Even A Stopped Clock

Toby Young writes:

It’s a hardy perennial. A senior politician – in this case a former Labour Defence Secretary – has called for the decriminalisation of drugs. Bob Ainsworth will make the plea in a speech to the House of Commons later today. “It is time to replace our failed war on drugs with a strict system of legal regulation, to make the world a safer, healthier place, especially for our children,” he will say.

No doubt many cannabis smokers will welcome this news, perhaps even toasting Mr Ainsworth with a Camberwell Carrot over Christmas lunch (see YouTube clip from Withnail and I for explanation). But if the ex-Labour minister believes smoking marijuana is harmless, he should spend some time on the Portobello Road on a Saturday night. There was a time, back in my youth, when roughly half the people I knew smoked pot on a daily basis and, while it may not have harmed their bodies, it turned their brains to guacamole.

There’s nothing more enjoyable than sitting down to dinner with a group of close friends. But the moment they bring out their “stash” of cannabis you know it’s time to leave. As soon as the smoke passes their lips they’re incapable of making an intelligent remark. One minute they’re arguing heatedly about whether Avatar was a genuine breakthrough in modern filmmaking, the next they’re re-living their favourite moments from Animal House. Before long they’re bringing out old copies of Whizzer and Chips and wondering what became of The Magic Roundabout.

It is as though they’re retreating into the world of childhood where, as Freud said, we had no need of humour to make us feel happy. When people are stoned on cannabis they are apt to laugh uncontrollably at wildlife impressions but they rarely say anything funny. If ignorance is bliss, cannabis is a one-way ticket to nirvana.

Of course, cannabis can be combined with a vestige of intelligence. It’s only after several years that it begins to take its toll. The veteran pot-smoker is likely to pause mid-conversation while he searches for the right word. By the time he remembers it, he will almost certainly have forgotten what you were talking about. This wouldn’t be so bad if the word he was looking for was “shadenfreude”. But usually it’s something like “chair” or “dog”.

It can also seriously erode your critical faculties. Friends who used to be cynical and smart now spend their evenings watching The X Factor and worrying about the environment. I don’t wish to hold cannabis responsible for the decline of Western civilization, but would anyone believe in the healing power of crystals if they’d never been stoned? Opium played a part in the Romantic Movement and mescalin inspired Aldous Huxley. The philosophical fruits of cannabis can be found in the New Age section of Waterstone’s. It may not be detrimental to your health but it can seriously damage your IQ.

Advocates of legalising drugs often make the point that smoking cannabis has never killed anybody whereas 10,000 people die every year from drink. However, why should we rank physical health above mental alertness? Alcohol destroys your liver but it doesn’t make you think Stonehenge is a source of cosmic energy.

Booze may have killed-off some of the greatest writers of this century – Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Lowry – but it didn’t prevent them from creating great novels. The only literature inspired by cannabis is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. I’ve been in a room of Oxbridge graduates who’ve spent the entire evening communicating in nothing but animal noises. Only cannabis can do this because cannabis destroys the parts that alcohol cannot reach.

In 1938 the US Government released a “semi-documentary film” called Reefer Madness in which a group of teenagers run amok after smoking marijuana. In reality, the effect is somewhat less dramatic. After taking cannabis the average teenager is more likely to murder a tub of Häagan-Dazs ice cream than a policeman. The damage is done to your CD collection not your health. After prolonged use it inevitably leads to a severe dependence on Bob Marley and the Wailers.

It is hard not to trivialize the harmful effects of cannabis, because the whole issue of whether it should be legalised is difficult to take seriously. It is obviously not in the same category as drugs like cocaine and heroin, the ill-effects of which are obvious. But too often the debate focuses on whether it is physically damaging, as if that was the only relevant consideration. Many of my friends believe it is completely harmless precisely because it doesn’t cause any physical damage. However, in many cases it has left them dull and muted, not exactly shadows of their former selves, but less alive, less vital.

It would be absurd to claim I’ve lost friends to cannabis as I have to other drugs but you do lose something. Too many times I’ve set off to a dinner party expecting good company and intelligent conversation, only to end up playing Trivial Pursuit with a group of five year-olds. You may not miss them the way you miss someone who has become a heroin addict or taken too much LSD. But you miss the sharp-witted companions they used to be.