Friday, February 20, 2004
You can download the episode of The Moral Maze from the end of January in which the downgrading of cannabis is discussed. It stars blog favourite Melanie 'You don't have to be anti-Islamic to be me... oh wait, yes you do' Phillips. It's extremely funny. The first thing she says is to admit that tobacco and alcohol are harmful and that cannabis shouldn't be decriminalised because it would be 'adding to the harm', yet she doesn't seem to advocate anywhere that tobacco and alcohol should be criminalised. She believes cannabis does 'a unique kind of harm to society', as opposed to the harm that alcohol does by making people depressed and violent, to impair someone's judgement so that they might try to drive a car when their co-ordination is poor, or the strictly run-of-the-mill kind of harm that you get from smoking, including diseases and cancers of the lungs.
About seven minutes in it's Melanie Phillips versus Howard 'Mister Nice' Marks, she quotes reports that list the harmful effects of cannabis and asks Marks why he doesn't believe them, he replies that he's read other reports that state just the opposite. She then accuses him of choosing to believe the report that says cannabis is okay because he was a drug smuggler. Unfortunately Marks doesn't point out that she's chosen to believe the report that says cannabis is bad because of her self-appointed role as moral guardian of society. She accuses him of selecting the data he likes. He points out that he's aware that both exists and that at this point of time he is inclined more towards the 'harmless' data. She asks him about his drug use and tries to say that it makes him psychologically inclined to believe cannabis is harmless. Again Marks is probably too much of a gentleman to point out that writing for the Daily Mail makes Phillips psychologically inclined to believe that things were better in the good old days when the lower classes/blacks and women knew their place, there was no questioning of our social betters and the sun never set on the British Empire. How many cigarette smokers believe they should be criminalised? How many people that drink want us to bring in a prohibition against alcohol?
At the end of his interview (around 11 minutes in) Phillips comes back and Marks actually accuses her of dismissing evidence that doesn't fit her argument. She just flat-out denies that the reports, from an Australian research institute is unreliable, but Marks humorously badgers her to explain why she doesn't accept it and she doesn't. It's quite fun to hear her get flustered as he lets her refusal to explain show that while there may be reasons for concern (Marks doesn't deny that cannabis psychosis may be a problem but that evidence doesn't really exist to support this being serious enough to keep cannabis illegal, he's happy for the public to be warned of the dangers to drugs (which personally I find sensible as cigarette packets tell you that they'll kill you and we have don't drink and drive adverts on telly)) that Phillips view is based on personal dislike of the drug rather than genuine concern. (25:40 and a professional in the field has criticised her for putting across inaccurate and misleading information in her Daily Mail articles, ha ha!)
Interestingly Phillips mentions this all in her blog, mentioning the Howard Marks thing only to kick 'trolls' on her site (which elsewhere she says have forced her to drop comments from new entries). I would point out that she doesn't linger on her defeat, prefering to turn the discussion onto Israel via the Hutton Report, the clear implication she would like us to take is that because one of her opponants is wrong about a part of the history of Israel therefore all her opponants are wrong about anything where their views differ to hers.
Finally, check this entry here.
'The National Theatre is to pile on the agony for the Government later this year by staging a new play about the Iraq war by the Left-wing playwright Sir David Hare.' Mel Brooks made a film called The Producers, whose plot revolved around a musical called 'Springtime for Hitler'. This was a side-splitting joke. Now Sir David Hare is evidently about to do for the Protocols of the Elders of Zion what Leonard Bernstein did to Romeo and Juliet.
Now, someone might have to explain the Romeo and Juliet reference to me, but I've looked at the Telegraph article that has her up in arms. Sir David Hare is preparing a play about the Iraq war and the British and American Government's involvement in it. Nowhere in the article are the Protocols mentioned, or Israel, or Jews. So her response has me baffled. This must be great if now anti-semitism can be used as a charge not just against attacks on Jews but also attacks on conservatives of any religious persuasion. Perhaps Phillips is privy to information about the march to war and Israel's involvement in it that the public don't know about. Would she like to share it with us?
About seven minutes in it's Melanie Phillips versus Howard 'Mister Nice' Marks, she quotes reports that list the harmful effects of cannabis and asks Marks why he doesn't believe them, he replies that he's read other reports that state just the opposite. She then accuses him of choosing to believe the report that says cannabis is okay because he was a drug smuggler. Unfortunately Marks doesn't point out that she's chosen to believe the report that says cannabis is bad because of her self-appointed role as moral guardian of society. She accuses him of selecting the data he likes. He points out that he's aware that both exists and that at this point of time he is inclined more towards the 'harmless' data. She asks him about his drug use and tries to say that it makes him psychologically inclined to believe cannabis is harmless. Again Marks is probably too much of a gentleman to point out that writing for the Daily Mail makes Phillips psychologically inclined to believe that things were better in the good old days when the lower classes/blacks and women knew their place, there was no questioning of our social betters and the sun never set on the British Empire. How many cigarette smokers believe they should be criminalised? How many people that drink want us to bring in a prohibition against alcohol?
At the end of his interview (around 11 minutes in) Phillips comes back and Marks actually accuses her of dismissing evidence that doesn't fit her argument. She just flat-out denies that the reports, from an Australian research institute is unreliable, but Marks humorously badgers her to explain why she doesn't accept it and she doesn't. It's quite fun to hear her get flustered as he lets her refusal to explain show that while there may be reasons for concern (Marks doesn't deny that cannabis psychosis may be a problem but that evidence doesn't really exist to support this being serious enough to keep cannabis illegal, he's happy for the public to be warned of the dangers to drugs (which personally I find sensible as cigarette packets tell you that they'll kill you and we have don't drink and drive adverts on telly)) that Phillips view is based on personal dislike of the drug rather than genuine concern. (25:40 and a professional in the field has criticised her for putting across inaccurate and misleading information in her Daily Mail articles, ha ha!)
Interestingly Phillips mentions this all in her blog, mentioning the Howard Marks thing only to kick 'trolls' on her site (which elsewhere she says have forced her to drop comments from new entries). I would point out that she doesn't linger on her defeat, prefering to turn the discussion onto Israel via the Hutton Report, the clear implication she would like us to take is that because one of her opponants is wrong about a part of the history of Israel therefore all her opponants are wrong about anything where their views differ to hers.
Finally, check this entry here.
'The National Theatre is to pile on the agony for the Government later this year by staging a new play about the Iraq war by the Left-wing playwright Sir David Hare.' Mel Brooks made a film called The Producers, whose plot revolved around a musical called 'Springtime for Hitler'. This was a side-splitting joke. Now Sir David Hare is evidently about to do for the Protocols of the Elders of Zion what Leonard Bernstein did to Romeo and Juliet.
Now, someone might have to explain the Romeo and Juliet reference to me, but I've looked at the Telegraph article that has her up in arms. Sir David Hare is preparing a play about the Iraq war and the British and American Government's involvement in it. Nowhere in the article are the Protocols mentioned, or Israel, or Jews. So her response has me baffled. This must be great if now anti-semitism can be used as a charge not just against attacks on Jews but also attacks on conservatives of any religious persuasion. Perhaps Phillips is privy to information about the march to war and Israel's involvement in it that the public don't know about. Would she like to share it with us?
