The Green Finger - 02

by J.R Holmes | 3:25 am 28/06/2010

This drug can induce feelings of euphoria and aggression. It can make you violently ill, and do things you never imagined you would. This drug increases your chances of being involved in a sexual assault, or a fatal road accident. It can harm children and unborn babies. This drug is addictive, cheap, and easy to access. It is also very legal. What is it?

What was that? Do we have a winner? Yes, the half-brain there in the blue, what did you say? 

Alcohol?

Well done.

So, why is alcohol legal? Let’s look at its history: Getting ‘boozed’ was originally prohibited. In 1606, English Parliament passed ‘The Act to Repress the Odious and Loathsome Sin of Drunkenness.’ During this period, people would make and import booze, illegally, by moonlight. This is why home brew is often referred to as ‘Moonshine’.

Magically, in 1643, booze was legalised and taxed as a means to control the burgeoning moonshine market. It appears that governments had realised a) people would drink anyway, and if this was not controlled there would be amoral chaos; and b) they could make a quick buck out of it. By 1690, the English government had completed a 360 and begun encouraging spirit distillation and sales, to boost the revenue of the landed aristocracy. Consumption by the poor had increased dramatically by this point; they were effectively supporting the rich by buying liquor. The money to be yielded from alcohol consumption is why it is still legal today.

One might think the old ‘legalise it to control it’ ethos would be adhere to other drugs. Marijuana, for example, carries risks, similar to alcohol, of causing psychosis in some individuals. Would you not want this drug controlled rather than in the hands of gangs? That is what being illegal does to a substance. 

Weed is not completely virtuous, but it is not destructive like booze. Weed has never directly caused a single death. It does not cause students to fill streets with glass and burning couches like booze does. Mostly its ill effects are social ones that stem from it being illegal. Why not extract head from arse and listen to the logic of 1643: legalise it and tax it? 

Oh, wait, because it’s not convenient to the aristocracy of today – it is harder to make money from, and it facilitates free, creative thought, which no one in power wants us to have. 

By J. R. Holmes

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