The Cannabis Man - "Is an Englishman's home still his castle?"
There used to be a saying in this country?. It went somewhere along the lines that ??an Englishman??s home is his castle.? If only such a thing were true today.
As things stand such a fondly recalled maxim is only that ?? a vision of a gentler age, redolent of less intense times?. Times when what happened behind closed doors was acceptable as long as it, ??didn??t frighten the horses.?
So, why is it assumed now that everything we do ?? all of our human activities ?? are open to public scrutiny? Of course the fact that we are saddled with a paranoid, micro managing bunch of repressed Mrs Whitehouse??s as a political elite doesn??t help but quite frankly ?? assuming that I am not harming anyone else ?? what business is it of theirs to have any concern about what happens in my front room?
The trouble is that these are the very people who actually cause the problems that they so singularly fail to resolve.
Take the Cannabis Man, for example. The sum total of his ??drug crimes?? is to grow and research a plant for thirteen years. He has sold none. (not so much as a single leaf ?? even though recent figures culled from the Guardian have revealed that he has destroyed as much as £3 million worth of the stuff).
During this period he has helped the economy in various ways?. For example, he has purchased all of his kit legitimately ?? from seeds to lamps, growth media etc.. In doing so he has paid tax. In the meantime he has worked seven days in most weeks and never claimed a benefit.
But, hang on a minute?.. this is all illegal, isn??t it? Well that??s the curious point isn??t it. The Government allows the sale of seeds, lamps, hydroponic systems etc. So what exactly do they think people are going to do? Perhaps they imagine that all the tax they take from such items goes into framing the cannabis seeds as a cute piece of organic art while growing the greatest leeks in history. Come on people, if you do only one thing?. Stop being such hypocrites about it.
Let??s face a simple fact here ?? if a major donor to a political party in this country decided that cannabis was a good thing it would be compulsory by the weekend.
Any suggestions that politicians are in some way protecting us from ourselves is the biggest, steaming pile of hogwash ever perpetrated on a population. They not only allow tobacco to be sold but they tax it in the secure knowledge that, every so often, they can shout about it all a bit but the money is just too good to be true so let??s not go as far as banning it. Instead, let??s be hypocrites (I think there??s a theme here!).
So, what of their other favourite poison, alcohol? Now, there??s a beauty. A substance with far more health contra-indicators than cannabis could dream of and yet (until very recently) it could be seen being consumed by successive Chancellors of the Exchequer while they attended to the thorny issues of the national economy during the budget speech. For goodness sake ?? Think of it. The man in charge of the economy delivering his vision for the future while in the throes of an intoxicating substance.
Perhaps we should turn to the Cannabis Man at this point?.. because?.. he doesn??t drive with cannabis, he doesn??t work with cannabis ?? and he doesn??t drink or smoke tobacco.
Instead, after a long and, often hard, day at work he may treat himself to a pipe or two after he has worked with his plants.
And suddenly we return to our beginnings. How, can this man??s activities within his own home possibly be of concern to anyone else? Why should he feel the pressure of the law ?? the unexpected knock at the door ?? for activities conducted entirely within his own private world? If anyone out there can provide a convincing counter argument we would be happy to hear it. Perhaps if he was buying from street dealers then there would be indirect legal issues ?? i.e. the street buyer has no clue to the provenance of their purchase and therefore may wittingly or unwittingly fall into complicity with various criminal activities ?? but the fact that the plants are his own (bought and paid for, as it were) then we cannot see any such connection in this case.
So, who exactly does this man and his plants harm? It certainly isn??t government as we have already established his tax paying credentials; It certainly isn??t the local youth who haven??t had so much as a sniff of his stuff and it certainly isn??t the local community who don??t even know what he??s doing.
This in itself would be an argument for tolerance in our ridiculously over-regulated society but what of his work? What of thirteen years of intense research into all aspects of the plant? What about the knowledge he has acquired, the expertise, the understanding? Surely only a country with no sense of imagination would either ignore such a man or attempt to prosecute him?.. Sadly, imagination doesn??t seem to be part of the British political establishment.
Tomorrow, we hope to visit the Cannabis Man??s inner sanctum (ooh err missus) and report on how he does it.
Thanks for reading, your efforts are truly appreciated. :)
http://www.cambo.org.uk
