More Obfuscation Coming Your Way
It's time to confuse and mess with your mind again. The anti-cannabis lobby is back on its hobby horse, and poor Charlie Clarke has the job of smearing the newschannels in preparation for a reversal of the UK downgrading policy which, I confidently predict, will be announced in the next two weeks.
The campaign has all the hallmarks: BBC radio interview on 'Today' programme this morning and an interview in today's issue of the Times newspaper.
The Times reports:
Since the end of alcohol prohibition in America in the 1930s, when the devil was called upon to find work for the idle hands of enforcement officers, we have been fed a constant diet of lies and falsified evidence. According to the propaganda, cannabis users will commit murder, rape and violence; go insane; become addicted, ravenous for another hit and led to hard drugs. It was bollocks, and it's still bollocks.
There's always been an eager lobby of right-wing semi-mental evangelical campaigners eager to bend ignorant minds. And alongside them there's an equally eager crew of evangelical researchers, now becoming desperate to be the ones to prove what is so desperately sought to be proven; and slanted newspapers itching to report it early in large type. Look carefully at the research; note the over-eager bending and stretching - they're on a mission.
After years of intensive research, via books, the internet, and life, I believe that, when ignorance and prejudice are defeated, we will simply understand the remarks of a US Judge: "Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man." DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Francis L Young, 1988.
For your titillation, here's a quote from 1930's USA:
The campaign has all the hallmarks: BBC radio interview on 'Today' programme this morning and an interview in today's issue of the Times newspaper.
The Times reports:
"The public was misled about the dangers of taking cannabis when the Government unwittingly decided to downgrade the drug less than a year ago, the Home Secretary admits today."In the BBC interview we hear:
('unwitting' - without knowing or planning, Cambridge Dictionary Online)
"In a damning assessment of the decision taken by his predecessor, David Blunkett, Charles Clarke said he is 'very worried' about recent evidence suggesting a strong link between cannabis and mental illness." (Damn, I'll bet it's so 'recent' that no-one else has seen it.)
If this sentence makes sense, please let me know. Charles Clarke: “The thing that worries me most [about the downgrading of cannabis] is confusion among the punters about what the legal status of cannabis is.”
I have problems with this one, too: "Asked if the downgrading of the drug had served any useful purpose, Mr Clarke paused before responding: 'I think it gives it a steer to the citizen on more serious drug consumption'." What on earth does 'gives it a steer' mean?
Asked whether the decision to downgrade cannabis's classication was premature, a mistake, Mr Clarke said: "Since that decision, further medical evidence has been developed about the implications of consumption of cannabis for mental health, which is serious." ('developed' - now that's an interesting word to use)If you read the BBC report on the various evidence which is being 'developed' and my earlier post, you may get more of the actual picture (ie, more eagerness than science). I believe it looks something like this:
"We need to work much harder to educate people about the consequences and, when finally determined, what the legal status of cannabis is."
"The fact is that we still don't know a lot about this relationship (between cannabis and mental health), as the Advisory Committee report makes clear, but what we do know is concerning."
Since the end of alcohol prohibition in America in the 1930s, when the devil was called upon to find work for the idle hands of enforcement officers, we have been fed a constant diet of lies and falsified evidence. According to the propaganda, cannabis users will commit murder, rape and violence; go insane; become addicted, ravenous for another hit and led to hard drugs. It was bollocks, and it's still bollocks.
There's always been an eager lobby of right-wing semi-mental evangelical campaigners eager to bend ignorant minds. And alongside them there's an equally eager crew of evangelical researchers, now becoming desperate to be the ones to prove what is so desperately sought to be proven; and slanted newspapers itching to report it early in large type. Look carefully at the research; note the over-eager bending and stretching - they're on a mission.
After years of intensive research, via books, the internet, and life, I believe that, when ignorance and prejudice are defeated, we will simply understand the remarks of a US Judge: "Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man." DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Francis L Young, 1988.
For your titillation, here's a quote from 1930's USA:
"Under the influence of cannabis indica, these human derelicts are quickly subjugated by the will of the master mind."(All emboldening of words is mine)
Dr. A. E. Fossier.
posted by deCinabre at 9:59 AM
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