes people who aren’t at all bright think they’re having smart insights and saying clever things, while having no idea at all that they sound even thicker than usual. I do a pretty good impression of a daft woman who’s just smoked a joint. Too bad you can’t see it.]
No Daphne, I disagree with you.
I am very successful in the material world as a self made man from a monetary point of view.
Cannabis is what I prefer to use and no man-made law is going to stop me from using it when I feel like it. The stuff just agrees with me and I agree with it.
That works for me.
” very successful……from a monetary point of view”
So are the pushers who prey on our youths.
Well done for your achievements. People like you prove that its not the drug but how it’s used and who uses it.
It is well known that many in academia smoke weed. They are probably the most successful people around. Nonsensical arguments used by those such as dear Silvio would never fit into such an intelligent category.
[Daphne – Another fallacious argument. ‘Many in academia smoke weed (it is well known). They are the most successful people around (probably). Therefore weed is good.’ Rubbish. Let’s talk when you’ve reached that stage in life where the people you know who smoke weed have been doing so for 30 years, not three. Then we’ll talk. At least the ones who have been smoking tobacco for three decades are still making sense, even if their lungs are shot and their skin is ruined.]
No Silvio, I have a hard time finding and buying the herb myself.
I am a successful business person in my 60s in another field of business endeavor that is very much legit and besides your kids could do a whole lot worse than puffing on a reefer.
Drinking alcohol and puking their guts out the following morning is a lot worse, especially if that regime becomes a habit.
Your fears are over rated.
When discussing cannabis we always bring up alcohol and tabacco as a counter argument. I believe that salt and sugar are far more dangerous than pot.
[Daphne – Salt and sugar do not damage your mind, Drinu. This is my point here. People who use cannabis regularly choose to focus on the ‘fact’ that it is not harmful to the body (the jury’s still out on that), but conveniently leave out all the damage it does to the mind, and the massive psychosis it often triggers off in young men, at times with permanent damage. You can test what you really think about cannabis, beyond the rhetoric and the received wisdom and your need to defend it, by giving an honest answer to this question: would you like your son or daughter to become pothead, and if not, why? Oh, so cannabis isn’t that great after all, is it.]
From a very young age our kids are force fed process food full of preservatives, artificial colouring, high in salts and sugar. Fizzy drinks containing shoking ammounts of sugar and now the new trendy energy drink full of caffeine, which I have my doubt how healty such a beverage could be for our young ones. The war against drugs have failed and while we are busy fighting this lost war we are being bombarded by ads selling us junk food and other unhealthy shit.
[Daphne – Your argument is fallacious: young people eat junk food therefore they might as well smoke pot. How about they do neither?]
By focusing on that image and criticising it you are completely missing the point.
Drugs, whether one chooses to accept the reality or not, are consumed be they legal or illegal. So by legalising soft drugs (which do not do any more harm to society then alcohol or cigarettes – those expecting an armageddon with the legalisation of cannabis are the ones with the blinkers on) the state can control the market, collect taxes and inject the money back into the economy. The black market controls an unavoidable situation, selling hard drugs to kids who don’t know any better.
[Daphne – The usual facetious and fallacious arguments: that it’s OK to maximise damage as long as the state collects revenue off it; that making a drug legal will not increase its consumption. Of course it will. Isn’t that the point of legalising it – to increase its consumption? Otherwise, why bother. The minute something is legal, it becomes cheaper and more accessible. Consumption increases, especially among very young teenagers. Use cigarettes as a model. If they were illegal, only a tiny fraction of the population would have become addicted. The model does not work for alcohol, because the product is not comparable.]
Please, try to see what these people are trying to do. They are in no way expecting to change the world with their activism. For their lack of apathy they should be greatly commended, because most people complain from the comfort of their own home without trying to improve a situation and without opening their eyes to the realities of others.
I really do not understand this mentality. Most of us would be living very different lives were it not for those who sought to better a situation and who fought to make society adaptable to the needs of all.
Progress always prevails. If it didn’t, we would still be living in caves.
[Daphne – Legalising cannabis is not progress. I’ll admit that the penalties are draconian and need to be chopped down, and that people caught with a joint should not be prosecuted, which is utterly ridiculous, but the last thing we need is cannabis sold openly and made acceptable. I grew up in a society where almost all of my peers were hooked on cigarettes by the time they were 15. Thirty years later, most of them are still hooked. If you would like this to happen with cannabis, you’re on your own.]
The only point I don’t agree with you is that “penalties are dracornian and need to be chopped down”. On the contrary I think they should be harsher.
The courts should stop giving suspended sentences, as long as the law is still in force, they should all be sent to prison.
If one chooses to take drugs they are only physically harming themselves. So if I decide to do something, which affects my health, my money and my life then its MY choice. Harsher sentences do not improve a situation.
[Daphne – Yes and no, because you’re not a hermit. If you leave a widow and orphans, other people are going to have to support them. And in my experience, addicts have no money to spend on rehab unless they’re of the rare rich and famous variety, so other people have to fund them through.]
Prison is the worst place to send a cannabis user. Rehab is. A prison never made anyone a better man. Why should someone who enjoys a smoking a plant in their own home occasionally be locked up with real criminals?
Its the most illogical argument I ever heard.
You could say that drugs cause others harm (stealing money, violence, unsafe areas etc.) but cannabis does none of this. It is not addictive and can be easily cultivated for personal use. No harm done to anyone.
[Daphne – Don’t talk rot. Cannabis not addictive? Sure, in the same way that some people can smoke two cigarettes a week means that tobacco is not addictive. And that is quite apart from all the research which links cannabis to psychosis http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/76/5/678.full. Not that we needed research: there have been enough cases among young men in Malta.]
As for harder drugs, look at Switzerland. They have one of the best economies and highest standards of living in Europe, if not the world.
Yet they legalised heroin – probably the most harmful drug individually and socially. But it has only improved their environment as there are no heroin users on the streets, they are given clean needles so AIDS has decreased, the amount is controlled so there are no overdoses, the drug is pure and less people use it than before. Also, crime has reduced. I am not saying that we should do the same, but one has to look at what certain countries have dealt with situations.
[Daphne – You are misinformed, or you seek to misinform others. Switzerland did not legalise heroin. It merely made it legal for the official organisations which deal with heroin addicts to provide them with heroin free of charge to keep them off the streets and out of the parks. In other words, if you are not a heroin addict already, you can’t just pop along to get some for free to try it and become a new heroin addict. And the motivation of the Swiss people who voted, in a referendum, for this programme, was not anything to do with the right of an adult to harm himself by taking drugs, and everything to do with the Swiss obsession for cleanliness and order. They just wanted the addicts out of the parks. In fact, your Swiss people who voted for ‘the legalisation of heroin’, as you put it, also voted to reject a proposal for the legalisation of cannabis. So there you have it. If you don’t believe me, look up the news reports.]
People like you, Silvio, do not contribute to the betterment of society but only continue to support a system which has clearly not proven satisfactory. If we keep repeating a failing method, nothing will ever improve. It’s like a bad case of OCD with no cure.
Dear Daphne, Your Argument is a fictitious one – at a less Un-Spaghetti-Monster hour I will Elaborate…
Daphne Said “I have very strong views on legalisation (against – look what happened with tobacco cigarettes, and now there’s no going back)”
Are you SERIOUS???
What Planet do you live on???
Kindly state your source for information on the Past “illegality of Tobacco Cigarettes”
[Daphne – Cigarettes were never illegal. That’s just the point. When something is not illegal, more people sell it and more people buy it. That’s the way it goes.]
of course you’re not going to repeat them here…As if Tobacco were ever illegal!!!
To make such a comment you must think your readers are deranged!!!
[Daphne – No, but some of them clearly smoke far too much pot and it’s addled their mind, leaving them unable to understand simple sentences. Careful, you might actually find yourself voting for Joseph Muscat.]
If you have something to say try & do it intelligently please.
your take on this till now has not been one unlike the recounts of an impressionable 5-year-old…
It is already preposterous that a lobby group of people have to fight for the use of a weed in the so-called land of the free – let alone having to also sift through a myriad of half-assed comments based on Ignorance & Fanaticism that have a deducing system very similar to those used in Medieval witch-hunts…
Yes there is a hole in that bucket called common sense – Not We put it though!!!
Next time round maybe your suggestion will be considered & you might have to comment on a fist holding a cup of tea in a bone china cup with curled pinkie on the end.
[Daphne – What is it with you people, bone china cups and curled pinkies? More properly, how can you not assume that I must have first encountered tedious and hackneyed views like yours somewhere around 1979/1980, and that there is a generation even beyond mine who would have had to listen to the same arguments, and probably made them themselves, back in the 1960s and early 1970s? This is so old.]
The fist is not sole property of whatever movement makes use of it -it is an archetypal symbol that indicates the use of strength in this case it probably indicative of the spiritual type of strength – i.e. Be Brave, Brave, Brave – No Matter What – Since you ambiguously alluded to Prohibition & the Legal issues revolving around it these may be found of interest…
[Daphne – Sorry, no. That’s a Soviet fist. It’s perfectly obvious that you’re a generation younger than I am if you are unfamiliar with the symbols of totalitarianism, even if it weren’t obvious from the fact that you believe yourself to be having fresh, new thoughts which Jimi Hendrix espoused before even I was born.]
Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2tOp7OxyQ8&feature=BFa&
list=PL37FC6F3193C15C97
Milton Friedman – Why Drugs Should Be Legalized:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLsCC0LZxkY&feature=BFa&list=PL37FC6F3193C15C97
Medical Marijuana for Muscular Dystrophy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm9DBkNgQss&feature=BFa&list=PL37FC6F3193C15C97
Regarding the last link, I cringe to imagine how such a person would fair in Malta under the current Oblivious Status Quo.
[Daphne – Illogical thinking won’t get you far in your battles. Allowing marijuana for medical use is not what this is all about. You’d need a prescription for that, as you would for other dangerous legal drugs, like Valium and Ativan and Librium and the rest.]
Excuse me Madam but with the same logic you could easily say that the Crucifix is Reminiscent of Torture & Subjugation…
[Daphne – That’s exactly what I do say, Roberto. http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2009/11/missing-the-point-about-the-crucifix-ruling/ ]
Well Actually it is – regarding the Medical use of cannabis, I am simply referring to how unjust laws impinge on the less fortunate – But of course we must all first of all ensure that all those senior privileged businessmen in the US that keep us reliant on fossil fuel sleep well at night without being yet again haunted by the Hemp/Cannabis Demon…it is obvious that the War on Drugs has failed miserably – see report/s here: http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/reports/
it is also obvious why actuation of suggestion within the reports of the global commission on Drugs are being stalled – Follow the Money & the answers are clear…
So Exactly what are you trying to say?
Because it is pretty obvious that Prohibition causes more harm than the Cannabis it is keeping on a tight leash. That alone should suffice. But there is more of course. Beneficial side-effects – Many. Medical Applications & also many application in industry that would substantially bring down the global carbon footprint with regard of the use of hemp to phase out many polluting every day materials such a plastic bottles.
So I ask you again, what interest do you have in trying to impede such things?
[Daphne – I work for the people who make The Other Weed. But seriously, it’s a combination of several factors: the damage I’ve seen done, a good understanding of how and why people buy things and how and why demand is created, and observation of the manner in which children as young as 13 are drawn into the cigarette culture, a market model which suppliers of marijuana will follow.]
Daphne, Well Yes, But if you do look closely at the way prohibition works, it automatically eliminates pro-active ways of eliminating potential problematic situations as you mentioned i.e. having kids making use of something potentially harmful. But let’s not forget that Prohibition is far worse than regulation. It is self-evident that for example when you get American evangelists preaching of the wrongs of homosexuality it inevitably comes out with a vengeance – sometimes in the evangelist himself!!!
[Daphne – No, banning something does not mean eliminating the systems to deal with it. On the contrary, the systems exist and they make sense in a way that they wouldn’t if the sale were legal. There is a basic, fundamental contradiction in selling packets of cigarettes emblazoned with the message that they kill. If they kill, and you know that they kill, why are you selling them? It’s because of that fundamental contradiction that the message is undermined and the mind works to overcome it.]
Let’s start being honest with ourselves & begin with the basic urges people have e.g. food, sex, to associate, etc.
Then one could also easily say that making use of substances that might have some mind-altering effect could be indeed appended to the list of “acceptable urges” or at least there is an element of that that needs to be considered in an objective (& not character judging) way. Because it is only through acceptance that one is in a position to harness any urge, force, problem, that might be of concern. i.e. You don’t have to condone or glamorise Cannabis use to see that Prohibition is not the best tactic.
[Daphne – It is in fact an excellent tactic, the best possible one. The thing that you don’t seem to get in your failure to differentiate between food, sex and even cigarettes for that matter, is that anything which affects the mind and the person’s ability to function normally, even if only for a short time, affects society and his or her public ‘function’ – unless we are dealing with hermits or locked communities – and so becomes a social act and not a private one. Of course, the urge to say ‘ruin your life or handicap it if you want to; it’s your pigeon’ is a strong one, and that’s what I think in cases of grown men and women behaving as though they’re going to live forever and have plenty of time and second chances to mess up. But it’s not people like you I’m bothered about. It’s people who are much younger and who deserve better. Children in Malta are already as exposed to hard and soft drugs as they would be in any metropolitan centre, and they are more exposed to alcohol and cigarettes because the law is weaker here. The last thing they need is this rubbish. Not that it’s going to happen. ]
There is also an element of Understanding, Tolerance, & most of all Mercy. Because a society may be judged by how it treats its most unfortunate or better still its most guilty.
Just to give you a glimpse of what got me started on this issue was the Daniel Holmes Case because when you see things like that happen to a father of a new-born child it is irrelevant whether you disapprove of his former choices, risks, life-stlye he had previously, that draconian sentence served doesn’t make sense, nor does it make sense to defend the establishment that served it.
[Daphne – Yes, the prison sentence is draconian. But what shocked me more than the judgement was Daniel Holmes incredible stupidity. This is a man in his mid-30s, not a teenager. That level of maturity should have had him weighing up the consequences of his choices: ‘Hmmm, a baby on the way and if a I get caught with these marijuana plants I face years in jail. Do I rip them out and get rid of them, or do I persist? I know, I’ll just carry on and hope for the best.’ And please do not tell me that this inability to think straight is not the result of years of smoking pot. Of course I feel sorry for him. I wrote about it. But quite frankly, I would have felt as sorry for the baby, brought up by a father who sells pot for a living. What sort of environment is that for a child to grow up in?]
Why?
Because it is a natural trend (literally) to promote goodness backed with wisdom i.e. be good but not gullible – remember who wronged you, but forgive quickly i.e. do not carry the burden of grudges. Even birds have such utilitarian policies.
The only way we can breathe a soul into our lives, communities, countries & the whole world is by how we become better capable to shape our merciful qualities in a utilitarian way.
the balance has to be swayed on the human element, the human condition whether fortunate or unfortunate…isn’t it absurd that many people who have heroin problems have been found to be trying to suffocate more serious fundamental problems like child abuse, have to shake off their heroin habit before being able to be offered help on the underlying issue? I can’t find the link that illustrates better at the moment when i do I’ll post it for you..
[Daphne – Look, this is all a bit hippy-dippy and while I loved the clothes and the music and still do, I never had time for the conversation. It ALWAYS set my teeth on edge. The first casualty of smoking pot is logic. That’s why pot-heads are so very tedious to listen to unless you’re also smoking some yourself. This is what you’ve just said: ‘Lots of people are suffering from pain and hurt like child abuse, and they take heroin to ease that pain. So let’s make heroin freely available.’]
re: Prohibition non specific but wrenching…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOmEQGvgq4A&feature=BFa&list=PL37FC6F3193C15C97
You lot are not just living in the past, you have been conditioned to accept the illusion that’s been forced down our throat over the years: a world where governments are not their to protect our privacy, economic and intellectul rights, but to intrude, tax and oppress.
Governments are not there to tell you what NOT to injest, just as they have no right to tell you what to believe in. Your rights are not derived from Governments at all, they are natural rights which elected governments are bound to protect.
But I will not waste my time debating with paleo-morons like you. I will not test the pharmacological argument which establishes that addictive prescription drugs are the real killers. I will not touch the criminological, economic or political factors. These go beyond your pale. You will die without knowing a fraction of what you need to know – and that’s before you can even hope to understand it.
[Daphne – I try hard, Kevin, but I just can’t follow the argument that ‘prescription drugs/tobacco cigarettes are the real killers therefore if they are legal, heroin/marijuana/cocaine should be too.’ It’s fallacious. There are killers on the list so let’s add another one? How does that work? I argue the other way: it is precisely because we know how many people are hooked on prescription drugs (abusively and irresponsibly prescribed in many cases) and cigarettes that we should fight AGAINST more of the same with something else. If you are for the legalisation and, presumably, free availability of marijuana, why are you stopping there and not arguing for an end to mandatory prescriptions for uppers, downers, tranquillisers and other assorted mind-benders? Half of Malta’s population is hooked on them and can’t get off, and in what way is this all right because ‘they’re adults’. When you’re hooked, you’re no longer taking your own decisions. Why not put diazepam on the shelf with Panadol? After all, you can kill yourself with Panadol. Go on, Kevin, work it out.]
I will just tell you that substance prohibition has changed search and arrest procedures for ever. Before, the police would have needed reasonable suspicion of you having committed theft, fraud or bodily harm – an act that would have been reported by an identifiable victim. Today anyone can be suspected of possessing herbs.
But I’ll stop here – at step one of kindergarten level. You will only take that argument to the 1970s backyard and lose all trace of it, so what’s the use.
Do excuse my arrogance. I know your petty world inside-out and that places you at mouse level. Moreover, the 60+ mindset of this blog nauseates me to extents you cannot imagine. Literally, you have the mind set of Homo Sovieticus (you won’t understand that either, although you will in your own naive way.)
Ahjar taraw x’inhu jigri minn fluskom – l-ewro, il-fiscal treaty, ESM… have you analysed those, ja qatt cwiec imrawma fuq is-silla! Get out of that box and explore what’s truly going on, ghax qed taqghu ghan-nejk – intom, tat-Times, tal-Gahan Today u l-ighna kollha tal-partiti tas-silla blu, hamra u hadra. Puu ghal wicckom kemm bqajtu cwiec!
The last time I ‘debated’ the issue with you I was impressed by how little you know and how much you think you know. Nothing has changed.
[Daphne – The trouble with you, Kevin, is that you understand the matter only from the perspective of a former police officer. You do not understand it from any other perspective and I do.]
Put differently, you know a lot about many things, much of which isn’t so while the rest is irrelevant. The major void comprises of what you DON’T know.
If you only knew how passe your arguments are you’d take up gardening for the rest of your life.
[Daphne – The facts, Kevin, remain what they are. Raising your children in a Brussels suburb as you have done renders you completely immune to and unaware of the reality of life for 13-year-olds in Malta. I also suspect that you were cut off from all that when you, too, were 13. In your world, people over the age of 18 sit down and take a rational decision to become heroin addicts or have the occasional joint on Sunday. The only people I know who took a decision to begin drugs in their 30s and 40s and whose decision can be described as ‘rational’ insofar as that they aren’t actually mad or hormone-driven, are those who discovered cocaine late in life, think it’s safe to do occasionally at weddings and crap parties (so naff, my God) and then discover otherwise.]
One cannot discuss matrix calculus with people who’ve just mastered the long division, Daphne, especially if they believe it to be the cutting edge in maths.
And before you “sigh”, try first getting the arguments through your thick skull and straight into your pathetically conditioned brain.
[Daphne – You’ve just lost the argument, Kevin. And that is quite apart from the fact that your views on what constitutes an intelligent woman without a thick skull and a pathetically conditioned brain are highly suspect given the available evidence.]
1. You are very wrong when you say I understand the prohibition problem only from the perspective of a police officer. My world view is much much larger than that fraction you mention.
2. The facts are what they are. Pity you are unaware of them.
3. I know your ‘arguments’ inside-out. But then I cannot descend to your level – I cannot refer to what is to you unknown. Get it? Calculus? Long division?
You see, you can be rational and logical to the highest degrees, but without the facts your conclusions will be wrong, more so when some of your ‘facts’ are actually non-facts.
[Daphne – You talk a great deal about facts, Kevin, but never mention any. You merely post links to Ron Paul videos. And something else: I have little patience for those who formulate theories and then expect them to play out in real life. Theory almost never does. That’s why Labour politics – the politics you, unsurprisingly, support – fail repeatedly, and why Alfred Sant – the man of theory – was the most spectacular example of this. Real life and all things not being equal have a nasty habit of intruding.]
The arguments I was referring to were Ron Paul’s. They are more mundane than mine, so to speak. But do you get Ron Paul’s arguments? No. Your prejudgmentalism denies you the knowledge you need.
[Daphne – The medium is the message, Kevin, where I am concerned. Ron Paul? America doesn’t need a bigger drug problem. It needs a smaller one. To conclude that it has a ‘prohibition problem’ because far too many resources are being devoted to controlling the influx of illegal drugs, causing a concomitant problem in central and south American countries where demand is met and to which arms are supplied in exchange, is defeatist. The rationale for this argument is ‘we can’t win against the drug lords’, so let’s raise the white flag and butt out and let them sell their drugs in a regulated environment instead’. As if. Apart from the fact that you shouldn’t give in for much the same reasons that you shouldn’t negotiate with terrorists, the theoretical assumption – which will be blown apart by real life – is that drug lords and their operatives who have become accustomed to doing as they please in a criminal world will suddenly become law-abiding citizens and sell only within the regulations, filling tax returns and telling 12-year-olds ‘no, you can’t have some cocaine.’ Grow up, Kevin. Please. These are criminals you’re talking about, and I don’t mean they are defined as criminal because of ‘stupid’ drug laws which ban what they sell. I mean they are criminal people with criminals minds and psychopathic personalities.]
As long as you carry on living in the past – in Mintoff’s North Korea and in AST’s pants – without exploring the present and likely future, worldwide, you will remain uninformed, ignorant and laughable. Plato’s allegory of the cave fits you perfectly – you are one of the wisest sleepers.
[Daphne – It is exactly that which concerns me, Kevin: the future. And yes, even when I am talking about AST and North Korea. AST is not the past. He is the present. And the future.]
And by the way, the argument is NOT about 13-year-olds or cocaine at parties… Succinctly, it’s about whether we face a drugs problem or a prohibition problem.
Also, why you had to bring in the wimmin thing at the end is beyond my comprehension. Conditioned minds, concrete brains and thick skulls claim no gender bias.
[Daphne – ‘Person’ then, Kevin. Your views on what constitutes a clear-thinking person are highly suspect, given the available evidence. We face a drug problem, a sizeable one, and throwing the market wide open tells you – or it should – will only make things worse. Unless, of course, you are suggesting that when something is legal it is less attractive, which is not the case at all.]
We DID have a ‘debate’, Daphne, remember? It must have been 2008. That’s when I discovered how uninformed you are.
All the facts you mention – they’re just nuances. There’s a bigger picture. The problem is prohibition itself. But you’ll never get it. Your perspective is so narrow it bars you from seeking what you need to know; it even denies you the freedom to think straight. It’s a 60+ mindset you’ll never get rid of. An agony aunt perpective, if you see what I mean.
In the end of it all, it all boils down to the fact that you are a convinced statist – without even realising it, I would add. A ‘liberal statist’ – which makes you a neo-liberal (in European terms), since classical liberalism is now called ‘libertarianism’.
[Daphne – How absurd you are, Kevin, honestly. Talking of statists and libertarianism when you voted for Dom, KMB, Sant and the rest of the squalid oppressors, and made much of your time in the Soviet Union. You are a mass – make that mess – of contradictions.]
To you it’s a load of contradictions. To me it was a learning experience, especially my years in the Soviet Union.
As for Mintoff, I would agree with you on much of what you write, especially his stinginess, but again, there’s a bigger picture which you completely miss.
The fact that you are a statist is pivotal, here. Statists believe everything their governments tell them – and please, I hardly mean the Maltese government, which is an EU local council in today’s globalising world, enacting EU laws and parroting EU lies (all an intricate part of the collapsing American age we live in). Statists do not question the status quo, the values of the state, their dependency on it… They are not even aware of the various global power sources higher up, self-organised into the cartel they’ve long become, led by the global banking cartel which has the sole power to print money out of thin air, in secret and with no accountability or audit…
But I digress. Bottom line is, as I often say, I see you as the other side of the Lilliputian coin. The very people you mock are an integral part of the petty statist world you inhabit. For they too are statists – Lilliputian statists, to be precise. Just like you.
‘..classical liberalism is now called libertarianism’.
Even when those who proclaim themselves libertarians call for the suppression of ideas, beliefs and ethnicity in the name of ‘voluntary association’?
It’s not liberal is it?
Here, learn something, ja qatta pecluq tajbin ghal xejn:
http://youtu.be/dJs9891ZUnI
[Daphne – Ron Paul….sigh.]
@ Silvio:
“as long as they sign a letter of undertaking that they will not be able, ever, to claim free medical treatment from the state. Why should they expect us to pay for their stupidity?”
Why should I pay for the stupid fatsos who can’t control their eating habits and end up queuing for a heart bypass?
Why should I pay for the costs of traffic accidents cause by drunks?
If you’re unhappy to pay for the stupidity of others, I suggest you migrate to a different country because with gonizPN’s “free” healthcare, you are already paying for the stupidity of others.
No Jack, it’s not persons like me who should migrate but drug users should be MIGRATED to Corradino prisons,where they will be in good company.
[Daphne – You don’t jail users, for heaven’s sake. That’s pointless and unfair.]
No it isn’t.
A very basic business principle.
Cut the demand and you will stop the supply.
[Daphne – You don’t cut demand like that, Silvio. Also, supply creates demand, and not always the other way round.]
Harsher penalties, and I mean harsher, will decrease demand.
[Daphne – In civilised countries, Silvio, we strike a balance between the crime and the punishment.]
You surprise me, Daphne. I feel you’re getting soft.
The only way of ridding us of these pests is by being harsh.
Just imagne how the crime rate will fall, if all these are put away.
[Daphne – I don’t think addicts are pests, Silvio. I just think those who sell addictive drugs have a special place reserved for them in hell. And yes, that includes the legal ones. I don’t approve of cigarettes, either.]
Is allowing them to demonstrate “striking a balance”?
How about having a pressure group condoning something that according to our laws is illegal and damaging our youths?
I’m surprised how J.P.O hasn’t come out with some brilliant ideas yet, maybe he is thinking of a referendum.
Silvio, you still did not answer to my question.
Why should I pay for the obese who can’t control their eating habits?
Obesity costed the US and Canada around $300 bln (that’s billion, Silv) in 2011. Unfortunately, our statistics office does not provide that kind of info.
Actually, why don’t we start holding the patients in front of Mater Dei and do a “lifestyle-check” before they go in? If a person is found to be lacking regular exercise, having a bad diet, or uses ANY kind of drug including alcohol and cigarettes, then no “free” healthcare will be granted. How about that?
P.S. The best way to decrease demand is through education. Education, not scaremongering.
P.P.S You need to know that the all-inclusive sojourn of one inmate at Corradino costs the taxpayer EUR50 per day. If you’re happy to pay that for someone who grew a few plants for his own personal use, I’m not.
http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/health/medical/2011-01-12-obesity-costs-300-bilion_N.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8340318.stm
Of course I’m happy to pay Eur50 a day to keep one of these pests off our streets, Who wouldn’t?
Have you ever come across an obese person who turned to crime to sustain his habit?
I tend to agree with you that education is important especially in informing our youths, the consequences they will face, like going to prison for a long time.
I’m also of the opinion that in these cases prison should not be looked upon as a place for rehabilitation but as purely as a place of punishment.
I hope I have answered your questions.
“Half of Malta’s population is hooked on them (meds) and can’t get off”
Well, we agree on something after all. Now the question is, why would HALF of the population want to abuse of prescription drugs, while the other half does booze, tobacco, cocaine, heroin, and all the long list of illegal substances? Why is there such need in the first place?
[Daphne – The ones on prescription meds are not ‘abusing’ them. They have a prescription. It’s the doctors who are abusive, prescribing serious drugs like diazepam and repeating the prescription for years on end when they know that their patients can’t simply take a decision to come off the drug even if they want to, because doing so without strict medical supervision is extremely dangerous. The situation with diazepam, lorezepam and ‘kalmanti’ in Malta is similar to that with antibiotics. The point is that there IS NO need, but people have been led to believe that there is, just as with antibiotics. The reality is that those drugs create more problems for the individual than they solve. I am totally against them. Life is full of problems and they’re not solved by popping a Valium or smoking a joint. That’s just a temporary anaesthetic. I find it ironic when those who smoke pot (or take whatever) say that they are after a heightened life experience. It’s actually the opposite. People take drugs to feel less, not more, whatever they say.]
Silvio, you are either stupid or you have no clue of the subject!
“Have you ever come across an obese person who turned to crime to sustain his habit?”
Have you ever come across a cannabis smoker who turned to crime to sustain his or her habit?
Of course not!
Well your sick and hateful wishes to punish others will soon fly out of the window.
Most drugs will be decriminalised before the next general election and cannabis will be sold legally from coffee-shop in the next 7-10 years. So enjoy seeing innocent people getting punished while it last.
I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future, the courts would grant monetary compensation to individuals who were arrested or given a criminal records for personal use. We reached a new paradigm about drug use – it should not be dealt with as a crime but as a health problem. However, some are still stuck in the Middle Ages it seems.
Yes and yes, Jack. I have seen and I have even had to take action, with a couple of my employees who not only resorted to stealing but on one occassion became violent against his fellow workers.
These cases were always reported to the police, and I am glad to say that they got what they deserved.
The fact that a person resorts to cannabis to forget his problems is always an indication of a weak character who should never be trusted and should never be given jobs except maybe cleaning the toilets.
Yes, again, I’d rather be stupid than criminal and end up in prison in the company of drug addicts.
I’ve met many people in my life, on this island and in other countries, and I have NEVER met someone who resorts to theft to buy cannabis. Most cannabis consumers I met are accomplished people (even doctors and lawyers) or students.
Obviously, there could be rotten apples who happen to smoke cannabis as well, after all it’s something that is done by people from all walks of life and from every social class. So your anecdotal evidence does not support your argument.
No one resorts to cannabis to forget his or her problems. That’s something that alcoholics or heroin addicts are “usually” looking for.
Anyway, as I said earlier on, time will tell and I’m more than sure that in 10 years’ time we’ll all look back and laugh at cannabis prohibition.
[Daphne – Do you think so? I think not. Most sensible people look back and sigh (or cry) that cigarettes were ever given the green light, and if we laugh at anything, we laugh with amazement at the fact that they drove the advertising industry for decades. ‘Cigarettes are good for you’. Indeed.]
Daphne, come on, you’re intelligent enough to know that when you make a commodity illegal, you only drive its price up and its trade underground, thus losing any kind of control the State could have on the particular commodity.
[Daphne – That’s exactly it, Jack, except that my interest is not state control but wider access to ever younger people. As you said, illegality drives the price up and the trade underground, so quite frankly, that’s great. It’s the next best thing to wiping it out completely. As a user, you want greater access and lower prices. Your interests are not my own; nor are they shared with the rest of society.]
Cigarettes were neither given a green nor a red light ever. They were always legal and it seems they’re here to stay.
[Daphne – Yes, Jack, because they were introduced when society was still not as highly evolved as it is now, and when the understanding was of every man for himself. You had no food? You starved in the streets. Your husband died and left you with five mouths to feed? Tough. You want to sell something that can’t be used without harming the body and which will in a certain percentage of cases cause prolonged and terrible death? Go right ahead. That was what things are like. They are not like that now.]
We cannot stay speculating on how the situation might have been if they were made illegal. There is now way we could know because no country ever made them illegal so we cannot compare.
[Daphne – We can indeed compare. We have a parallel situation with cannabis. And we know for a fact that there would have been fewer smokers and a lot less people dead – because when something is illegal, far fewer people have access to it.]
What we can compare though is alcohol prohibition which happened in the US in the past. It did not lower the demand – it only gave rise to criminals such as Al Capone, consumers were getting an unregulated product (possibly being more dangerous), and the government was getting $0 from its sales + spending huge amounts of $$$ to enforce its prohibition.
[Daphne – The prohibition of alcohol did not make sense and was at the outset unworkable because alcohol has been an intrinsic part of cultures that have their roots in Christianity for the last two thousand years. Alcohol was part of life and part of life and in common use by most when it was banned. So obviously, a ban was never going to work just as a ban on cigarettes wouldn’t work now. The prohibition works for countries which are predominantly Islam because alcohol has never been part of Muslim culture, but you never hear people say anything about that. They mention only the prohibition in the United States. If drugs which are currently illegal are decriminalised just so that the disbelievers can see for a fact what damage will be caused, it will be impossible to ban them again.]
The only people who get to gain from prohibition are the criminals.
[Daphne – Just imagine how much more gain they will make, then, once they are free to operate completely freely.]
“Qormi broke a world record last night by unveiling the biggest ever wine glass.
The four-metre-high receptacle, made of perspex, can hold the equivalent of 5,000 bottles of wine”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120422/local/qormi-drinks-to-spring-a-lot-of-drink.416491
A country of hypocrites, that’s what this country is!
We celebrate alcohol without any shame, when science confirms that it is the worse drug, much worse than cannabis can ever be.
Both the past and present chairmen of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) in the UK confirm this.
“Professor John Beddington, the UK’s chief scientist, would not be drawn on whether the Home Secretary was wrong to sack Professor David Nutt.
David Nutt was chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.
He was fired after using a lecture to say cannabis was less harmful than alcohol and tobacco.
Asked whether he agreed with Professor Nutt’s view that cannabis was less harmful than cigarettes and alcohol, Professor Beddington replied: “I think the scientific evidence is absolutely clear cut. I would agree with it.””
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8340318.stm
[Daphne – It all depends on what you mean by harm, Jack. I know nobody who has had a serious psychotic break after drinking a few glasses of wine. There are other things, but I don’t wish to carry on with this useless argument. I just wonder what’s so bad about your life that you can’t cope without being out of it at periodic intervals. And please don’t justify it by saying, as you do elsewhere I believe, that ‘even lawyers’ smoke cannabis. Well, yes. I’ve known lawyers to do a lot worse than smoke cannabis. It doesn’t follow that the rest of us should follow suit or that if a lawyer does it, it’s fine. Given some spectacular examples of stupid and wrong behaviour among lawyers, I wouldn’t rush to hold the category up as some sort of exemplar. Lawyers are people like everyone else, but lawyers who use illegal drugs are particularly stupid or risk-addicted, because they stand to lose their warrant for a serious conviction.]
All of the below figures, contributed and support the Global Drug Comminsion Report:
* Kofi Annan (former Secretary General of the United Nations, Ghana)
* Asma Jahangir (human rights activist, former
UN Special Rapporteur on Arbitrary, Extrajudicial and Summary Executions, Pakistan)
* Carlos Fuentes (writer and public intellectual, Mexico)
* César Gaviria (former President of Colombia)
* Ernesto Zedillo (former President of Mexico)
* Fernando Henrique Cardoso (former President of
Brazil)
* George Papandreou (former Prime Minister of Greece)
* George P. Shultz (former Secretary of State, United States)
* Javier Solana (former European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Spain)
* John Whitehead (banker and civil servant, chair of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, United States)
* Louise Arbour (former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, President of the International Crisis Group, Canada)
* Maria Cattaui, Petroplus Holdings Board member (former Secretary-General of the International Chamber of Commerce, Switzerland)
* Mario Vargas Llosa, writer and public intellectual, Peru
Marion Caspers-Merk (former State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Health)
* Michel Kazatchkine (executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, France)
* Paul Volcker (former Chairman of the United States
Federal Reserve and of the Economic Recovery Board)
* Richard Branson (entrepreneur, advocate for
social causes, founder of the Virgin Group, co-founder
of The Elders, United Kingdom)
* Ruth Dreifuss (former President of Switzerland and
Minister of Home Affairs)
* Thorvald Stoltenberg (former Minister of Foreign Affairs and UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Norway)
THE REPORT CLEARLY STATES:
“Encourage experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation of drugs to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens. This recommendation applies ESPECIALLY TO CANNABIS, but we also encourage other experiments in decriminalization and legal regulation that can accomplish these objectives and provide models for others.”
But who needs these people when we’ve got Silvio and his sweet anecdotes?!
http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/wp-content/themes/gcdp_v1/pdf/Global_Commission_Report_English.pdf
And on the whole issue of drugs (not just cannabis), I quote the former President of the Royal College of Physicians:
“Sir Ian Gilmore said the laws on misuse of drugs should be reviewed and that their supply should be regulated.”
“Sir Ian told the BBC: “Everyone who has looked at this in a serious and sustained way concludes that the present policy of prohibition is not a success.
“There are really strong arguments to look again.”
Sir Ian said he had had a longstanding interest in the subject, stemming from his work as a liver specialist.
“Every day in our hospital wards we see drug addicts with infections from dirty needles, we see heroin addicts with complications from contaminated drugs,” he said.”
Again, who needs Sir Ian Gilmore when we’ve got our local experts like Silvio?!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-10990921
[Daphne – He does not argue for shops selling heroin and cannabis, Jack. He argues for the very system we have got in Malta already: a free, no-questions-asked needle-supply service and methadone programme, which Britain does not have.]
“Daphne – We can indeed compare. We have a parallel situation with cannabis”
Yes, we do indeed have a parallel situation….
“Netherlands has lowest rate of cannabis use in Europe: study
The Dutch are among the lowest users of marijuana or cannabis in Europe despite the Netherlands’ well-known tolerance of the drug, according to a regional study published Thursday. Among adults in the Netherlands, 5.4% used cannabis, compared with the European average of 6.8%, according to an annual report by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction, using latest available figures.”
http://www.nationalpost.com/life/story.html?id=2188397
[Daphne – You are speaking of one of the most ‘Quakerish’ nations on earth, Jack. If you think the Netherlands is Amsterdam, well, then. It’s not because they have cannabis bars in Amsterdam that the Dutch don’t use it; it’s because they preach and practice abstinence and moderation in all things. Try opening cannabis shops in Italy and see whether you get the same result.]
“Daphne – And we know for a fact that there would have been fewer smokers and a lot less people dead – because when something is illegal, far fewer people have access to it”
WRONG! You do not know for a fact because you do not have empirical evidence to prove this – you’re simply assuming.
[Daphne – No, Jack, these are not assumptions. There are market models. Cigarettes and marijuana are products. They work like any other products. People want them, but you ban them: people will still find a way of getting them into the market at a disproportionately high price, but fewer people will have access to them. You’re talking to somebody who grew up in 1970s and 1980s Malta, Jack, when practically all consumer goods were banned, and I actually saw and experienced this in operation with ordinary things that you take for granted. Let’s take the ban on chocolate, for instance, a sort of comparable product because it generates an irrational need and desire while being entirely unnecessary. Mars bars were smuggled into Malta by people risking confiscation and high fines (though not imprisonment). It was next to impossible to bring Mars bars into the country through the airport, because customs officials searched for them in the same way they do for drugs, the difference being that they searched EVERYBODY and not just suspects. So when some got through, they were sold underground for a ridiculous price, and people would buy them in exactly the same way they now buy cannabis from a dealer. Were fewer people buying and eating chocolate? Of course. Far fewer. Lots of people WANTED to eat chocolate, but they couldn’t get it, because they didn’t know the right dealers or couldn’t afford the price. Now chocolate is legal and on every shop counter and people buy and consume it casually in their hundreds of thousands. Because they can.]
Possibly (I won’t say “for a fact” because I would be scientifically incorrect as your statement was), we would have had more casualties if tobacco was illegal since it would have been sold by criminals with no control on the ingredients they are selling. Since prohibition of tobacco never happened, you cannot know how the situation would have been.
[Daphne – Rubbish. Legal trade does not squeeze out illegal trade, and cigarettes are the perfect example of this. The counterfeit cigarette market is HUGE. Why? Precisely because of one of your justifications for legalising cannabis, heroin and cocaine: that the state would be able to make tons of money by levying excise duty. The minute you begin levying excise duty, a parallel criminal trade develops. Where there’s excise, there’s parallel crime, because people will always seek to evade it.]
“Daphne – … alcohol has been an intrinsic part of cultures that have their roots in Christianity for the last two thousand years.”
Funny you said that. I’m sorry but this exposes your lack of knowledge in the subject. Cannabis prohibition was created only in the last 40 years but cannabis (or better, hemp) use has been an integral part of humanity for millennia! The name “Cana” (the biblical place) shares the same root as “Kaneh-bosem” (Aramaich), Q(K)anneb (Maltese), Canapa (Italian) and Cannabis (Latin).
[Daphne – Stetch your argument any further and it will snap, Jack. Cannabis does not have the same deep-rooted role in ‘Christian’ society as wine does. Christ did not multiply the joints at the wedding feast at Cana, but only turned water into wine. The priest does not hold up a joint at the Christian mass, but only a chalice of wine. Need I go on? Your information on place-names and cannabis is completely wrong, I’m afraid. Whoever told you that has sold you a dud. The dominant region in the Near East was Canaan, and its people were the Canaanites. These are the names we gave them. They certainly didn’t speak English or spell like that, and they weren’t named after cannabis or vice versa.]
Qanneb used to be given by doctors to patients even in Malta. You can check with many from the older generation who can confirm this. We also used to have practically everything produced from Hemp – ropes, clothes, those brown sacs (I’m sure even you remember them), and many other materials. Today’s BMWs have their inner linings made out of hemp!
[Daphne – Yes, Jack, and cocaine and opium were used as anaesthetics. We’ve come beyond that now. As for hemp, it’s made from a different plant: cannabis sativa, yes, but a different strain.]
And talking about Christianity…
“Jesus Christ and his apostles may have used a cannabis-based anointing oil to help cure people with crippling diseases, it has been claimed.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2633187.stm
[Daphne – You cannot be serious.]
Don’t shoot the messanger! Take it with BBC!
[Daphne – To the BBC, that was a curious bit of speculative ‘news’, as it is to me, something to pique readers’ interest. To you, it is evidence that cannabis should be sold in shops in Malta. That’s why I reacted the way I did. ‘Huda mal’BBC’ cannot be translated literally to ‘take it uith BBC’.]
The only people who get to gain from prohibition are the criminals.
[Daphne – Just imagine how much more gain they will make, then, once they are free to operate completely freely.]
This statement cannot be more wrong! In a regulated market, it is NOT a free-for-all situation. There would be only a small number of licensed outlets and they would need to adhere to the strict regulations.
[Daphne – The perfect environment then, for the creation of a parallel illegal trade. These are the only three options, Jack. 1. A total ban, meaning that all supply is illegal and use is kept to the minimum by restricting supply. 2. Regulated outlets which require one to have a licence to deal + a parallel criminal trade operated by those who don’t or won’t get a licence, meaning that supply is virtually unrestricted and that use of previously illegal drugs is maximised by the increased supply. 3. A totally unregulated environment in which the supplier’s only requirement is to comply with tax laws and keep accounts, which means that the market will be flooded to saturation point and suppliers will have to create new demand to mop up the supply.
By however much you think the price of cannabis will fall in a regulated environment, it will be subject to 18% value added tax.]
Regulations would be similar to the ones given to the gambling industry, and same as the Director of the LGA (Lotteries and Gaming Authority) of Malta stated on TVM news few weeks ago, it is always better to regulate than to ban. Prohibition would only drive the activity underground and that can never be a good thing.
[Daphne – An unfortunate comparison, but let’s not go into that. I don’t feel like taking this argument down the gambling road.]
Dear Jack.I lay down my sword and admit I am wrong in saying that these people should be sent to prison.
I have been following your writing and am now of the opinion that if all those pests reason like you, their place is not in Corradino but at MOUNT CARMEL.
End of story.
Silvio, we’ll be neither in Corradino nor in Mount Carmel but we’ll be on the streets of Valletta, doing our best to annoy close minded bigots like yourself.
Back to your animals now, ja pur…..
[Daphne – It all depends on what you mean by harm, Jack. I know nobody who has had a serious psychotic break after drinking a few glasses of wine.]
I have seen people turning violent and driving wrecklessly after few glasses of wine.
I have never in my whole life witnessed anyone having a psychotic break after smoking a joint.
[Daphne – Lucky you, then. I know at least four. Two had to receive psychiatric treatment, one was hospitalised, and the other (this one is of my generation) is still in and out of Mount Carmel and still he will not stop smoking it. And again, you don’t have to take my word for it. Go on line and read the reports published in peer-approved medical journals.]
[There are other things, but I don’t wish to carry on with this useless argument. I just wonder what’s so bad about your life that you can’t cope without being out of it at periodic intervals. And please don’t justify it by saying, as you do elsewhere I believe, that ‘even lawyers’ smoke cannabis.]
First, you are again assuming that I might have something bad in my life. Let me assure you, I don’t and I’m more than satisfied with my life. Secondly, you are assuming that I am a regular consumer of cannabis. Did I ever write that “I smoke every day to be ‘out of it'”? No, so again you are assuming.
[Daphne – I don’t particular care, Jack. You’re your parents’ problem, not mine. Or the problem of whoever it is who has to deal with you.]
I mentioned doctors and lawyers only because Silvio is of the idea that cannabis smokers should only be employed to clean toilets. I never said that I have some blind faith in doctors and lawyers. I really don’t.
“Were fewer people buying and eating chocolate? Of course. Far fewer.”
Wrong again. Those who wanted chocolate and couldn’t get the foreign brands, they still ate Catch and Huskie.
[Daphne – I think you are deliberately obtuse. In this argument, cannabis/cocaine/heroin = chocolate. There is no legal substitute for cannabis/cocaine/heroin in the same way that Catch or Desserta tried to fill the gap. For consistency in your argument, Catch, Desserta and Huskie would have had to be illegal too.]
They bought whatever the market offered even if this could have been of a lower quality and possibly damaging their health. Same goes for cannabis. Whoever wants to buy it will still buy it. Now we either give them a regulated market where the consumer is protected or we leave its sales to the drug lords who would add any rubbish to their product to have a bigger cut.
[Daphne – Jack, if your dreams come true and illegal drugs become legal overnight, rest assured that it will still be the ‘drug lords’ doing business. They are the ones with the supply sources and the networks.]
“Legal trade does not squeeze out illegal trade, and cigarettes are the perfect example of this. The counterfeit cigarette market is HUGE.”
Oh come on, really? How many of your friends who smoke buy counterfeit or contraband cigarettes? You cannot really believe that illegal sales of tobacco is anywhere comparable to the legal one. I agree with you that legal trade will never eliminate completely the illegal one but it would surely give it a massive blow.
[Daphne – You are unbelievable, Jack. You don’t have to take my word for it. The counterfeit cigarette market is huge, yes. Be informed before you carry on making a fool of yourself. Not only that, but Maltese individuals were and probably still are involved in the movement of counterfeit cigarettes through Europe. One such individual was jailed in Belgium some years ago, and I know for a fact that investigators were here two years ago on behalf of Philip Morris. The IRA used the trafficking on contraband – as opposed to counterfeit – cigarettes to finance its arm supplies. Malta was again somehow involved and the Irish police were over here to investigate in cooperation with the Maltese police 12 years ago.]
I hope you realise that bootleggers do not exist anymore in the US.
“2. Regulated outlets which require one to have a licence to deal + a parallel criminal trade operated by those who don’t or won’t get a licence, meaning that supply is virtually unrestricted and that use of previously illegal drugs is maximised by the increased supply.”
First of all, the funds saved from policing, prosecuting and incarcerating possession of cannabis + those made from licensing of outlets + tax from its sale can be used for better enforcement of law. Secondly, why would I risk buying from a criminal when it would be legal to grow my own or to buy it legally from an outlet (if I don’t feel like cultivating)?
[Daphne – Because it would be cheaper on the black market, Jack. You won’t have to pay VAT. Your argument about funds saved from policing, etc doesn’t make sense. The police and the courts are there anyway. No extra personnel are taken on to deal with drugs. And they would still need to deal with drugs.]
[Daphne – He does not argue for shops selling heroin and cannabis, Jack. He argues for the very system we have got in Malta already: a free, no-questions-asked needle-supply service and methadone programme, which Britain does not have.]
I do not argue for shops selling heroin either, I’m only talking about the regulated sales of cannabis from licensed outlets.
[Daphne – Why cannabis and not heroin? Go on, please explain. I thought this was all about adults being free to do what they please? So it’s all right to ban heroin but not all right to ban cannabis, because you use the latter and not the former?]
“Sir Ian Gilmore said the laws on misuse of drugs should be reviewed and that their supply should be regulated.”
How will you be regulating the supply of cannabis by giving free needles?! The supply of cannabis can only be regulated by regulating its sales. This can be done through licensed outlets (Dutch model) or the outlets being under State control (same as the one proposed in Copenhagen)
[Daphne – Gilmore’s arguments expressly deal with EXISTING heroin addicts and not the creation of new ones, Jack. In other words which couldn’t be more clear, he suggests that specialised clinics should distribute needles and clean heroin IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY that authorised bodies distribute needles and methadone in Malta. The chief argument against Gilmore’s suggestion is the obvious one: that in order to buy that heroin, official organisations will have to do business with criminal organisations, and yes, they will still be criminal organisations because legal demand from these registered clinics and registered addicts will not be enough and they will have to carry on with their underworld dealings.]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxE-k-JCRcY&feature=player_embedded#!
Note: Don’t be fooled by the word “decriminalisation” because what they are proposing is de facto legalisation since they are making it LEGALLY available to consumers. Countries who are signatories to the 1961 UN Convention can never use the word “legalisation” even if that’s what they would be actually doing. Same situation as in the Netherlands.
[Daphne – I know exactly what decriminalisation means, Jack. You don’t have to explain it to me as you would to your friends. As for Copenhagen, the reason that ‘marijuana is everywhere’ and so many people have tried it, as the city council member explains, is because it is openly tolerated despite being against the law. There is an entire community right in the centre of the city which is practically autonomous, called Christiania, which is the centre for marijuana dealing and where it is smoked openly in bars and the street. The place is teeming with dealers. And it is actually a visitor attraction. It’s only a matter of time before the heroin dealers move in, if they haven’t already.]
(looks strange how 6 of my comments haven’t been published yet. Censorship?)
[Daphne – No. Boredom. I took one look at your long, long list of long, long comments and thought ‘they can wait.’]
Fair enough
[Daphne – Why cannabis and not heroin? Go on, please explain. I thought this was all about adults being free to do what they please? So it’s all right to ban heroin but not all right to ban cannabis, because you use the latter and not the former?]
My argument is perfectly in line with the suggestions of the Global Drug Commission. You have to agree that cannabis and heroin or cocaine are completely different substances. That is why their report suggests that cannabis, as a soft drug and one which is way less harmful than alcohol and cigarettes (scientifically proven), should be legally regulated.
The issue of hard drugs should be looked into as well. The current system is surely not giving good results. One can legally regulate cannabis BUT decriminalise hard drugs. Portugal decriminalised all drugs and they would never go back since this change gave very positive results. You can buy cannabis “legally” in the Netherlands but you don’t find Coffeeshops selling cocaine or heroin. Stop putting all substances into one basket because you’d be doing more harm than good.
[Daphne – I’m sorry, but you’re not being consistent. Are we talking about legalising cannabis because it’s not harmful, or are we talking about legalising cannabis because an adult can smoke/take/inject what he wants? The Netherlands: marijuana is not legal there, contrary to popular notion. The police just don’t enforce the laws against the marijuana shops, which are tolerated – just as dealing and smoking have long been tolerated in Copenhagen. Portugal has NOT decriminalised ‘all drugs’. It has merely decriminalised possession. It is still illegal to sell them.]
[…The place is teeming with dealers. And it is actually a visitor attraction. It’s only a matter of time before the heroin dealers move in, if they haven’t already.]
And that is why the Council wants to regulate it! Why expose the cannabis consumer to dealers who would also be offering heroin? Legal regulation would separate cannabis and its consumers from dealers and their deadly substances (meth, cocaine, heroin, etc)
[Daphne – The council does NOT want to regulate it, Jack. Christiania is autonomous. The people who live there do what they please. They even have their own currency: large silver ‘coins’ with a hole in the middle. I rather think the Copenhagen Council has changed its laws on marijuana so as no longer to stand accused of allowing the Christiania community to openly break that law, while not having to deal with the rebellion and problems that would come from a police crackdown. It’s sort of a ‘Maltese decision’, so to speak.]
[Daphne – Because it would be cheaper on the black market, Jack. You won’t have to pay VAT. Your argument about funds saved from policing, etc doesn’t make sense. The police and the courts are there anyway. No extra personnel are taken on to deal with drugs. And they would still need to deal with drugs.]
Cheaper than growing my own?! Besides, I’ve never seen anyone in Amsterdam buying cannabis off the street. Why would anyone do that is the one bought from licensed outlet is of good quality, reasonable price, and you can consume it in the same outlet while socialising.
[Daphne – People who grow their own are unable to resist the temptation to sell their own. Perhaps you’ve never seen anyone buy cannabis off the street in Amsterdam, but you can’t have missed the dealers. I always notice them, because I like dogs, and most of them seem to have Alsatians, or Staffordshire bull terriers just like mine, so I notice them even more. They are about the only dog-owners on the planet who don’t react positively when you go up to coo at their dog or ask questions about it.]
It’s like saying that people would not go to bars in Malta because they could buy some cheap home-made vodka which could blind you after few sips. It just doesn’t happen.
[Daphne – I’m sorry, but you’re not being consistent. Are we talking about legalising cannabis because it’s not harmful, or are we talking about legalising cannabis because an adult can smoke/take/inject what he wants? The Netherlands: marijuana is not legal there, contrary to popular notion. The police just don’t enforce the laws against the marijuana shops, which are tolerated – just as dealing and smoking have long been tolerated in Copenhagen. Portugal has NOT decriminalised ‘all drugs’. It has merely decriminalised possession. It is still illegal to sell them.]
I’m being perfectly consistent – I’m saying that cannabis should be legally regulated because adult individuals should have the ultimate right on their body and mind, especially on a herb which is proven to be less harming than alcohol and tobacco.
[Daphne – Why theh, have you just said that cannabis is different to heroin and that you’re not talking about heroin being sold from shops? Surely if adults who have rights over their body and mind wish to inject themselves with heroin they should be allowed to buy it from Scotts?]
[Daphne – The council does NOT want to regulate it, Jack. Christiania is autonomous]
Copenhagen is not Christiania and Christiania is not Copenhagen, it’s only a small part of the whole city.
“We are thinking of perhaps 30 to 40 public sales houses, where the people aren’t interested in selling you more, they’re interested in you,” said Mikkel Warming, the Mayor in charge of Social Affairs at Copenhagen City Council. “Who is it better for youngsters to buy marijuana from? A drug pusher, who wants them to use more, who wants them to buy hard drugs, or a civil servant?”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/denmark/8899243/Copenhagen-votes-to-legalise-marijuana.html
[Daphne – My God, how naive and stupid. The CIVIL SERVANT might not be interested in selling you more, but the producers and networks who sell to the civil servant certainly are. Unbelievable. Loony.]
Oh come on! From Scotts?! Cannabis sales would be done from outlets which are licensed to sell cannabis under strict regulation. Stop trying to give the false impression that it ouwld be sold from supermarkets.
[Daphne – Why shouldn’t it be sold from supermarkets? Come on! Isn’t it a product like cigarettes and alcohol? Don’t adults have the right to buy it freely? What’s the difference? You can buy alcohol and cigarettes from Scotts, so why can’t you buy cannabis?]
In regards to heroin, although it’s not my subject, there could be other models which apply to this substance but I cannot see it being sold from licensed outlets. Heroin could be decriminalised, so there would be no criminal charges for possession.
[Daphne – Why not? Why can’t it be sold from licensed outlets? Because it’s dangerous? Don’t adults have the right to take dangerous substances if they want to? After all, they’re allowed to buy cigarettes and alcohol, and those are both addictive.]
You keep insisting on putting words in my mouth, so let me ask you again.
Do you consider heroin and cannabis to be equally dangerous?
[Daphne – No, not equally dangerous, but both dangerous.]
[Daphne – People who grow their own are unable to resist the temptation to sell their own.]
Luckily you stopped at writing and never pursued a career in law!
[Daphne – It is not a career in law that is required for a proper understanding of this subject, but a good knowledge of how markets work and consumer behaviour, together with the ability to put it into context of existing products/markets/situations, as with cigarettes.]
The above statement cannot be more wrong! You cannot throw a sweeping statement like that without giving any evidence. Please do inform us where did you get it that all those who grow end up selling? I hope you didn’t get such info from Scotts.
[Daphne – I wonder where I got that information from – perhaps because I’ve been around for almost half a century and know how people think and behave? Perhaps because people were growing, smoking, selling and buying cannabis in Malta even when I was 16 and – I am sure my older readers will confirm – long before that too? Perhaps because I know that when people have a surplus, and there’s a ready market for that surplus, they invariably sell it – whatever the surplus is? I grow plants, Jack, lots of them. There is no market for my surplus, a surplus I don’t intentionally produce, so I end up getting rid of them, or asking friends to take them. If there were a market worth my while, I would sell them. When you start growing cannabis for your own use, rest assured that you won’t be dumping your surplus in the bin. That’s how Daniel Holmes ended up in jail. He started growing his own, began selling the little extra he had, then grew some more to have more to sell.]
“The counterfeit cigarette market is huge, yes.”
I’m not saying that there aren’t good money involved, it there weren’t no one would do it. What I’m saying is that the size of the illegal market of tobacco is nowhere close to that of the legal ones. If cigarettes were made illegal, their sales would go entirely to the criminals and that would definitely be more harmful to the individual and to society.
[Daphne – You are very tiring, but I shall persist. 1. The cigarette market is a perfect model for what would happen if cannabis were legalised. More people would become addicted through greater availability, and at a younger age. 2. There would be parallel, criminal trade in cannabis to avoid excise duty and other restrictions. The criminal trade in cannabis exists already, so it would not have to develop as it did for cigarettes, but would merely continue to exist. You cannot make cigarettes illegal now; it’s too late.]
You cannot win the argument by putting words in my mouth. I never said anything about legalising all drugs but I’m only in favour of the legal regulation of cannabis (NOT hard drugs). Hard drugs should be decriminalised, yes, but not legally regulated through licensed or State-owned outlets.
[Daphne – I am not trying to win an argument. I am not 18. I just think it might be useful to you if you were to think more clearly. Clear thought is useful. If you start out befuddled and then befuddle yourself some more by smoking pot, you’re going to have a hard time in life. You cannot argue that adults are free to take what they please and then say that heroin should not be sold in shops. If adults are free to take what they please, heroin should be sold in shops. Like your cannabis. Your rights are not greater than those of heroin users.]
Besides, in regards to cannabis, the Government can always opt to grow its own in supervised green houses or grant rights to a corporation which would obviously need also to adhere to Government regulation.
[Daphne – Sob. Please take your proposal to Joseph Muscat. It would doubtless appeal.]
I am obtuse?! We were discussing demand through your story about chocolate. Demand for chocolate was always there, same as demand for cannabis is always there. Demand for foreign chocolate could not be satisfied so those who wanted chocolate bought the local one. Demand for legally regulated cannabis cannot be satisfied so those who want to buy cannabis have to resort to the illegal market.
[Daphne – Local chocolate substitutes were not illegal, Jack. That’s why your comparison is faulty.]
Cana was a place of hemp cultivation!
“Cannabis was used 12 ways: as clothing, paper, cord, sails, fishnet, oil, sealant, incense, food, and in ceremony, relaxation and medicine.
“Cana” got its name from the same root word as “cannabis,” indicating that hemp was grown there.”
And please, do your research about kaneh-bosem.
http://www.iahushua.com/T-L-J/MariC.htm
[Daphne – ‘Cana got its name from the same root word as cannabis, indicating that hemp was grown there.’ Lie down and weep. I hope for all our sakes that you’re not a university student, still less a graduate. Had I presented my archaeology professor with that sort of reasoning, I would never have heard the end of it.]
I had more evidence. I just don’t have time to look for it at this time. Will get back on this later.
“As for hemp, it’s made from a different plant: cannabis sativa, yes, but a different strain.”
Wrong! Hemp is the proper English name for the plant – whether it contains THC or not. The word hemp is used to make a difference between the industrial use and the recreational/medical use of the plant.
Usually the male version (not THC) of the plant is used for industrial purposes and it’s called hemp. However one can still use the female (+THC) version for industrial purposes. This isn’t done because it would be a waste when there are better uses for the female version of the plant.
Hemp can be Cannabis Sativa, Cannabis Indica or Cannabis Ruderalis.
[Daphne – It is not the same, Jack. If it were, there wouldn’t be vast hemp plantations in the United States. http://www.naihc.org/hemp_information/content/hemp.mj.html ]
It is the same plant – only different THC levels, hemp has close to 0. You can smoke a whole field of hemp and all you’d get is a headache.
The vast hempfields are in Canada and not in the US. There might be some fields but the red tape involved to get the necessary permits make it almost impossible to grow:
“5. Q: Is industrial hemp illegal to grow in the United States?
A: Technically the answer is no, it is not illegal to grow hemp in the U.S. and it has only been in its current state since the adoption of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in 1970. Tara Christine Brady noted this in her 2003 story “The Argument for the Legalization of Industrial Hemp” in the San Joaquin Agricultural Law Review:
“Currently it is illegal to grow hemp in the United States without a special Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) permit being issued.”
Jean Rawson, of the Congressional Research Service, also noted this in her 2005 CRS Report “Hemp as an Agricultural Commodity” for the U.S. Congress:
“Strictly speaking, the CSA does not make Cannabis illegal; rather, it places the strictest controls on its production, making it illegal to grow the crop without a DEA permit.”
Growing hemp is kind of like driving, you can’t drive without a license and you can’t grow hemp without a permit. The difference is that it is almost impossible to get a permit from DEA to grow hemp. An excellent example is John Stahl, of The Evanescent Press, and his DEA permit story.”
http://www.industrialhemp.net/
[Daphne – It is not the same plant. Read the link I gave you – again, if you haven’t read it already. And yes, of course you will need a licence to grow it. You even need a licence to keep pigs or open a shop in Malta.]
Most Cannabis users I know are Ruderless.
It’s impossible to argue with you, so same as I told Silvio, we’ll just need to wait and see.
Anyway, at least we do agree that users should not go to jail or carry a criminal record.
Besides, let me remind you, that whoever wants to consume (and even grow) cannabis in the comfort of his own house can do so, if done discreetly. I am not supporting these protesters for my own self, I really don’t need to. I’m doing it for the vulnerable ones, the young ones who are being thrown to jail or given a record for simple possession. Besides, I strongly believe that a regulated model would give more control to the State, less control to the drug lords, and better protection to the vulnerable ones.
Here’s a good read if you’re really interested in the subject:
http://www.tdpf.org.uk/Transform_Drugs_Blueprint.pdf
[Daphne – I have no time for people who argue theoretically and in a vacuum, Jack. In real life, all things are not equal. The legal sale of cannabis will facilitate the illegal sale of cannabis to people who are outside the legal age for purchase. It is illegal to sell cigarettes to people under the age of 18, but those who sell cigarettes know that they have to get their repeat customers before that age because they’re unlikely to get them afterwards.]
Daphne. doesn’t seem you are getting anywhere with Jack. I think he is too far gone for convincing, and most important, he does not want to. All we can do as Christians is pray for him so he won’t get hooked on something worse than his cannabis.
The way he reasons indicates that he is still young. I hope that by the time he grows up and matures, he will change his opinion of us older people and stop thinking that we are all stupid.
“When I was 14 years old I thought my father was a stupid man.
When I came to be 18 I was surprised how much he had learnt in just 4 years”.
Hahaha! How I wish I was still 18! Sorry to burst your bubble again Silvio, but I’m older than what you might think. It’s hard to convince me that prohibition is working and that a model of legal regulation of cannabis + a general reform in drug policies aren’t better alternatives (for everyone) than the current ones.
I thank you for your prayers but my experience is enough proof, for me at least, that cannabis does not lead to drugs. The only thing I got hooked on since I started consuming cannabis is actually, running. Strange maybe, but nothing tastes better after a good run and a healthy meal than a big fat spliff.
If it wasn’t illegal, I’d suggest it to you Silv. You do seem edgy and angry inside, some Bedrocan would do you good!
You can be 70 and still not grown up if something happened on the way and kept you from becoming a mature person.
I thought you would be the type who liked running.
Running from what, your responsibilties, or running away from reality?
Who wouldn’t be edgy and angry inside seeing your country being driven down the drain by persons like you?
Read tomorrow’s paper and read about the 10 year old boy who was arrested for trying to run away with a bag of drugs.
You might say, but it was not cannabis, but drugs are drugs if found in the wrong hands.
I long for the day when all these pests are thrown in prison and the keys are thrown away. Then they will have ample time for running (in the yard ) followed by a healthy meal, but unfortunately no joint.
No joints in Corradino?! Who are you kidding?! You can find any kind of drugs in Corradino – legal and illegal. Do you follow the news or is your head so deeply stuck in your backside that you are totally detached from reality?
Corradino is living proof that the war on drugs can NEVER be won – it cannot be won in an enclosed and controlled space, let alone on the streets.
Legalise cannabis and decriminalise possession of all drugs. That’s the only solution.
As regards your wishes Silv, don’t worry I have no intention of visiting Corradino Hotel. But same as you I wish to see pests being thrown in there – the real pests, those politicians who are on the take of drug lords, pharma business and alcohol importers in order to keep the status quo.
It seems that these young people represent the end of the road for these filthy individuals.