Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Cannabis
God's Herb
I have smoked cannabis since I was 14. There have been a few breaks, some of a few months, some of a year or two but those apart, I have smoked cannabis every day of my life for nearly 40 years.
I have come to regard weed or hash, in all seriousness, as the Rastafarians do, as “God’s herb”. It is a sacrament, a truly positive, honourable and precious thing in my life. Something that I thank God, I did not miss.
I grew up with smokin’ dope. It was a fundamental part of my adolescent culture with the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead, with a heady summer living the love and peace dream in Amsterdam. LSD blew my mind in those days but a joint was always a sustaining experience. Something I held onto.
As I grew up and got interested in business, I relished the delicious and maverick escape that I enjoyed. I took it seriously and wrote a 40 page report for the Home Affairs Committee entitled “An Unaffordable Prejudice”.
The prejudice, misinformation and sheer nonsense has continued throughout my life. The idiocy of downgrading cannabis to a Class C drug and then, just two years later, back up to Class B is only outdone by the crass stupidity of failing to decriminalise it completely. Prohibition has proved time after time to be an ineffective solution. Worse than that, the law makes a complete ass of itself by sustaining the criminal supply and distribution of a product that is never going to go away.
Regulation is the only viable solution and would provide the framework to care for those very few who may suffer from cannabis use.
What are the dangers? Clearly any intoxicant offers more potential for harm when used by the young, when the brain is still developing. Despite my own experience, cannabis use should be for adults only. In adults it has been proved to be one of the least harmful substances known to man time and time again – despite the fact that most have actually set out to prove the opposite.
Recently the popular argument has been against skunk, a strain of cannabis that can be up to 20 times stronger than that previously known.
To claim this is a recent development is simply wrong. For at least 20 years it has been difficult to buy anything but skunk and other F1/F2 hybrids of the plant. There are many others: Northern Lights, Haze, Blueberry, etc. In my teens it was difficult to buy anything but Lebanese or Moroccan hashish. In Holland where the market is partly regulated there has always been a wide choice of grass or hash from all parts of the world grown and/or processed in many different ways.
The latest suggestion is that skunk is causing psychoses in adolescents – yet the incidence of psychoses in adolescents has remained constant since records began. This is just the lastest scaremongering. 60 years ago it was said that cannabis caused young women to be promiscuous with black men. The standard of the argument has not improved.
It really is time that this hopeless policy against a benign, natural herbal product was stopped. Hemp is one of the most ecologically friendly, sustainable crops in the world. As regulated cannabis it would pull the rug from underneath a great swathe of criminality and produce billions in additional tax income. As biofuel, building materials, fabrics and cattle feed it could help to revitalise agriculture and many other businesses.
Criminal Deception
In a cold hearted, clinical and utterly callous way, we must bring “Sir” Fred Goodwin to heel, to the gutter, to grovel and to ignominy as he richly and deeply deserves.
There are many ways that the government can do this. I suggest that the most effective is simply not to pay him and let him sue. This is a 
pragmatic and commercial approach but, irrespective of its outcome, simultaneously we must prosecute this fundamentally evil individual with all the vigour that honourable and decent society can muster.
If we force him to sue for the rewards of failure then he will have to make his case and I do not believe he wil be able to under the overriding doctrine of “reasonableness”.
However, in the interests of justice, denying him money is insufficient. Nothing less than criminal punishment will suffice. Surely, if our tradition of common law has any relevance, it must be able to sanction his behaviour.
Lawyers must consider whether there is a case for criminal negligence, for conspiracy, for perjury or for any derivative of theft. Our Judges must package his offences in a way that can produce serious and effective penalties.
Without doubt though this “man”, this “Sir” has deceived. He lied to the Select Committee saying that he had received no compensation for loss of office. He has cheated us all. Whether he retains his obscene pension or not he must be jailed. Only then will justice be done.
A Conspiracy Of Shabby, Venal Thieves
It is truly pathetic isn’t it to see these pathetic, small men grubbing around in the gutter to try and save themselves?
“Sir” James Crosby runs HBOS into the ground then bails out at the last minute to become vice-chairman of the FSA. You really couldn’t make these things up unless you were writing a Mafia or organised crime novel.
He becomes one of the Prime Minister’s cronies and overpaid advisors but then is caught out by the whistleblower who he sacked.
They are tumbling like nine pins now but who is still getting away with it? Who has been in post for longer than any of these bank robbers? Who was responsible for settiong up the regulatory system that has proved to be corrupt and incompetent? Gordon Brown, the worst, most corrupt, most incompetent, most myopic, most venal of them all.
There is no more time. This tyrant must be overthrown now. All these knighthoods must be withdrawn. Criminal investigations and personal bankruptcies must follow.
Out Of Touch With Reality
When “Sir” Fred Goodwin lost the plot this morning and started wandering off in his hallucinatory world about how he could legitimately re-package sub-prime mortgages as a AAA security, well then we saw the truth.
The man is stark, raving mad. He continues in his delusion that the world he helped to create makes some sense. He should be sectioned immediately.
What Can We Do About The Zionist Nazi Pigs?
Displaying their cynical cowardice and fundamental immorality, the Nazi Israelis withdrew their troops just in time for the inauguration. Behind them they leave a trail of war crimes for which they must be held to account. Any decent person would find it difficult to imagine how any group could behave so badly as to overshadow the evil perpertrated on them in the Holocaust but you bunch of brutal, evil thugs have surprised us all
Israel is now the Nazi power in the world. It is beyond forgiveness or redemption. Gaza is the new Auschwitz. The only difference is that your method of death is not Zyklon B. It may be bullet, shrapnel, falling masonry, illegal phosphorous bomb, starvation or something else.
Israel is running a death camp in Gaza and those responsible must be held to account as the Nazis were.
How Can the BBC Get It So Wrong Again…And Again
You’re going to be sacked now aren’t you Mr DG? What are you – some sort of Zionist Nazi collaborator? Your judgement is so poor, so out of touch, so utterly incompetent. Move on and let someone with some intelligence and wisdom take the helm of this great organisation that deserves so much better.
Lord Taylor The Slut
It’s hardly a surprise that members of the House Of Lords have been lining their own pockets by charging for political influence. M’Lord Taylor you are just the first or the latest rather naive, bumbling old fool to be caught with your trousers down. You can have no excuse. You are “bang to rights”. There is no room for such venal, inept corruption in our modern world. Do the decent thing.
Anne Frank – The BBC Gets It Wrong Again
Isn’t it inappropriate, insensitive and downright crass of the BBC to be broadcasting ” The Diary Of Anne Frank” at a time when Palestinian children are being murdered by the Israelis?
Israel is behaving as a Nazi power. Gaza is the equivalent of the Warsaw Ghetto. For pity’s sake, 10 paramedics have been killed since the brutal, inhuman land invasion.
In other respects the BBC is so oversensitive as to be absurd. When John Sergeant resigned from “Strictly Come Dancing” it immediately offered refunds to anyone who had voted for him yet now, while women and children are massacred in Gaza by the evil Israelis, it wants us to watch this?
What Is Happening In Our Country?
Are we no longer allowed to protest in Britain? What has happened to free speech? Demonstrations are no longer allowed within the vicinity of Parliament. Now, peaceful protestors against the Israeli murderers are stamped on, snuffed out by fascist police action.
Gordon Brown, you claim to be the leader of our nation but you disgrace yourself and you shame our proud history if you allow this to continue. Children are dying in their beds in Gaza and you allow the police to stamp out our protest? Shame on you! I don’t give two hoots about your pathetic self-aggrandising financial machinations. What I do care about and what I believe every right-thinking Briton cares about is our right to speak out against this genocide. You are no longer worthy of any support, not even respect for the office that you have defiled. We, the British people, do not need nor deserve cowardly, disgustingly two-faced, self-serving, political midgets like you. We deserve much, much better. Get out now because you are not up to the job. You have disgraced yourself and shamed us all.
I have just made a complaint to the Metropolitan Police about the disgusting, repressive and oppressive conduct of the police in connection with the protests outside the Israeli Embassy. We will not tolerate this sort of behaviour in Britain. I urge everyone who reads this to telephone the Metropolitan Police on 0300 123 1212 and add your complaint.
Peter Reynolds 