Legalization Of Marijuana In The UK? I Wouldn’t Bet On It

The online petition was probably started with the best of intentions, it asked that people show their support for the notion of legalization of marijuana in the UK calling for Parliament to debate it. With over 200,000 signatures Parliament has agreed to do so, but will that really change anything or will it just entrench them even more? Either way I can’t put a bet on it, apparently.

Disappointingly I can’t find odds on the legalization of Marijuana in the UK anywhere. I can gamble on the next James Bond, the existence of Alien life being proven, and even who’ll headline Glastonbury, and there’s no end of options for those that like to bet on sports in the UK, but wager a few quid on the Houses of Parliament easing the restrictions on whacky-baccy? I should bleedin’ coco. Not that I should be surprised, if there’s one thing just about all aspects of our society are united in doing it’s refusing to sensibly discuss drugs.

Parliament Does Drugs

• October 12th Debate
• 900 million in revenues
• 10,000 extra jobs

The basis for this problem is children (shifty untrustworthy individuals in my opinion the lot of ’em) who in their early teens begin to be exposed to the possibility of drug use without being in any way suited to actually doing so. Ever see a 14 year old on acid? It’s not pretty. Thus parents often resort to the rather lame but temporarily effective strategy of telling their youth that all drugs are bad, mmm’kay? Which is fine for a couple of years, until the teen discovers the truth.

That truth is that drugs aren’t all bad (indeed some of them are quite lovely) and that lumping them altogether is ridiculous. Smoking weed is in no way comparable to mainline injecting heroin. None. Zero. Kids quite quickly pick up on this rather startling piece of the exceedingly obvious and begin to wonder what else they’ve been told that’s a load of old cobblers. Thus to avoid an analysis of all their advice down the years parents often stick to their anti-drug stance, papering over the cracks, and thus we will never have a legalization of marijuana in the UK.

Parliament To Debate Legalization Of Marijuana In The UK

This means that as a society we are in denial about drugs. Men who drink to excess will tell you drugs are evil, but drink driving kills far more people than anyone doing anything on drugs ever will. Housewives on a dozen Valium a day will insist that young people taking drugs is destroying society and then go back to reading the Daily Mail without any trace of irony whatsoever. Parliament is only discussing it at all because the petition online got so many signatures.

200,000 and climbing has got it an October 12th debate on the legalization of marijuana in the UK, and whilst you can expect the odd one or two progressives to clamber up above the din long enough to be sensible, the vast majority of MPs will not dare do anything except toe the party line. Drugs damage lives and communities. This is quite lame considering that they don’t for a moment mention what damages lives and communities far more often on a bigger scale is MPs and politics.

Politicians don’t want to talk about drugs because they’re gambling news coverage of them will make them look good, and discuss drugs and someone always asks if they ever did drugs, and there’s no safe answers to that one if you’re a career politician. Worse still if a national debate occurs on the subject someone might ask, quite reasonably, if those elected to represent us shouldn’t have regular drug tests just like the athletes that represent us have to. Oddly that rarely finds any backing amongst politicians….I wonder why? Luckily for politicians, journalists don’t like talking about drugs or the legalization of marijuana in the UK either. For precisely the same reasons.

Ignorance Is Expertise On Drugs In Parliament

Strangely drug policy is one of the few things where those who claim to know least about the subject are the ones most respected when making up laws governing it. As an MP it would be political suicide to stand up and say that you’ve been snorting coke for years and therefore have a good working knowledge on which to base legislation. But making up laws on drugs having claimed you’ve never so much as looked an ecstasy tablet in the face? Fine. No problem. You’re an expert. Let’s discuss the legalization of marijuana in the UK and your 2016 US Election predictions. Bah!

This is farce. It is like having UK foreign policy made up by people who’ve never left Britain, or UK gambling laws created by people who’ve never been in a casino or even played pontoon, or UK media laws by someone who has neither seen a television nor heard of the internet and still calls the radio a wireless. It’s wholly ridiculous. Washington in Colorado already report, albeit anecdotally, that things would get better were there legalization of marijuana in the UK.

Colorado reports that teen marijuana use is DOWN since legalization, proving you can make even really nice stuff uncool by condoning it, and Washington notes that traffic fatalities are at an all time low as people shift from drink to smoke. Both states, rather amusingly, also note that tax revenues are double those predicted. This makes for an interesting comparison with the tax revenues often promised by casinos before construction that never quite seem to materialize once the place is up and running, don’t you think?

Lamentably the odds on the UK legalizing marijuana any time soon are pretty low, even Bet365 wouldn’t give you much chance, and whilst there’s a sizable proportion of the country that wouldn’t be adverse to the 900 million pounds in tax revenues and 10,000 potential jobs, these just aren’t enough of a motivation to get the other half of the country to rise up and admit as one that they were wrong and had lied about it. Legalization of marijuana in the UK? I wouldn’t bet on it. Even if I could.