High time we moved on to a harder debate

Look, I’m sorry, it’s a topical subject, and I try not to write about topical subjects, but this one is hard to resist.

Let me start with a list. Please identify what the following have in common: every chef I’ve ever known, most restaurateurs, plenty of retirees, an entrepreneur or two, some actors, a jeweller, lots of teachers, musicians of course, lawyers of course of course, a wedding photographer, a writer of songs for children, a seller of books, a seller of furniture, a seller of – may he find better luck in the next life – photocopiers, a couple of editors, a publisher, fishermen, a chicken farmer and a postie with a unique method of fending off aggressive dogs. (And that list, I should add, derives only from that famously accessible and surprisingly well-furnished location, the top of my head. If I were also to dredge the bottom of my head, the list would stretch from here to prostration.)

Anyway, what they have in common is criminality. They are outlaws. For every one of them consumes cannabis. Some eat it. Most smoke it. Some smoke it daily, some mainly at weekends, some only when someone else offers. But all defy the law.

They do not smoke cannabis for relief from pain. They smoke it for relief from everything else: from mild disappointment, the threat of gloom, the shrivelled love life, the general decline in joyfulness that comes with the increase of years. They find that dope lightens their mood, relaxes them, makes their problems seem less problematic, untwists the wires a bit, makes them feel more in step with the world, more accepting of its vagaries, more cheerful.

In short it makes them more as they were when they were children.

I don’t smoke it. I tried it numerous times until about the age of about 40, envious of the pleasure it seemed to give to others. But it gave none to me. It had either no effect, or if it was strong it tended to make me curlin-the-corner miserable. So I no longer even bother to try.

Instead I get my relief from booze. I love the stuff but there are snags to it. It makes you fat and it rots your liver. It affects speech and balance and judgment. It reduces inhibitions and alters personality. It makes me garrulous and maudlin. It makes some people spiteful and violent. Most fights I’ve seen since I left school have been fuelled by booze. Booze fills every emergency department every Saturday. It crashes cars. It batters wives.

The social cost is vast. So we punish the brewers and wine makers with knighthoods.

Dope, as far as I am aware, fuels no fights. I have yet to see anyone do anything under its influence but smile or sleep. The only person I have ever known to be harmed by it is Andy. Forty years ago he went to teach in the Sudan where cannabis was cheaper than tobacco. At the end of his contract he sent a kilo home in the post. When he went to collect it the authorities collected him. He spent six months in prison. He is a lovely man. The sentence has blighted his life.

Booze fills every emergency department every Saturday. It crashes cars. It batters wives.

Marijuana has been shown to counter some forms of chronic pain, the sort of pain that doctors can do little or nothing for and that we who do not suffer from it find hard to imagine. For us pain is a temporary affliction, a siren blast from the nervous system to alert us to damage. But to some it’s a constant siren day and night, and only marijuana silences it. And it does so without bad side effects.

Right now our elected representatives are debating whether to legalise the medical use of marijuana. And I’d like to help them. The answer is yes. Of course they should.

Yet some oppose it. They argue that medical use is the thin end of a wedge and the fat end of that wedge is full legalisation. Which is precisely what I hope.

They’ve legalised it in the Netherlands. Has the sky fallen in? They’ve legalised it in Colorado. Has the sky fallen in? This country has a brave history of being socially progressive. It is time to add to that record.

Dope already abounds here. Anyone who wants some could find it within an hour. Legalising it would merely take the trade away from the gangs and put it in licensed hands. It would remove the glamour of illegality that attracts some kids. It would bring in tax. It wouldn’t create a single extra junkie.

And we could all move on to a debate with a less obvious answer.