The elites hellbent on legalising marijuana (UK)

PETER HITCHENS: The elites hellbent on legalising marijuana couldn’t care less about the families they obliterate
Daily Mail 14 October 2018
Family First Comment:  A superb commentary… 
“The Big Dope lobby tell us that, in some magical way, legal cannabis will be safer. It will not. Legal alcohol and legal tobacco are not safe. Their users still get cirrhosis, cancer, heart disease and emphysema. And, once marijuana is legal, available in shops and on the internet, and advertised (as Big Dope desires) many more people will take it, so greatly increasing the number of possible victims. It is so obvious it hardly needs saying.” 
#PeopleBeforeProfits
www.VoteNo.nz

…this country faces a grim race, between a fanatical and sometimes greedy campaign to decriminalise marijuana at all costs, and the accumulating evidence that such a move would be an irreparable disaster. In much the same way, Big Tobacco knew for years that cigarettes were doing terrible damage to smokers, but carried on making millions from them and resisted attempts to restrict advertising and sales.

The marijuana lobby, who I call Big Dope, are equally ready to overlook the horror of irreversible mental illness, for what some of them see as a good cause, and others see as a pot of gold. At a debate on the subject at Durham University on Monday, in which I opposed decriminalisation, supporters of drug legalisation openly conceded that marijuana does damage the mental health of some of its users. But it seems they don’t really care. They have dismissed as ‘anecdotal’ hundreds of individual stories in which the link between the drug and mental illness has been startling. Psychiatrists have little doubt.

This is not a private, victimless crime. Mental illness is a tragedy and a lifelong disaster for the families of those affected. Thousands of careers are blighted by the damage that marijuana does to the intelligence of the young people who use it. Many teachers know only too well the sad and weary signs that a star pupil has started smoking dope, and begun to slide to the bottom of the class, where he will stay.

….The Big Dope lobby tell us that, in some magical way, legal cannabis will be safer. It will not. Legal alcohol and legal tobacco are not safe. Their users still get cirrhosis, cancer, heart disease and emphysema. And, once marijuana is legal, available in shops and on the internet, and advertised (as Big Dope desires) many more people will take it, so greatly increasing the number of possible victims. It is so obvious it hardly needs saying.

Then we are told that ‘regulation’ will limit the strength of the marijuana on sale. Really? First of all, legal alcohol has steadily grown stronger in the past few decades. Both wine and beer are now startlingly stronger than they used to be. As drinkers seek out the stronger brands, many drug abusers actively like and seek the strong strains of cannabis.
READ MORE: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-6273587/PETER-HITCHINS-elites-hellbent-legalising-marijuana.html