Just what those health and social benefits might be was not explained, which is a shame. We'd love to hear about them.
Another offered a backhanded compliment to the police for making it easier to score meth than to score "weed." That might be a slight exaggeration, but this writer wouldn't know. Incidentally, that contribution received the response, "They shouldn't be scoring anything." Back came the riposte, "Wake up old lady," which in turn earned the rebuke, "You are just the type of person that is all wrong in this world today. Very, very rude, crude and socially unacceptable."
That was the end of that conversation.
But the defenders of dope weren't finished. Another suggested that marijuana has many (again undetailed) health benefits, with little or no risk or side-effects. One suspects that came from within a cloud of cannabis smoke. Apart from the fact that cannabis is known to have many of the carcinogenic properties of tobacco, there can be no doubt in any functioning mind that it destroys brains cells, particularly those that are still developing.
Cannabis has long been a scourge in this community, and the only people who can't see that are those who are too doped to understand much of anything. We knew there was problem, if we hadn't already, when we heard years ago that kids were turning up at their school in Kaitaia suffering the effects of second-hand cannabis smoke, courtesy of the parent who drove them there.
We can see for ourselves the effects cannabis has, perhaps most obviously on short-term memory and the ability to hold a conversation. We can only hope that anyone who truly believes it is harmless has no access to children.
One of the pro-cannabis brigade suggested that it shaped up pretty well compared with the pharmaceuticals that were killing millions of people every year. They also believe that criminalisation of this "wonder herb" creates employment within the justice system and stigmatises those who prefer not to "fry their brains" with alcohol and pharmaceuticals. She actually detected a whiff of corporates protecting their profits. Have we mentioned paranoia?
Many people, police included, will argue that alcohol does more social harm than cannabis. That is not disputed. Certainly alcohol is implicated in all sorts of social problems in the Far North, not the least of them violence.
It probably accounts for other crime too, although one doubts many burglars steal to feed their Steinlager habit.
The point is that alcohol is legal and will remain so, cannabis is not and never should be. In this community at least it has one immeasurable damage, and anyone who can't see that is blind or displaying the effects that it has on the ability to think.
But everyone is entitled to their opinion, even if those opinions aren't always easy to decipher, such as: "Dumb n yous jst let pounnds of meth thru pik on the big boys tht weed loks like teko anyways." Or you might prefer: "I have no time at all for illegal drugs of any kind whatsoever or the dealers who just deal out misery to kids." So say most of us.
And speaking of dealing out misery, and not recognising its the repercussions, it would be nice (but wildly optimistic) to think that one or two thieves might have taken note of the story about the veteran who lost two priceless books relating to his and his comrades' service in Vietnam to a thief in 1969.
At the time of writing that story seemed destined to have a happy ending, but it offered a powerful example of how devastating the effects of theft can be. This man and his wife have been mourning - and that's not too strong a word - the loss of those books for 47 years. They would have meant nothing at all to whoever took them, but that person's thoughtless, selfish action all those years ago heaped more misery on to this couple, already paying a high price for the husband's service, misery that has never gone away.
It is unlikely that the average thief worries too much about their victims. The word at the police station is that the common or garden thief sees no great harm being done, the theory being that the victim will simply replace what has been taken. Perhaps they will. In some cases they can't. But it's not just about the loss of property. It's about the violation that theft represents. It is the ultimate manifestation of selfishness, apart, perhaps, from smoking dope for a living and expecting the rest of society to carry you (despite the wonder herb's many positive qualities).
Years ago a burglar (a first offender, according to his lawyer; a long-time offender who had never been caught before according to one of the most perceptive judges who has ever sat in Kaitaia) had to stand in the dock and listen while his victim leapt to her feet in the public gallery in the Kaitaia District Court and gave him what-ho.
She had had very little, she said, and now she had nothing. Her children were too frightened to continue living in their rented home, but she couldn't afford to move. She was working hard to feed and clothe her children, and this man had broken into their home and helped himself to their meagre possessions, making life that much harder.
The police had not recovered her property - the thief had got rid of it almost immediately; not the mark of a first offender) - and she had not been able to afford insurance, so there was no question of her replacing what he had taken.
The man's lawyer finally broke the silence that fell after the victim had fled the court in tears, asking the judge if "we're still talking PD." "No," was the answer. He got two years.
That's an experience that every thief should have. Maybe, if they haven't fried their brains with pharmaceuticals, it would give them an inkling of the harm they have done. Pity that wouldn't work with users of the wonder herb.
