What a high old time . . . getting stoned on licence-payers’ money
MORe pioneering research from the BBC’s Asinine university of Needless Tests and Inept experiments (Auntie), as Dr Javid Abdelmoneim blew a stash of licence-payers’ cash to find out what would happen if he took bagfuls of illicit drugs.
The less-than-astounding results were revealed at the end of an hour-long horizon documentary, Cannabis: Miracle Medicine Or Dangerous Drug? (BBC2).
True, there was some pre-existing medical evidence that might have led an astute observer to predict what might happen when Dr J inhaled several lungfuls of skunk vapour.
As an 18-year- old on a backpacking jaunt, he had tried a joint or two. And he got stoned.
But that was nearly 20 years ago. he’d barely begun his medical studies. Surely the effects would be different, now he was a jolly important A&e specialist.
For 60 minutes we watched Dr J giggling, getting edgy, shivering, dozing off, staggering down corridors, staring baffled at computer screens, freaking out, sweating buckets and scoffing cookies. ‘I can see my teeth,’ he droned. Analysing the findings, psychologists at King’s College London
FAILED FORMAT OF THE WEEK: ‘I hate this bit,’ whispered Frank, a contestant at the start of the 15-minute debrief on Interior Design Masters (BBC2). So do we all, Frank. The last quarter of an hour is like sitting in on office appraisals. Dull, dull, dull.
revealed that the stronger the blend of cannabis, the higher Dr J got. Amazing.
But this was just one isolated experiment, too small to be conclusive. If only it was possible to bring together 100,000 subjects and expose them all to the effects of cannabis, for an entire weekend.
The experience could be enhanced with music, and staged somewhere with ‘spiritual’ significance . . . such as, oh I don’t know, maybe Glastonbury?
When you think how long and how enthusiastically some humans have been consuming cannabis, it’s remarkable that science understands so little about its effects. That’s even more surprising given that, historically, the most avid users are university students.
All the evidence Dr J could find was strictly anecdotal. he met the desperately relieved mother of a seven- year- old boy whose lifethreatening epilepsy was kept in check by cannabis — though no one could tell her quite how the drug helped her child’s brain.
And he explored a former orchid farm in Odense, Denmark, where acres of marijuana were grown — strictly for medical purposes, of course. ‘Welcome to Mars,’ giggled the chief grower.
The Doc’s conclusion was that cannabis has two active ingredients, CBD and ThC, and one regulates the other. ThC gets people high — sometimes terrifyingly so. But he failed to learn whether CBD on its own, which can now be purchased legally, has any medical benefits. Is it an effective painkiller or mood stabiliser? Dr J didn’t even ask. he was probably afraid of harshing his mellow . . . man.
There’s nothing mellow about Paul Merton, a man with the mistrustful gaze of a camel. his temper was not improved by the weather, as he traced his ancestral tree on Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC1) and ended standing over an unmarked grave in a Cardiff cemetery in a downpour.
his mother’s family story was especially sad. The daughter of a World War I veteran, she and her sister were fostered after their mother died in childbirth. It was all brutally cruel, too hard to be entertaining. The only gentle moments came as Paul thumbed through a family album, reminiscing about his parents.
I could happily watch an entire programme of somebody’s discoloured Polaroids and scratchy Kodachrome slides, a glimpse of the recently vanished past.