Now Here's A Shock, Cannabis Users Not Motivated To 'Get Clean'

NSW Auditor-General Wants Cannabis User Registered, Monitored As Criminals

By Darryl Mason

Can the Murdoch media's coverage of cannabis get any more cliched?



For tabloid media so obsessed with celebrities, it seems curious indeed they wouldn't use this opportunity to run a photo of a celebrity cannabis user, rather than a random 'cannabis enthusiast' that reinforces decades old cliches.

Here's just a small sample of celebrities they could have included a photo of as a 'cannabis enthusiast' :

Lady Gaga, Brad Pitt, Quentin Tarantino, George Clooney, Harrison Ford, Pink, Carl Sagan, US President Barack Obama, US President Abraham Lincoln, US President George Washington, Queen Victoria, Stephen King, Sting, Nobel Prize Winner Francis Crick, Bill Gates, Bill Murray, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Guy Pearce, Jennifer Aniston....

So why no celebrity 'cannabis enthusiasts' to detail a story such as this? Particularly in this all important clickbait age of tabloid media?

Because as a tabloid newspaper editor you must never, never, never associate successful, famous, accomplished people with cannabis use. That's just the way it is.

From the Daily Telegraph :

Dope smokers are making a mockery of lenient cannabis laws in NSW by refusing to undertake drug counselling when caught using marijuana.

The system - where police officers can formally caution people found with 15 grams or less of cannabis - has become so useless, according to the NSW Auditor-General Peter Achterstraat, that police should be harder on users.

Despite issuing 39,000 cautions in 10 years, Mr Achterstraat said "more needs to be done to increase the number of cannabis offenders getting help for their drug use".

Not only should police crack down on dope smokers, but the Auditor-General says the Health department should set up a register of users to help identify addicts and help them get cleaned up.

"The results are better for people cautioned a second time, with almost 38 per cent calling the helpline for the mandatory education session."

I wonder if the "mandatory education session" includes lessons on how cannabis can reduce the growth of lung cancer tumors by 50%?

Probably not.

Police Enjoy Excellent Free Rock Festival At Byron Bay With Smiling Happy People

By Darryl Mason

The NSW government missed yet another golden opportunity to raise a couple of hundred dollars in taxes over the weekend.

More than 200 people were caught with drugs at the Splendour in the Grass music festival...

Out of a crowd of 17,500 people. In Byron Bay. At a music festival where the Hilltop Hoods, Happy Mondays and Living End were playing.

One-hundred-and-twenty people were ordered to face court on drug charges, while another 89 were let off with a caution for having cannabis.

From the cautions issued by police to "Shit! I can't believe I left that in my pocket!" cannabis carriers at some of the festivals this year, it would appear you can get busted with no more than two cigarette-sized joints and not get fined, or have to turn up at court.

Police should ditch the cannabis 'cautions' altogether and thank the festival goers for not getting violently fucked out of their minds on alcohol. Ask a police officer who'd they'd rather deal with : a giggling kebab-obsessed cannabis user, or someone so savagely drunk and fired with aggro that even a taser to the nuts doesn't wind them down.

Put it this way, there are few, if any, cannabis-related glassings.

If the NSW government granted a permit to music festival organisers so vendors could, under police supervision, sell, say, two moderately strong joints, or happy cookies, to each ticket holder over 18, taxed at the same rate the government taxes alcohol sales, at least $200,000 would have been raised.

Similar rules for drink driving would also apply to cannabis imbibers.

The majority of people who now attend expensive music festivals don't want to bucket a quarter ounce in an afternoon, or get blitzed on scuds the size of wallpaper rolls. They want a couple of puffs, or a few bites of a brownie, to help kick the music along.

Then Wayne Swann and Malcolm Turnbull could sway together at Simon & Garfunkel without being criminals.