Peter Hitchens's Blog, page 328

A Monumental Error, and Other Themes

A number of readers chided me for what I said about the sentence given to Charlie Gilmour. I have responded privately to his father. But in general I stand by what I said. I don't rejoice at the sentence (given my reservations about our prison system, it is hard for me to do this, ever), nor have I gloated over it. But I think those who say it was excessive are mistaken in many ways. The main point is that the general outrage against his actions had to be reflected by the justice system. All justice systems area form of street theatre, to discourage the bad and encourage the good. They pick on particular individuals to make examples of them. It is wise not to become one of those they pick on.

By the way, one reader seems to think that I claim to have been at the Garden House riots in Cambridge. I did not intend to give that impression. I was not. My demonstrations were elsewhere, and one of them, against the presence of Enoch Powell in Oxford Town Hall, is described in my book 'the Cameron Delusion'. And I wrote, on the fortieth anniversary of the event, my recollections of the nasty ruckus in Grosvenor Square in March 1968, where one of my fellow demonstrators (no doubt peaceful) was a future head of Mi6.

I would say that on all my demonstrations however rough they got, my mind was not clouded by drugs or drink. In fact, a lot of Trotskyists were a pretty puritan lot (though there was a boozy minority). I think we would have regarded any sort of attack on the Cenotaph, or on a Royal car, as self-defeating and very bad propaganda.

One or two other points:

'Bob H' wrote: 'it was somewhat of a politician's answer. I originally asked you why consuming cannabis was morally wrong or wicked and why consuming alcohol was morally ok. You replied that it was because alcohol is legal. You have failed to address at all the main point I made that the morality and legality of something are separate. According to your logic I could do the same thing in 2 different places and be wicked and selfish in one (where cannabis was illegal) and not in the other (where cannabis were legal) And I simply don't accept that because something always has been it always will be. Our lifestyle and culture has changed beyond recognition in the last 200 years. Who's to say that with similar tactics to the ones used to reduce smoking, alcohol use couldn't be driven to a fraction of what it is now? '

I don't think this is true at all. ( He began in fact with this question, rather different form the one he now professes to have asked: Let's imagine we are both in a room. I am consuming cannabis. You are consuming alcohol. I know that almost certainly someone else has suffered horribly due to cannabis. You know that someone has suffered horribly due to alcohol. Why am I selfish and wicked but you are not?). My answers to Mr 'H' have not been at all evasive. I never said that consuming alcohol was morally OK 'because it was legal'. I made an entirely different point.  Morality and legality are indeed different things.

But I cannot believe anything will ever happen to make it morally right to seek freedom to pursue a pleasure which, if legalised, will undoubtedly damage others. I think it wrong to sacrifice the health  of others for my own pleasure. Mr 'H' , as far as I can see, is ready to do this. That is immoral, in fact it is selfish and wicked, as I have said.

I repeat my answers to him here :

First
'1. Alcohol is legal and cannabis is not. 2. I campaign consistently for *more* restrictions on the sale of alcohol, and would, if I thought it practicable, support its prohibition and give up its use. I don't think it practicable, hence my support instead for tight restrictions on its sale and heavy penalties for crimes committed under its influence. ( I do think effective laws prohibiting the possession of cannabis, and punishing those who allow it to be used on their premises, would be practicable and effective. So do the dope campaigners, which is why they are so alarmed that I call for this measure). 3. He doesn't say if he is in favour of relaxing the laws against cannabis. If he isn't, then his illegal action is a blow against those laws anyway, and the breach of laws in a free society is an immoral act in itself. If he does favour relaxation of those laws, he is happy to see the dangers of cannabis inflicted on other people for the sake of his own pleasure. His position is therefore more or less the opposite of mine. That is the main difference.

Second
' I explained the grave differences between our positions whether or not cannabis was legal. He now says: 'But I want strong controls on cannabis as well, so again how are we different?' Because I want stronger controls on alcohol than there are now ( and stronger controls on cannabis than there are now, notably serious imprisonment for possession and the restoration of the absolute offence of permitting remises to be used for its consumption) Whereas, unless I misunderstand him, he wants weaker controls on cannabis than there are now. This seems to me to be a pretty fundamental difference. Alcohol has been in our culture for thousands of years, mass cigarette smoking for only about a century. The two are not really comparable.'

'Carl' asks: '' Oh Peter, did you really have to use this as an opportunity to talk about the supposed slipping of standards in History? Of course the lad knew it was Cenotaph, he's pulling (y)our leg(s). '

I think it entirely apposite to mention this problem. I suspect that many people of his generation, including those with university degrees, have the vaguest idea of what and where the Cenotaph is, and of what it represents. Many older people have no idea of how utterly cut off this generation is from the past. It is time they realised.

'Wesley Crosland' states: 'Peter Hitchens and his conservative creed would have been happy to look away from the pornographic National Socialist regime'.

This as an interesting jibe, which qualifies as a slur. To say I would have been 'happy' is simply false. It is a grim fact of life that we have limited influence over human evil, and can only exercise it close to home, which means we are often aware of terrible wrongs about which we can do little or nothing. To recognise this sad fact is not to be 'happy' about it. Most informed people knew from the early 1920s onwards that the USSR was a hideous prison house and torture chamber in which whole categories of people were murdered, often by starvation. Yet we all lived alongside it till it collapsed through its own internal contradiction, and the 'democratic' powers spent four long years in close alliance with it and permitted it to spread its rule over even greater areas of the world. Were they, too 'happy to look away from the pornographic Stalin regime'.

This sort of language has no pace in grown-up discussion.

In fact the whole world, including the USA and the USSR, were, if not happy, then willing to look away from the National Socialist regime from its inception in 1933 till they went to war with it, never less than six years after it came to power, and often rather more. The International Olympic Committee was happy to allow it to stage the Olympics in Berlin, though its repressive, lawless, murderous and racialist character was already quite clear by then. Hardly any of the countries of the civilised world would take in refugees from Germany in any numbers, especially Jewish refugees. The famous Kindertransporten of Jewish children from Central Europe were halted forever the day war broke out. The British government signed treaties (notably a Naval Treaty) with Germany during this period. The USSR was actually Germany's ally.

Dislike of the Hitler government played no part in any major country's decision to go to war with Germany, at any stage. And the worst atrocities of that government took place after the European war had begun and – quite possibly because of the fog of war allowed such crimes to be committed, which couldn't have been committed in peace time.

It is simply false to pretend that the Second World War was fought out of idealism. This falsehood is spread by people who want to start wars for idealistic reasons now.

Swinging on the Cenotaph

Several (mostly female) commentators have expressed doubts about the 16-month prison sentence imposed on Charlie Gilmour, a Cambridge history student who is notorious for swinging from one of the flags on the Cenotaph in Whitehall, later saying that he didn't know what the Cenotaph was.

Oddly enough Gilmour wasn't actually charged for this action, but was on trial for various other acts of stupidity and destruction at a student demonstration. Was the sentence too harsh?

Well, first of all, I would imagine that Gilmour will serve nothing like 16 months. The most he could possibly serve will be eight months, since almost all prison sentences are frauds on the public. They are in general automatically halved as soon as they are passed. And given the overcrowding of the prisons, I would expect him to be out and tagged in a surprisingly short time. Watch out for news of this.

In plain legal terms, I think the sentence may be too long – simply because the Cenotaph desecration wasn't technically involved (though the maximum for his offence is five years) .

But did the court really ignore this incident? Could it?  Many people were affronted and distressed by his behaviour, and thought it particularly inexcusable in a history undergraduate at one of the world's greatest universities. They were (and I was) unimpressed by his claim that he didn't know what the great and famous monument was. The trouble with this claim is that it might possibly be true, even for a Cambridge history undergraduate. The study of history nowadays is sketchy and often quite deliberately directed away from narrative forms or from any national preoccupation. Even so, it must have been fairly easy to guess that the structure was important and serious, and that swinging on the national flag in a public place might not be a good plan.

And (again also in my case) some observers weren't terribly mollified by his admission that he had fried his brains with whisky, Valium and LSD, supposedly because he was upset about being snubbed by his natural father.  I'm sorry for his trouble, and his natural father doesn't sound very nice, but in the grown-up world, someone who takes mind-altering drugs is not less responsible for his bad actions under their influence, but more responsible. He decided to take them. He must have known they would unhinge him.

And there are in this world many people who have far greater griefs than this, who do not respond by swallowing rocket-fuel. As a plea in mitigation, it lacks power.

The judge may also have been influenced by Gilmour's behaviour in court. According to one account in an unpopular newspaper, Gilmour giggled as film footage was shown of him prancing and squalling about the place like a cut-price Robespierre. I have only seen this in one place, but if it is true, then I would expect the judge to have been unimpressed by it.

The most telling argument against his treatment is that he is the victim of some sort of Toff Tariff, under which he is punished harder because he comes from a more comfortable background. I am not sure I am against this. I think that public figures can expect to be hit harder if they land in the dock, especially if they are the sort who influence others. So why not also fortunate and favoured people who reject the laws and customs which protect them and their way of life?

And there is the old rule that from those to whom much is given, much is required. Speaking as a former teenage troublemaker, I think I would have deserved a pretty hard time if I had been in court for something like that. I would probably have got it, too. Some older readers may remember the Garden House Riots in Cambridge, in 1970, when a protest against the Greek Colonels got out of hand. Some of those convicted on that occasion got 18 months, and probably served a good deal more of than Gilmour will serve.

One commentator compared Gilmour's treatment to the suspended 15-week sentence given to the appalling Wendy Lewis, who relieved herself, while smoking, on Blackpool's majestic and august war memorial (one of the finest structures in that place). Deputy District Judge (don't you long for the days when we still had magistrates?)  Roger Lowe told her that he had spared her custody to 'allow her to get help for her drink and drug problems'.

Hmph.  Her problems look pretty self-inflicted to me. What other factors might influence this difference? Blackpool's memorial,  important as it is, is not the National Cenotaph. . And the pictures of Lewis committing her desecration are not such as can be shown on TV or reproduced here or in the newspapers, so although her behaviour is in fact worse, we are not as shocked and angry about it as we would otherwise be.   I am inclined to agree with Blackpool war veterans that she got off far too lightly, rather than that Gilmour was too heavily punished.

I would be much happier with Gilmour's sentence if he was going to spend it in an austere, disciplined prison run by the authorities, rather than in a modern British jail which will be none of those things and where he may well find himself being persecuted by other inmates because he has been on TV and is posh.

But in an age where we have ceased to believe in punishment ,and pretend instead to believe in the will o' the wisp of 'rehabilitation' ( and I would guess that the people complaining about Gilmour's sentence think I am barbaric for believing in punitive prisons) , that option is not open.  And can any serious judge really have such a person before him and not pass an exemplary sentence?

It's all very sad. But I cannot join the chorus of protest. 

Why does Rupert Want War?

Several contributors have asked this week why support for the Afghan and Iraq wars was so important to the Murdoch organisation, and why it was such an  important part of the deals made with Anthony Blair and David Cameron.

I think it is because Mr Murdoch genuinely believes in the aggressive neo-conservative globalist idea, which lies behind  these wars.

He is a revolutionary radical ( I believe he had a bust of Lenin in his rooms at Oxford), who has of course grown out of that sort of teenage left-wing view, but still seeks a home for his utopianism. He is also  strongly prejudiced against the old-fashioned British establishment and the monarchy, the class system, closed borders and national sovereignty.

The 1981 film 'Gallipoli', starring, yes, Mel Gibson, which I think he backed, has been accused of perpetuating a number of anti-British myths about that campaign which are still widely believed in Australia, and was marketed – very annoyingly to me – as 'from a place you  never  heard of, a story you'll never forget'. In my generation, we'd certainly all heard of Gallipoli, and the implication that hadn't was rather insulting.

I have always been much more baffled by his unyielding opposition to British membership of the Euro, a rare blast of support for national sovereignty against its foes.

I also suspect that Mr Murdoch's commercial ends are – or certainly were - greatly aided by his strong support for a certain kind of rather basic American patriotism, which won him friends among the more simple-minded Washington politicians. But as it happens I suspect his feelings on this score are quite genuine. He is an anti-sovereignty, open borders interventionist neo-conservative, who has become a US citizen and, so far as I know, means it.

What do YOU think is worse: phone hacking or buying votes with blood?

This is Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column

Since we are to have a Judicial Inquiry into the wicked Press, shouldn't we also have one into wicked politicians? Journalists can be nasty, and newspapers beastly, but their misdeeds are as nothing set beside those of governments.

Governments also hack into phones, poke their noses into our personal affairs and misuse the information they obtain. Governments break up families in secret and hold increasing numbers of trials in secret, too. Governments sell information about us to outsiders.

The state records our emails, spies on our rubbish bins and uses airport X-ray machines to peer sneakily at our naked bodies. It knows what we earn and where we live and monitors our medical records. It takes an increasingly creepy interest in what we think and say.

No doubt politicians claim that these actions are justified. But who is to know, especially in a country with a weakened Press? However, these are minor crimes when set beside the other things governments do. Newspapers don't bomb Belgrade or Baghdad or Tripoli, or invade Afghanistan and then forget why they did it.

Newspapers don't waterboard people, or bundle them off to clandestine prisons.

Newspapers don't release hundreds of convicted terrorists on to the streets nor thousands of convicted ordinary criminals either. Newspapers don't open our frontiers to hundreds of thousands of unchecked migrants.

But you may – rightly – say: What about the newspapers that have helped governments do some or all of these things? And here I will agree with you. The proper relationship between the Press and the government is the same as the one between a dog and a lamppost. Yet the Murdoch Press slobbered for years at the feet of the Blair government. They had a price. The Murdoch empire wanted Britain to go to war, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The grotesque screeching of lies that stampeded us into these wars was a joint operation between News International and the dark heart of Alastair Campbell's Downing Street. Then, when New Labour sagged, the same deal was on offer to anyone else cynical enough to accept it.

I have never forgotten October 2, 2009, when David Cameron paid his first instalment to Rupert Murdoch, in return for his papers' support in the coming Election. He promised a closer engagement in Afghanistan – 'If I'm Prime Minister, Whitehall will go to war from minute one, hour one, day one that I walk through the door of Downing Street.'

He made other promises, driven by public opinion. But nobody, in September 2009, wanted us to get deeper into Afghanistan. Nobody, that is, except Mr Murdoch. In short, Mr Cameron was quite ready (as he has since proved) to send people to their deaths in Helmand and to allow many more to be maimed for life, to secure the support of The Sun during the Election campaign. This was one pledge he unequivocally kept.

From that moment, I decided that Mr Cameron was personally disgusting as well as politically wretched. I think paying for office with the blood and limbs of other people is quite a lot worse than hacking into Milly Dowler's phone, even if it isn't illegal. And I'd like to hear Mr Cameron's account – on oath – of the negotiations that led to this bargain.

Just as I'd like to hear Anthony Blair's account – on oath – of what he promised these people and what role they played in the carnage he unleashed in Iraq. Instead we get an investigation into the Press.

Haven't we got things a little out of proportion?

 

A pathetically thin excuse

I have now measured the road that Defence Minister Andrew Robathan says is 'very narrow', too narrow, apparently, for the hearses containing dead soldiers from Afghanistan.

I went to Carterton, the small town on the doorstep of RAF Brize Norton where the honoured dead will arrive after September. And I measured the Burford Road, just outside the Church of St John the Evangelist, along which the cortege could pass on its way to Oxford, if the authorities had not chosen another route, which carefully avoids the only major High Street nearby.

The road at this point is 22ft wide, which doesn't strike me as specially narrow. Two-way traffic was getting through pretty briskly. What is more, Carterton, a strikingly modern town with exactly the same population as Wootton Bassett, has plenty of broad pavements on which people might – if they wished – assemble to pay their respects to those who did their duty to the utmost.

Of course, the Prime Minister and his shadowy, rich backers (not all Murdoch employees) dwell just round the corner in the cosy hills above Witney and Chipping Norton. I do wonder what contacts they may have had with the Tory-controlled Oxfordshire County Council that has selected the route. The whole thing is increasingly suspicious.

 

Boston and the silent explosion

Say this to yourself slowly.

A quarter of the population of Boston, Lincolnshire, are immigrants from Eastern Europe, Portugal and Asia. This amazing fact was well down the story about an explosion in an alleged moonshine factory. But it is in many ways far more explosive than the explosion.

I first visited Boston 25 years ago when it was such a settled place that people from outside that part of Lincolnshire (me) were actually called 'foreigners' by the locals.

The repeated warnings from Sir Andrew Green of MigrationWatch, that the country is being transformed by migrants, are plainly true. The only remaining question is whether it is a deliberate policy or mere incompetence.

 

Being British has no future – for anyone

I spent most of Sunday in the lovely Northern Irish city of Armagh, which on Tuesday was the scene of violent disturbances. I was not surprised to hear this. It was clear from the rival displays of flags of both Unionist and Nationalist communities – half-a-mile apart – that even this small country town remains profoundly divided, and the 1998 surrender to the IRA has not resolved the province's problems at all.

As I reported some weeks ago, several indicators suggest that the tensions are actually worse. I watched a modest Orange Parade, largely middle-aged and far from triumphalist. And I felt for those in the Province who simply wish to remain British and must now live under the rule of Martin McGuinness and his band of ruffians.

Mind you, there's not much future these days for anyone anywhere who wants to stay British. That's not allowed.

The Conformist Bigots of the Cannabis Lobby

I think it very funny that an unadorned recitation ('High and Violent', posted on Thursday afternoon) of a few factual stories from several newspapers over the last few years, the fruit (as clearly stated above) of a brief search, making no wider claims than that the image of cannabis as an invariably peaceful drug is questionable, should have aroused the excited storm of spittle from the drug lobby which we see here. Not to mention the curiously uniform references to 'reefer madness'. The selfish rage of the cannabis campaign is aroused by the mere existence of anyone who doesn't bow down to it. It would dearly love to censor and silence anyone who casts doubt upon its various self-serving beliefs.

While I'm happy to allow these people to post their drivel here about 'medicinal marijuana' ( I am sorry for them, really), they are genuinely enraged that I should dare to oppose them. Maybe they will succeed in their attempt to silence opposition. Let us hope not. But I think what we see here is a clear indication that these people, who (risibly) regard themselves as a liberation movement, are at heart intolerant conformists, who loathe dissent and hate dissenters far more than any suburban bigot ever did in 1950s Surrey. Not surprising, given that their drug of choice is one of the most powerful weapons ever placed in the hands of an authoritarian state - a substance which makes most (though clearly not all) of its users docile and conformist, and which does not even have to be forced into them, or secretly put in the water supply. They actually take it voluntarily, and enter their mental serfdom with joy and laughter. Oh Brave New World, that has such people in it ! But anyone who says this filth is not a poison should see what it did to Henry Cockburn, and then tell me with a straight face that it is safe.

 

Surely No Mistake – Tim Wilkinson replies

I'd just like to draw readers' attention to the welcome news that Tim Wilkinson has now posted his first response to my arguments on cannabis. They can be found by searching for "Tim Wilkinson",  "Peter Hitchens" , "Surely Some Mistake" and the regrettably silly phrase "Reefer Madness". Pro-cannabis campaigners really should stop behaving as if the mental health risks of this drug were a bit of a giggle.

I'll respond in due time. It would obviously be a good thing if readers were by then familiar with Mr Wilkinson's position.

Good Advice from a Dope Lobbyist

Some Good Advice from Jayelle Farmer on a US site called  'Legalise Cannabis International', posted today:

"How to Correctly Answer Hitchens and Other Prohibitionists
We need to remember that we are campaigners for legalisation, not campaigners against people's opinions. It is not our job to become embroiled in personality contests with prohibitionists - or anyone else for that matter. The person who does so is simply displaying the fact that they are too bound up in themselves to be effective as a campaigner. Yes, we can take that personal avenue if we so choose, but we will not be effective workers in our campaign for cannabis legalisation if we do."

Ms Farmer ( who sounds as if she might be a Canadian, so polite and reasonable) also kindly says that I am 'very good at making the point that prohibitionists are not necessarily stupid people'.

Thank you.

She also adds :'We know that this guy can make us crazy *if we allow him to* (this bit is in CAPITAL LETTERS in the original, but we don't use those here) .

And offers lots of other good advice for the conduct of civilised debate. It's nice to know that I am facing co-ordinated, coherent and organised opposition,  which suggests that I am doing some good. It is also good to see it in plain view. I commend the posting (easily found at 'Legalise Cannabis International, and 'Peter Hitchens' 'UK Media Cannabis prohibitionist') .

I just wish they'd use a better picture of me (I'm sure I can supply one if asked), and that any American could ever understand that the Mail on Sunday is a separate newspaper from the Daily Mail.

 

 

 

 

High and Violent

One contributor recently wondered whether violent acts committed by cannabis users were committed while they were actually high on the drug. I made a brief and necessarily limited search through the electronic newspaper files, using the search terms "High on Cannabis" and "Killed" .

This produced a striking number of road deaths in which the driver behaved homicidally while under the influence of the drug. But these were by no means the only instances.

Here, for those who have swallowed the idea that cannabis is a peaceable drug, is a selection. I have included some road deaths as they occur so frequently. In some, but by no means all of these cases, cannabis has been taken together with alcohol. This is not, I believe, uncommon among cannabis users and it must remain a matter of speculation which of the two drugs had the greater influence, or whether it was the combination.  There are also cases, which I have for the most part set aside, of killings by mentally ill people who have been taking cannabis.  It is not possible to say whetehr they were ill in the first place because of cannabis, or whether it has made their problems worse( andf I have no doubt there will be people here who will believe that cannabis is in some way a 'treatment' for their  problems):

12/7/11

A SPEEDING driver has been jailed after admitting he was high on cannabis when he ran over and killed a teenage girl.

Landscape gardener John Page, 35, was driving a borrowed car at up to 43mph in a 30mph area in New Addington, Croydon, on June 26 last year.

Lillian Groves, 14, who was playing in her front garden with her little brother, had stepped into the road to retrieve a ball when Page knocked her over.

Croydon crown court heard how Page had smoked half a cannabis joint and was "showing off" to niece Elizabeth Page and friend Gavin Timms in the car.

Judge Stephen Waller said: "There is no sentence I can pass which is going to reduce the family's pain."

Page admitted causing death by careless driving and driving without insurance. He was jailed for eight months and banned from the roads for two years.

 

7/11/ 98

BROTHER and sister were behind bars last night for their part in the gang killing of a total stranger who was crippled with arthritis.

Injuries inflicted on 42-year-old Gary Harper were so severe that his family were unable to recognise him.

Some of his attackers, 'three who looked like children', had been high on cannabis and Buckfast wine, the High Court in Glasgow was told.

 

16/12/2000

ALMOST one in five people killed in road crashes is under the influence of drugs, Government figures have revealed

 

17/01/2001

High on cannabis, [Mitchell] Quy strangled his wife during one of their many blazing rows, gripping her by the neck for 20 minutes.

Then, police believe, he carried out a 'ritualistic' stabbing of the body. He hid Mrs Quy's mutilated corpse for five days in the loft.

 

14/07/2002

15 minutes after leaving his family home in the Cotswolds, Jamie Waters was dead - killed in a head-on collision with a BMW driven by a man who was high on cannabis.

 

9/10/2006

A SOLDIER who killed a teacher in a cannabis-induced frenzy will be jailed today.

Lance Corporal Laurie Draper, 31, hacked his best friend's father to death with a pair of garden shears after smoking the drug.

Medical tests found he was suffering from " cannabis induced delusions" when he attacked 53-year-old Paul Butterworth.

It had been a "nice friendly evening" until Draper smoked a joint after dinner.

 

11/11/2006

Tom Grant, 19, was killed by a knife-wielding maniac as he travelled home from St Andrews University to see his parents.

Yesterday, Thomas Wood, 22, pleaded guilty to murdering him while high on cannabis.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment and the judge recommended that he serve at least 21 years.

But the court heard that Wood – who had 21 previous convictions, including one for carrying a knife in public – had been released on licence after serving only half of a six- month sentence for burglary offences.

The Mail has also learned that toxicology tests on Wood after the murder showed he was high on cannabis.

 

7/03/2007

Lee Firman, 19, stabbed Glen Corner when he intervened to help a friend who was being threatened with a knife. Jobless Firman, who was drunk and high on cannabis, stabbed him once in the chest with one of two knives he was carrying last August. He then shouted: 'I've stabbed the b*****d. Let him die.'

 

8/10/2003

A FATHER high on cannabis when he smothered his baby son to stop him crying was jailed for 12 years yesterday. Richard Barr, 30, from Dundee, killed one-year old Euan by putting his hand over the boy's nose and mouth and squeezing his throat, the High Court in Edinburgh was told.

Despite the efforts of paramedics and doctors, he died in Ninewell's Hospital, Dundee.

The court was told that Barr was unable to offer any explanation, but admitted having partly smothered Ewan five times before to stop him crying. Yesterday the judge, Lord Nimmo Smith, told Barr that he was lucky that his guilty plea to culpable homicide had been accepted by the Crown, as he could have faced trial for murder.

He added, however, that the sentence had to be in double figures to reflect public outrage. "It defies comprehension that a sane person, as you appear to be, should think that an appropriate way of dealing with a crying baby is to smother him until he becomes unconscious, yet you did that on a number of occasions. You seem to have shown no awareness of how very wrong such an act was.

"You were under the influence of cannabis, which may have been a factor."

 

12/02/2007

LIFE FOR KILLER VAN DRIVER HIGH ON CANNABIS A van driver who deliberately killed a cyclist in Islington, north London, whilst high on cannabis has been jailed for life.

Malachi Adam-Smith, 20, has smoked so much ``skunk'' that he had brought on a temporary mental illness, the Old Bailey heard.

The court accepted his plea to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Adam-Smith was in taken to a mental hospital after his behaviour caused concern following long-term use of cannabis but on April 26, last year, he absconded during two hours unsupervised leave.

 

23/06/2007

TWO boy thugs were caged yesterday for a happy-slap killing - but will be out in months.

The yobs, aged 16 and 14, had faced life for attacking dad-of-two Peter Ramsey.

The younger boy slapped the 40-year-old artist as he left a store and the other, high on cannabis, punched him. Mr Ramsey fell "like a domino" and cracked his head on the pavement.

Another youth filmed last October's attack in Southampton, Hants, before all fled.

 

11/03/2008

The rapist was high on cannabis and ecstasy when he spotted his second victim in a Dublin park just days later.

He attacked the schoolgirl in her home and recorded the sex act on her camera phone.

 

Denying Reality. The Red Herring of 'Medical Cannabis' and the Long Goodbye of Mr 'F'

 

A week ago I wrote these words , as a comment on the thread' Prohibition Blues'

'The 'medical cannabis' nonsense, as Keith Stroup memorably told the 'Emory Wheel' ( An American university newspaper) on February 6th 1979 (pp 18-19, I have a copy in front of me as I write in case anyone is tempted to deny this), is a conscious red herring. No serious drug could be administered in the forms in which cannabis is taken by those who use it for pleasure. There are, on both sides of the Atlantic, drugs made from THC (but which do not provide a high) They are rarely prescribed because they simply aren't very effective. (Nabilone is the main one in Britain). Here's the quotation from the Stroup interview (plainly conducted by sympathisers with Mr Stroup) : In reply to the question: 'How is NORML utilizing the issue of marijuana treatment of chemotherapy patients? Stroup replied: "We are trying to get marijuana reclassified medically. If we do that (we'll do it in at least 20 states this year for chemotherapy patients) will be using the issue as a red herring to give marijuana a good name.That's our way of getting to them (new right) indirectly, just like the paraphernalia laws are their way at getting to us". Alert readers will notice that after 'patients)' there appears to be a missing word. That's not my omission, but how it is in the original I have before me. But I cannot think of any word apart from 'we' which could or would fill the gap'.

What am I saying here? I am saying that claims for the medicinal properties of cannabis are propaganda, designed to be part of the relentless public relations campaign for this particular drug, and that one of the longest-standing campaigners for cannabis legalisation once, in an unguarded moment, said so. I repeat, no serious medicinal drug could be smoked or eaten in cookies, not least because the dose could not be properly regulated. I repeat that drugs based on the principal active ingredient of cannabis, such as Nabilone, are available.

One person responded to this by complaining that the words were said a long time ago. So what? Unguarded quotations of this kind are wonderfully rare, and are often treasured for many years.  I went to some lengths to check the quotation (accurately given above) because it had come to my notice that its validity was being denied (notably in a letter apparently written by Mr Stroup to a Steve Kubby. I am sure most search engines will find it). I contacted the current editorial staff of the 'Emory Wheel' (newspaper of Emory University in Georgia, USA), but they were unable to help. Eventually, diligent and helpful staff at the Emory University library were able to find the original for me. Mr Stroup is the undoubted star of the issue. appearing twice. The quotation is to be found in an  interview by the paper's 'entertainment staff', who appear from their questioning to have been highly sympathetic to Mr Stroup.

I think this is most interesting, and should give pause to any serious persons in the pro-cannabis lobby.

If it did, they haven't shared this with me. What I did receive was a response from a contributor who has used several names but currently trades under the title 'Fred F'.

He wrote (amongst other things) :

'I see you're up to your old reality denying tricks again Pete. You're now claiming medical cannabis is a myth are you? '

When I took exception to this, and required an apology and retraction,  he first of all claimed not to understand my objection to the term 'reality denying'. This phrase contrives to suggest that I am either removed from reality and/or have committed a falsehood. In either case it is a substantial insult. By connotation with the phrase 'Holocaust Denial' which is the origin of this modern cliché, it is also an implied smear. ( see also the very common parallel smear  'climate change denier')

Further *I* had not *claimed* that medicinal cannabis is a *myth*.  I had *said* (indeed established incontrovertibly, beyond a shadow of a doubt) that *Keith Stroup*, a prominent campaigner for legalisation,  had described it as a *red herring*. And I had pointed out that, where THC has been used under medical rules, it has not been a wild success.

Mr 'F' has since responded with this contribution: 'Ok Peter I withdraw my claim that you think medicinal cannabis is a myth and I apologise for any upset I have caused. I reiterate that I do not consider you to be a liar. I was also absolutely stunned by your suggestion that I'm somehow trying to smear you in some way as having Nazi sympathies. I state categorically that I was not and I find that a really strange thing for you to have said. I'm afraid I do find some of your opinions and views simply delusional and I can't really hide that can I? But if one is deluded they believe their delusions and thus it is not the same as lying. I sincerely hope you accept my apology. I might add that it is not actually possible to ban anyone on this blog for technical reasons - you may be able to ban an individual IP address but they are easy to find. Remember Harry Rose? Do you think you banned him? And what about the landfill bloke - didn't you try to threaten an apology out of him too?'

This is not adequate. It accuses me of being deluded (though without evidence to support the accusation), and redoubles the insult. I suppose it is possible that Mr 'F' ( who hides behind his latest pseudonym as he writes this stuff) really doesn't know the connotations of the expression 'denier'. But it seems unlikely to me.  In fact it more or less guarantees that Mr 'F' will not be welcome here after the weekend,

Mr 'F' is not asked to apologise 'for any upset he has caused'. That is what I call a railway apology, under which the problem is not the railway company's failure to run a train, but the inexplicable (inexplicable, anyway, to the railway company) anger and impatience of the passenger that the train has failed to run, or been seriously delayed. In any case, I am not 'upset'. I have as I often point out here, been insulted by experts, and Mr 'F' isn't one.  I am simply resolute.

I enforce a straightforward rule here that if people make serious allegations about me ( or anyone else) they must either justify them or withdraw and apologise for making them, within a set time.

I've explained to Mr 'F' that he committed two substantive offences. One, he accused me of 'reality denial', i.e. dishonesty,  an offence he multiplied by suggesting that this is a regular habit of mine.
2. He accused *me* of saying I had made a claim (which I had not) thus misrepresenting an important factual statement, that *Keith Stroup* had *said* that medicinal cannabis was a red herring to get pot a good name.

Mr 'F' has repeatedly mischievously twisted this issue into a non-existent quarrel over whether I said that medicinal cannabis was a myth. As he well knows, this was not my argument, and never has been. He doesn't need to tell me I never said this. I know that. I think, as it happens,  the concept of 'medicinal cannabis' is much worse than a myth, I think it is wicked propaganda. Alas, it cannot accurately be called a 'myth' because of various not-very-successful attempts (Sativex, Nabilone etc) to use THC, in properly controlled ( and therefore high-free) doses in a medical fashion. These are in any case marginal to the real 'medical marijuana' propaganda effort, which has succeeded in effectively legalising cannabis in several US jurisdictions.

Mr 'F' , whose wording appears to be designed to trap me into a statement on 'medicinal cannabis' that I have not made, based on an opinion I do not have, needs to grasp that I am not denying having said something I patently never said, and I don't want his acknowledgement that I never said it. What I want is his truthful acknowledgement of what I did say – and that he very much doesn't like, and very much wishes not to acknowledge because it is true and inconvenient to his settled opinion -  that  *Keith Stroup*  of *NORML* said it was a *red herring*.

I note his threat to continue posting under other identities. I am of course aware that people do this. We have quite a lot of fun here making it hard for them to do so, though of course we sometimes fail.  I am mainly anxious to make the point that accusations of dishonesty must be substantiated or apologised for unconditionally, and unconditionally withdrawn. The response of Mr 'F' comes nowhere near this in content or spirit. He still has a few days to put this right.

Denying Reality. 'The Red Herring of 'Medical Cannabis' and the Long Goodbye of Mr 'F'

 

A week ago I wrote these words , as a comment on the thread' Prohibition Blues'

'The 'medical cannabis' nonsense, as Keith Stroup memorably told the 'Emory Wheel' ( An American university newspaper) on February 6th 1979 (pp 18-19, I have a copy in front of me as I write in case anyone is tempted to deny this), is a conscious red herring. No serious drug could be administered in the forms in which cannabis is taken by those who use it for pleasure. There are, on both sides of the Atlantic, drugs made from THC (but which do not provide a high) They are rarely prescribed because they simply aren't very effective. (Nabilone is the main one in Britain). Here's the quotation from the Stroup interview (plainly conducted by sympathisers with Mr Stroup) : In reply to the question: 'How is NORML utilizing the issue of marijuana treatment of chemotherapy patients? Stroup replied: "We are trying to get marijuana reclassified medically. If we do that (we'll do it in at least 20 states this year for chemotherapy patients) will be using the issue as a red herring to give marijuana a good name.That's our way of getting to them (new right) indirectly, just like the paraphernalia laws are their way at getting to us". Alert readers will notice that after 'patients)' there appears to be a missing word. That's not my omission, but how it is in the original I have before me. But I cannot think of any word apart from 'we' which could or would fill the gap'.

What am I saying here? I am saying that claims for the medicinal properties of cannabis are propaganda, designed to be part of the relentless public relations campaign for this particular drug, and that one of the longest-standing campaigners for cannabis legalisation once, in an unguarded moment, said so. I repeat, no serious medicinal drug could be smoked or eaten in cookies, not least because the dose could not be properly regulated. I repeat that drugs based on the principal active ingredient of cannabis, such as Nabilone, are available.'

One person responded to this by complaining that the words were said a long time ago. So what? Unguarded quotations of this kind are wonderfully rare, and are often treasured for many years.  I went to some lengths to check the quotation (accurately given above) because it had come to my notice that its validity was being denied (notably in a letter apparently written by Mr Stroup to a Steve Kubby. I am sure most search engines will find it). I contacted the current editorial staff of the 'Emory Wheel' (newspaper of Emory University in Georgia, USA), but they were unable to help. Eventually, diligent and helpful staff at the Emory University library were able to find the original for me. Mr Stroup is the undoubted star of the issue. appearing twice. The quotation is to be found in an  interview by the paper's 'entertainment staff', who appear from their questioning to have been highly sympathetic to Mr Stroup.

I think this is most interesting, and should give pause to any serious persons in the pro-cannabis lobby.

If it did, they haven't shared this with me. What I did receive was a response from a contributor who has used several names but currently trades under the title 'Fred F'.

He wrote (amongst other things) :

'I see you're up to your old reality denying tricks again Pete. You're now claiming medical cannabis is a myth are you? '

When I took exception to this, and required an apology and retraction,  he first of all claimed not to understand my objection to the term 'reality denying'. This phrase contrives to suggest that I am either removed from reality and/or have committed a falsehood. In either case it is a substantial insult. By connotation with the phrase 'Holocaust Denial' which is the origin of this modern cliché, it is also an implied smear. ( see also the very common parallel smear  'climate change denier')

Further *I* had not *claimed* that medicinal cannabis is a *myth*.  I had *said* (indeed established incontrovertibly, beyond a shadow of a doubt) that *Keith Stroup*, a prominent campaigner for legalisation,  had described it as a *red herring*. And I had pointed out that, where THC has been used under medical rules, it has not been a wild success.

Mr 'F' has since responded with this contribution: 'Ok Peter I withdraw my claim that you think medicinal cannabis is a myth and I apologise for any upset I have caused. I reiterate that I do not consider you to be a liar. I was also absolutely stunned by your suggestion that I'm somehow trying to smear you in some way as having Nazi sympathies. I state categorically that I was not and I find that a really strange thing for you to have said. I'm afraid I do find some of your opinions and views simply delusional and I can't really hide that can I? But if one is deluded they believe their delusions and thus it is not the same as lying. I sincerely hope you accept my apology. I might add that it is not actually possible to ban anyone on this blog for technical reasons - you may be able to ban an individual IP address but they are easy to find. Remember Harry Rose? Do you think you banned him? And what about the landfill bloke - didn't you try to threaten an apology out of him too?'

This is not adequate. It accuses me of being deluded (though without evidence to support the accusation), and redoubles the insult. I suppose it is possible that Mr 'F' ( who hides behind his latest pseudonym as he writes this stuff, really doesn't know the connotations of the expression 'denier'. But it seems unlikely to me.  In fact it more or less guarantees that Mr 'F' will not be welcome here after the weekend,

Mr 'F' is not asked to apologise 'for any upset he has caused'. That is what I call a railway apology, under which the problem is not the railway company's failure to run a train, but the inexplicable (inexplicable, anyway, to the railway company) anger and impatience of the passenger that the train has failed to run, or been seriously delayed. In any case, I am not 'upset'. I have as I often point out here, been insulted by experts, and Mr 'F' isn't one.  I am simply resolute.

I enforce a straightforward rule here that if people make serious allegations about me ( or anyone else) they must either justify them or withdraw and apologise for making them, within a set time.

I've explained to Mr 'F' that he committed two substantive offences. One, he accused me of 'reality denial', i.e. dishonesty,  an offence he multiplied by suggesting that this is a regular habit of mine.
2. He accused *me* of saying I had made a claim (which I had not) thus misrepresenting an important factual statement, that *Keith Stroup* had *said* that medicinal cannabis was a red herring to get pot a good name.

Mr 'F' has repeatedly mischievously twisted this issue into a non-existent quarrel over whether I said that medicinal cannabis was a myth. As he well knows, this was not my argument, and never has been. He doesn't need to tell me I never said this. I know that. I think, as it happens,  the concept of 'medicinal cannabis' is much worse than a myth, I think it is wicked propaganda. Alas, it cannot accurately be called a 'myth' because of various not-very-successful attempts (Sativex, Nabilone etc) to use THC, in properly controlled ( and therefore high-free) doses in a medical fashion. These are in any case marginal to the real 'medical marijuana' propaganda effort, which has succeeded in effectively legalising cannabis in several US jurisdictions.

Mr 'F' , whose wording appears to be designed to trap me into a statement on 'medicinal cannabis' that I have not made, based on an opinion I do not have, needs to grasp that I am not denying having said something I patently never said, and I don't want his acknowledgement that I never said it. What I want is his truthful acknowledgement of what I did say – and that he very much doesn't like, and very much wishes not to acknowledge because it is true and inconvenient to his settled opinion -  that  *Keith Stroup*  of *NORML* said it was a *red herring*.

I note his threat to continue posting under other identities. I am of course aware that people do this. We have quite a lot of fun here making it hard for them to do so, though of course we sometimes fail.  I am mainly anxious to make the point that accusations of dishonesty must be substantiated or apologised for unconditionally, and unconditionally withdrawn. The response of Mr 'F' comes nowhere near this in content or spirit. He still has a few days to put this right.