Jargon

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Dear Jedward, Justin Bieber, Girls Aloud, The cast of Glee, The cast of High School Musical, Bill O’Reilly, Hannity, Colmes, Ted Haggard, Anjem Choudary, Glenn Beck, Johnny Vegas, Franky Boyle, Ann Widdecombe, Jade Goody, N-Dubz, Rupert Murdoch, Colonel Gaddafi, Alan Johnson, Pope Benedict XVI, David Cameron, The Loose Women, McDonald’s, Burger King, Paul McKenna, Katie Price, Gregg Braden, Alan Carr, Stephanie Meyer, Michael Bay, Paul W S Anderson, The Jonas Brothers, That guy who does ‘Fred’ on YouTube, Creationists, Jerry Falwell, The cast and crew of Jersey Shore, All past participants of Wife Swap, All past participants of Come Dine With Me, The ‘Sheilas’ from Sheila’s Wheels, Prince Charles, The Go-Compare man, The casts of Coronation Street, Hollyoaks, Emmerdale and Eastenders, Ray Comfort, Dinesh D’Souza, The Archbishop of Canterbury, Maria Miller, Basingstoke County Council, Gok Wan, Gillian McKeith, Fox News, Mel Gibson, Scientologists, Astrologers, Chipmunk, JLS, Lady Gaga, Nick Griffin, Those responsible for and all past participants of Big Brother, The Daily Mail, The News of the World, Whoever was responsible for the Emo Sweep, Those of you with Mullets, Beyonce, The Inland Revenue, Haters of The Big Lemon, Nike, People who say Pacific, Brought or Generally when they mean Specific, Bought or Genuinely, Vodafone, The 2012 Olympics and People who like Football,

We respectfully remind you that what you are doing is wrong. Kindly pack it in. Yours Gratefully,
                      The rest of Humanity

Your Love of the Halfling’s Leaf Has Clearly Slowed Your Mind

Here are some scary statistics: Between the years 2000 and 2009 alcohol was mentioned on 54,119 death certificates in the UK, 39,724 in England alone. Every year the number of death certificate mentions increases. That’s not to mention the estimated 50% of murders and 60% of rapes it is involved in. It’s legally (and, if to a lesser extent, socially) acceptable for me to do as I did last night; buy a bottle of 40% Whiskey, share it with a couple of mates and get drunk enough that I don’t remember how I made my way home from the random flat I found myself in on the other end of the halls of residence.

Before this little adventure got to the aforementioned stage of unnecessary inebriation, I came home from the pub with my mate Tom who I go for a termly pint with at the bar (which is essentially part of said halls). Pretty much as soon as we got in the fire alarm started blaring out and 2 angry, official looking men stormed into our flat, exchanged scathing remarks about the state of the place and said to me and Tom (who were the only people who hadn’t run for their lives from the security guards) that my flat is being reported for smoking dope.

I don’t think anything will come of it but, for arguments sake, let’s say something does. If the fire alarm goes off once more (according to the angrier looking of the 2) the flat is going to be searched and who knows what that will entail when they find whatever they find. My friend and I have nothing to fear from this as we did the ‘innocent’ thing and got shit-faced on everybody’s beloved alcohol. The people who were having a chilled one and smoking a joint could face heavy repercussions.

Now for the most equivalent statistics about Cannabis that I found: Cannabis, in England and Wales between the years 1993 and 2003, was mentioned on 138 death certificates, 50 alongside alcohol and a mere 7 alone. When did anyone ever hear of a murder or rape caused by weed? The Daily Mail would have a field day if it turned out that there were any. It’s safe to mildly exaggerate in this instance and say; nobody ever comes to any harm because of this drug. In my gender/age group it’s estimated that something like a third of us smoke weed at least occasionally and yet there are still no deaths caused or terrible crimes triggered by it.

People end up arrested, in prison or facing hefty fines for possessing, selling and smoking one of the most benign drugs that has ever been used by Homo sapiens. In this day and age! I definitely need to stop losing faith in humanity though. Like I said a few months ago, on the subject of homeopathy etc, we have the ability to think, we just choose not to most of the time because it’s easier to coast through life and not try to see a change in the world. Thinking people who look at facts and figures unanimously agree that the war on cannabis is a failure. This latest little saga prompted me to put cyber-pen to cyber-paper as the positive effects of the efforts made by the powers that be, to stop people getting stoned amount to zilch and they can have some negative effects too. My flatmates and I may well end up on the receiving end of these.

I knew when I started writing stuff on this thing that I wouldn’t last 5 minutes without doing a tirade on drugs. Tune in next week for my alarmingly left-wing opinions on the drug classification system!