You know what, I'm pretty bloody incensed by this. (And I also posted this in the comments section.)
I'm not a professional journalist. I'm just an ordinary person that doesn't get to exercise his prejudices in public. I don't get invited on to 5Live every other morning, I don't get to broadcast my two penneth in print and on tv shows such as Question Time, or the various incarnations of BBC's sunday morning sub-religious discussion show. This is about as big a platform as I'm ever going to get.
I am sick to the bloody back teeth of having the airwaves and the discussion fora hijacked by shrieking and frightened little men like you Mr Hitchens. You are in the minority, no matter how many other fantasists you can conjure up to agree with you, no matter how many of them may turn out to have some level of professional qualification. You are NOT a scientist. You are NOT an expert in drugs, addiction and certainly not in something as harmless as cannabis. Get some damned humility and get out of the debate. I am fed up with every discussion being dominated or hijacked by hysterical fearmongers perpetuating the same tired line.
Harmless you say?
You're damned right I say. There are plenty of people that smoke cannabis across the world. Plenty of people that still function. Cannabis has been in existence for centuries as a herb that has considerable medicinal use. Society has had a relationship with it forever and yet we are still here; armageddon hasn't crept up on our obviously THC addled minds. Society isn't about to sink into the abyss because of it either.
I say 'our', but I don't smoke it. I tried it a couple of times when i was younger and threw up. I don't care for it. But then I don't care for alcohol either, nor do I smoke tobacco (which is how the cannabis i tried was prepared - with regular cigarettes). I don't endorse it, nor do I condemn those that use it. It's their choice. That's what society is about and it seems that we have managed to muddle our way through this far.
The only issue I have is with the crossbred super strong stuff bred by the criminal element to increase profit. That and the culture that abuses cannabis - but then abuse is the problem with most things, even chocolate cake (that's regular cake, not the Brasseye stuff, kids). All of this can be solved by relaxing the laws on drugs, not pursuing a fools errand of prohibition or increasingly punitive measures, all of which are informed by fear of ignorance.
Something you, Peter Hitchens, are tacitly and constantly given carte blance to do. You are the worst kind of journalist and that you are happy to air your ignorance in debates with actual real human scientists attests to that, and to your agenda of ignorance. We need less of you not more.
Now feel free to whine to someone else about how you're so hard done by in being given every opportunity under the sun to speak.
You know what, I'm pretty bloody incensed by this. (And I also posted this in the comments section.)
I'm not a professional journalist. I'm just an ordinary person that doesn't get to exercise his prejudices in public. I don't get invited on to 5Live every other morning, I don't get to broadcast my two penneth in print and on tv shows such as Question Time, or the various incarnations of BBC's sunday morning sub-religious discussion show. This is about as big a platform as I'm ever going to get.
I am sick to the bloody back teeth of having the airwaves and the discussion fora hijacked by shrieking and frightened little men like you Mr Hitchens. You are in the minority, no matter how many other fantasists you can conjure up to agree with you, no matter how many of them may turn out to have some level of professional qualification. You are NOT a scientist. You are NOT an expert in drugs, addiction and certainly not in something as harmless as cannabis. Get some damned humility and get out of the debate. I am fed up with every discussion being dominated or hijacked by hysterical fearmongers perpetuating the same tired line.
Harmless you say?
You're damned right I say. There are plenty of people that smoke cannabis across the world. Plenty of people that still function. Cannabis has been in existence for centuries as a herb that has considerable medicinal use. Society has had a relationship with it forever and yet we are still here; armageddon hasn't crept up on our obviously THC addled minds. Society isn't about to sink into the abyss because of it either.
I say 'our', but I don't smoke it. I tried it a couple of times when i was younger and threw up. I don't care for it. But then I don't care for alcohol either, nor do I smoke tobacco (which is how the cannabis i tried was prepared - with regular cigarettes). I don't endorse it, nor do I condemn those that use it. It's their choice. That's what society is about and it seems that we have managed to muddle our way through this far.
The only issue I have is with the crossbred super strong stuff bred by the criminal element to increase profit. That and the culture that abuses cannabis - but then abuse is the problem with most things, even chocolate cake (that's regular cake, not the Brasseye stuff, kids). All of this can be solved by relaxing the laws on drugs, not pursuing a fools errand of prohibition or increasingly punitive measures, all of which are informed by fear of ignorance.
Something you, Peter Hitchens, are tacitly and constantly given carte blance to do. You are the worst kind of journalist and that you are happy to air your ignorance in debates with actual real human scientists attests to that, and to your agenda of ignorance. We need less of you not more.
Now feel free to whine to someone else about how you're so hard done by in being given every opportunity under the sun to speak.