Potty politics

In the amazingly failing "war on drugs" so beloved of politicians from Thailand to the US, there was a colourful bit of humour in "Cannabis found among Newport street pot plants."

This BBC News story reports that police in the United Kingdom town of Newport are now looking for the criminals, possibly local teenagers, who planted, and have now apparently harvested, marijuana plants in the flower pots the town council placed to beautify busy streets ("Cannabis Found", 2013).

Cheerful leaves of ganja amidst
the officially approved pot plants.

I agree with quoted businessman Dean Beddis that, as the photograph shows, this natural plant so very popular with so many decent citizens in countries around the world is "actually rather a beautiful plant and [stands] out wonderfully" ("Cannabis Found", 2013, para. 6) among the flowers and other plants in the city pots. And traditionally, pot, also known as hemp, had other uses than looking attractive and being a relaxing recreational drug before it was turned into a criminal substance: until the discovery of plastics, ropes and sails for shipping were often made from hemp fibres. I remember that when I was at university, a friend came across an old pair of slippers made of hemp - her household had some serious discussion as to whether they should try smoking them or not. I never did find out what happened to them.

My guess is that planting the crop in government owned pots on full view to the public was more of a joke than anything, although it does also seem to have produced something for the good citizen farmers of Newport to enjoy, perhaps as they laugh at having received so much benefit from the government that is irrationally and immorally trying to stop them doing such things at the cost of great harm to decent citizens and to society.

Since alcohol is the popular drug of addiction that causes the greatest harm to others and to society, that is the one that should be illegal to own, use or sell if any addictive drug were to be criminalised. But I don't see red wine drinkers being thrown into prison, or champagne sellers being executed for dealing drugs, or beer manufacturers being treated as evil criminals intent on destroying innocent children and society. Is there something a bit weird going on here?

__________

Reference

Cannabis found among Newport street pot plants. (2013, August 4). BBC News South East Wales. Retrieved August 6, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-23566284