[Killer Whale]

Stoner 1: "Oh no man, I really, really need some Hobnobs man. I got the munchies bad man."
Stoner 2: "I ain't got no money, man."
Stoner 1: "Shit. Where we gonna get Hobnobs?"
Stoner 2: "Let's, like, find some granny, man, on the street, man."
Stoner 1: "With Hobnobs?"
Stoner 2: "No, I mean, like... like... Oh, fuck it... Got any cornflakes?"
Stoner 1: [giggles uncontrollably for no apparent reason]

[tuber]

Peter Hitchens published a similar column to that Heffer one this Sunday - The cure for dopeheads...Dubai-style fear

It opens:

Even the soppy liberal media, and their flapping, punctured hero David Cameron, now admit that cannabis is a nasty poison.

For many shameful years they lied that it was harmless fun.

The first sentence makes it sound like there is a consensus, when there isn't one. The second is outright wrong - who has ever said they were lying?

[cycloon]

'Soppy' 'Wet' 'Wooly'

I'll take on one of these Mail journos anyday.

[famaf]

tuber - i think Hitchins is talking about the Independent on Sunday front the other week where they decided that actually cannabis is the cause of all ills and they were wrong to call for its decriminalisation twelfty years ago....

This type of woolyness annoys me, especially when the article seemed so ill-informed and not nearly as considered as their original stance.

...did anyone see the programme the other night about heroin and how it should be prescribed?
Can't remember what it was called but it was presented by a former addict who is now a doctor and made for a pretty compelling argument.

[tuber]

Famaf yes, the Independent say they got it wrong, but they do not say "OK guys we were lying all these years". Quite different, I feel. Should we accuse Hitchens of lying over his now-discarded socialist beliefs?

Anyway, bonus blog from yesterday:

Finally, somebody called Fj suggests there is a contradiction between favouring liberty of speech and thought, and being in favour of laws punishing the possession of stupefying narcotics. Why? First, drug taking leads to a serf-like complacency and helps people to bear the unbearable rather than criticising it or reforming it, and oppressors love a stupefied population for that reason. Perhaps the drug pandemic among the middle classes plays a part in our current political passivity. Also, I must say I should prefer a morally literate society in which people refused to stupefy themselves on principle and no law was needed to help them decide. But in our current state, demoralised by decades of pro-drug propaganda from the sixties generation and from the rock music industry, we need a force to protect the gullible young from doing themselves - and everyone who loves them - terrible harm.

We are not wholly our own property. We have responsibilities to others which ought to be governed by moral law but sometimes aren't - not least because people are sometimes ignorant of the possible consequences of their actions. If a child is seduced by propaganda and peer pressure into smoking dope, unaware of its possible dangers, deluded into a belief that there is no risk, and then develops a permanent and incurable mental illness which destroys his or her hopes of a full life and of parenthood, and turns the later years of his or her parents' life into a permanent grief (and such cases do most definitely happen), then it seems to me that we need a counterbalance to that peer pressure and false propaganda. Straightforward fear of legal punishment, clearly stated and warned of, seems to me to the best available.

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/ ... point.html

[famaf]

you're right tuber and certainly not defending Hitchens.
There's a big difference between developing an alternative point of view over a period of time and lying/being hypocritical....

[potsy70]

Hitchens comes out with the same old argument against drugs - and a rather weak defence about why, in light of those arguments, we should continue to allow alcohol.

I always get the impression that he knows his arguments are a bit weak, but he's arguing from middle class prejudice.

Still, as we've said before, at least he comes on to his blog and answers his critics. Which is more than Mad mel or Littlebrain ever do.

[Rob]

i still wonder how the fuck he came out of the same womb as christopher hitchens

[larrylargesse]

why o fucking why when they write an addiction story its always white middle class totty and no one else..heres another 'shocking' story...


'My grandmother campaigned against drugs but I was hooked at 15'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/f ... ge_id=1879

[Mr Mordon]

Famaf yes, the Independent say they got it wrong, but they do not say "OK guys we were lying all these years". Quite different, I feel. Should we accuse Hitchens of lying over his now-discarded socialist beliefs?

Anyway, bonus blog from yesterday:

Finally, somebody called Fj suggests there is a contradiction between favouring liberty of speech and thought, and being in favour of laws punishing the possession of stupefying narcotics. Why? First, drug taking leads to a serf-like complacency and helps people to bear the unbearable rather than criticising it or reforming it, and oppressors love a stupefied population for that reason. Perhaps the drug pandemic among the middle classes plays a part in our current political passivity. Also, I must say I should prefer a morally literate society in which people refused to stupefy themselves on principle and no law was needed to help them decide. But in our current state, demoralised by decades of pro-drug propaganda from the sixties generation and from the rock music industry, we need a force to protect the gullible young from doing themselves - and everyone who loves them - terrible harm.

We are not wholly our own property. We have responsibilities to others which ought to be governed by moral law but sometimes aren't - not least because people are sometimes ignorant of the possible consequences of their actions. If a child is seduced by propaganda and peer pressure into smoking dope, unaware of its possible dangers, deluded into a belief that there is no risk, and then develops a permanent and incurable mental illness which destroys his or her hopes of a full life and of parenthood, and turns the later years of his or her parents' life into a permanent grief (and such cases do most definitely happen), then it seems to me that we need a counterbalance to that peer pressure and false propaganda. Straightforward fear of legal punishment, clearly stated and warned of, seems to me to the best available.

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/ ... point.html

Dosn't the Hitch ever check his dictonary when he attempts to use big words?

(from Wiki) 'pandemic (from Greek παν pan all + δήμος demos people) is an epidemic (an outbreak of an infectious disease) that spreads across a large region (for example a continent), or even worldwide.'
Since when has drug use been an infectious disease ?

[tuber]

It's a metaphor that does crop up from time to time in the mail (see Cannabis Pandemic).

The irony is, if you suggest that drug addiction should be treated as a health issue rather than a criminal matter, Hitchens will be the first to argue with you.

[tuber]

...as he does this week when talking about a new book (Junk Medicine, Theodore Dalrymple which

tears to pieces the idea that heroin addiction is a terrible disease

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/ ... y-fre.html

[potsy70]

What is it with Hitchens and other Mail hacks and their apparent inability to look at scientific evidence, as opposed to anecdotes from doctors with inferiority complexes, who seem desperate to get published so damn the scientific method?


Long sentence there.

Drugs, MMR, it goes on.....

[larrylargesse]

What an incredible insulting article..surely he cant be so stupid,mind you his readers are..knee jerk reactions..

like all mental problems- its just a case of pulling yourself together that or using leeches to suck out the evil spirits
what a cock..

[Mr Mordon]

Hitchens problem is that he cannot relate to people who havn't had the easy, comfortable upbringing he's had. Some young people have vary tough lives and view drugs, be they alcohol or something more illegal, as an escape route