They’re voting today in California. Not whether to elect Jeremy Corbyn as the still leader of the Totally Worthless Party, they’re fortunately spared that rubbish over there. They’re voting on whether to legalise cannabis for ‘recreational purposes’. Not for procreational purposes, though they may be related. Nor for recreational vehicles which shouldn’t be driven under the influence of recreational substances. Shame they don’t do ‘irony’ over there.

Smoking pot is legal in Colorado. Also in Oregon, Washington state and DC. And as well as California, they’re also voting today in Arizona, Nevada, Maine and Massachusetts. The kind’a ‘cool’ states. The normal ones. They ain’a votin’ in Kentucky. Nor Tennessee, Alabama or Georgia. No sirree. Nowhere where people burn in the eternal fires of hell for theya sins. I’ve never actually smoked brimstone but I’m sure you can get a buzz. Of some sort.

It does strike me as rather odd that cannabis is still illegal. You can buy six cans of extra strong lager for about a fiver, with or without Id, get off your face, become hopelessly aggressive, stab three people, drive a stolen car into a crowded bus stop and that’s fine. Because alcohol is society’s drug of choice. To the exclusion, it seems, of all others.

And don’t get me wrong, I like alcohol. But its a bit Orwellian in its ideal. Get the people pissed and they forget their misery. For a time. My life’s shit: I’m going down the pub. But it really doesn’t help. It just feels like it does in the very short term.

Cannabis is different. It doesn’t increase aggression. It calms. It mellows. To the point of near-coma, maybe, but at least its a drug that leads in the right direction. Well, it did when I was a young whippersnapper stoner. And yes, it can lead to ‘psychosis’, whereas alcohol can’t(???), and it can be mildly addictive, but nothing like as badly as tobacco always is. Yet that’s legal too.

So getting off your face is not in itself illegal, nor is using addictive substances. But cannabis is. Makes not a lot of sense to me. If its legal then it can be taxed. What’s wrong with governments? (i appreciate that’s a very complex question and may require several books to answer fully).

Time to go to work, better roll a big fat spliff for the journey. Its fine, long as you don’t inhale.

Mellow Tuesday

A xxxx