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Anorak News | From the annals of drug addled stupidity we present Melissa Kite

From the annals of drug addled stupidity we present Melissa Kite

by | 17th, September 2013

melissa kiteMELISSA Kite has managed to pen one of the most ridiculous columns ever about drug legalisation. Worse even that Peter Hitchen’s usual efforts where at least he is open about the idea that he wants them to be illegal because he’s a moralist who doesn’t think that people should be allowed to enjoy themselves.

One part of the stupidity is here:

I even listen sympathetically to what the “give-a-spliff-a-chance” brigade say about not criminalising “recreational” users who are, apparently, perfectly normal, functioning citizens who should not be labelled criminals.

What I don’t understand at all is what decriminalisation of drugs will do for addicts. I mean not only active addicts who are locked in compulsive drug use, but also those millions of potential addicts, most of them children, who have not yet picked up their first drug and could go either way.

Well, given that the problem with addiction isn’t addiction, but the shite that you end up buying off crooks and the legal problems you get from the shite being illegal, legalisation would seem to solve all of those problems pretty neatly actually. People survive, keep down responsible jobs, thrive even, on heroin. For decades in fact, as long as they’re getting the good pharmaceutical stuff, not the shite from the street cut with laxatives and baby milk powder. E kills fewer people than paracetamol.

I also note what she and others say about the street drugs being traded illegally being stronger and more harmful than those that could be sold “safely” over the counter. But I suspect young drug users won’t want the cannabis they can get legally. If it’s a case of buying something they are allowed or looking for something that is more illicit, they will still seek out a dealer to buy some of the super-strength stuff.

This is simply drivel of course. I think we’d all agree that pipe tobacco is stronger than roll up stuff? Cigars stronger than cigarettes? And what is it that every hooded youth does smoke? Pipes and cigars or roll ups and fags? So the idea that people deliberately seek out the strongest stuff is what?

What is needed, more than ever in our “everything goes” society, is a bit of restraint every now and again.

Sure, and in a free society the people who apply that restraint are ourselves when we’re adults and us again for our children. Not some ignorant writing a column for The Guardian nor a politician passing a law.



Posted: 17th, September 2013 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink