Le Misanthrope
Politicians and senior policemen DO stick their head up and make this point. It's just the knee-jerk reactions of Daily Mail readers force them down again. FFS, even the Daily Torygraph (Telegraph) was pre-legalisation (of cannabis) back in 99.
The issue is that when people do become pro-legalisation, they don't receive the support they need. If we all stopped inhaling for a minute or two, and got up off our backsides and actually contacted our MPs or our local papers supporting legalisation, maybe something would start to change.
It's a saying that "politics is showbusiness for ugly people". Like showbiz, politics is audience-run. Focus groups - it's just a way of saying "if we do x, will the public swallow it or not". Politics is mostly, strangely enough, listening to opinion. It might not seem like it, but it is. If the opinions of the enlightened were more widely heard, those opinions would rule. How come Amsterdam, Holland and Spain have more liberal, realistic drugs policies ? It didn't happen by accident.
If 10% of the millions of clubbers and tokers that exist in this fair land actually wrote to their MPs and said - it's time for a change - things would happen.
We have, like it or not, the government we CHOSE to have. We live in a democracy. If anyone doubts that, remember the Poll Tax riots; remember the price of fuel going down when all the truckers instigated a go slow. Governments *do* listen to people - if people get up off their backside. And before someone says "why did we go into Iraq, with all the anti-war protests" - well, if a general strike had been called, we'd never have gone in. History shows endless examples of how once the people decide the rules are wrong, the rules change - and that is in much more oppressive regimes than the one we live in. As long as the politicians know that via "Bread and Circuses" they can get away with what they do without more than the murmurings of complaint, they will. Like it or not, WE have to accept responsibility for the way things are - because of our apathy to do anything else.
And breathe...sorry for ranting (again !)
( I_Was_Mordred, Wed 20 Feb 2008, 11:46, Reply)