Alcohol, Cannabis, Money and Mortality

I have not for a very long time felt so contested against an issue than I do against the idiotic proposal of a minimum alcohol price per unit.

Having been assaulted by a drunken moron within a few hundred yards of my home, I'm more than qualified to comment on the effects of alcohol abuse. Raising the price of such a despicable substance is in no way a solution to the problem. Raising the price of such a despicable substance simply earns the government more money. I'm all for that. If they can fuel their strange nonsensical crusades by penalising those who drink cheap alcoholic drinks, then sure, go ahead, but I'd like them to admit that this is their aim. Under no circumstances will this save lives. If someone is hellbent on drinking themselves first into oblivion and then later to death, they will manage it eventually. Money is immaterial to the dead man. Besides which, saving lives is not the duty of the government. If it is, then why would the government move to cannibalise the NHS?

I have a much more elegant solution to the falling levels of sobriety across Britain: the legalisation of cannabis. As an alternative depressant to alcohol, it is much less damaging to the user, much less likely to invoke violence and has never been known to cause any death, ever. Furthermore, legalising the substance allows the implementation of taxes upon it. This could easily earn HM Treasury more than raising the price of alcohol ever would. It would also limit funding to organised crime somewhat, as would the legalisation of prostitution, which could also be taxed. As I understand it, Köln makes quite some revenue from taxing prostitution, legalisation of which would also render safer the lives of prostitutes. Nonetheless, I was discussing the advantages of legalising cannabis, which are manifold.

Though more intoxicating in a mental sense, cannabis causes less damage to the body than tobacco and is less addictive than nicotine. Of course, smoking cannabis on a 15-minute break might have a greater effect on productivity than smoking tobacco, but workplaces generally forbid the consumption of alcohol whilst working on the job, so there should be no problem with forbidding the consumption of cannabis for employers. The same is true of transport, and public places may well still carry a smoking ban that extends to cannabis, though I cannot see any problem with consumption of special brew or spacecakes in a pub or licensed café, for instance. Since all of these products can be taxed and charges implemented for the relevant licenses, the government stands to rake in funds for its activities — the National Health Service, for example — through legalising cannabis.

Whilst I'm on the subject of legalising things, I also believe strongly that laws allowing or implementing the following would greatly improve society.

• Gambling age of 12
• Drinking age of 12
• Legalise prostitution, as vaguely outlined above
• The Alternative Vote system for General and Local elections
• 650 apartments in one building in Westminster, for MPs' second homes

I have arguments ranging from reasonable to firm and structured for the above, but this post is getting lengthy anyway, so I'll stop here.

Disagree with any of the above? Well, there is a space to leave comments below. It's possible to make them anonymously, but, really, an anonymous opinion is a worthless one. If you believe something, put your name to it.

Grimmer than Grimm

Many moons have passed since I last graced this blog with my witticism. There are reasons. They will remain a mystery, even to me. Rather than consciously tackling the reasons for my actions, I prefer to trust my subconscious with all of it. It usually does a good job.

For numerous, predominantly subconscious, reasons – although one of which I am consciously aware is the subject of the Dinosaur Comics of the past two days – I'd like to analyse some folk-tales, especially to highlight their amoral nature.

Le Petit Chaperon Rouge

We all know the story. Girl is warned not to talk to strangers. Girl talks to a wolf of whom she has no experience. Girl's entire family gets eaten, including herself.

Now, I'll be the first to say it. Wolves do not have such a great command over language. Therefore, the villain should instead be a cannibal. Now the story makes sense.

Girl is warned not to talk to strangers. Girl talks to a well-spoken cannibal of whom she does not suspect to be a cannibal. Girl's entire family gets eaten, including herself.

In this much more sensible version, one inescapably notices that, once again, the situation could have been escaped easily by Little Red Riding Hood – who is inexplicably named after her clothing. If Red had been prejudiced against all humans, believing them to be cannibals until proven otherwise, she would have escaped her tragic fate. As such, the moral of the story is:

Always believe people you've never met to be cannibals.

Granted, the cannibal could have just as easily been a regular, more wasteful of meat, murderer. If Red had suspected the wolf/cannibal/murderer to be a murderer, she would have refrained from detailing the whereabouts of her grandmother and nature of the package she was holding, therefore preventing her horrific ordeal. She could have avoided her distress simply by suspecting the villain to be a thief. Distrusting said villain in any way would have prevented the tragedy. So, the moral of that story is:

Always distrust people.

Of course, not every version of the story results in Red being consumed/murdered/robbed from. However, in other versions of the story, she is saved by a woodcutter, in a typically sexist damsel-in-distress manner that so frequently prevails throughout folk-tales, which leads me to my next tale:

Sleeping Beauty

I like this one. It involves prophecy. Prophecy always makes tales more interesting. Girl is born, some scorned witch – likely simply a misunderstood elderly woman to whom the world has not been kind, but I'll come to that later – makes a prophecy that this girl will prick her finger on a spindle and die, so, understandably, her father makes darned sure she cannot prick her finger on a spindle by destroying all the spindles in the land.

Unfortunately, spindles still exist in other lands, teenage rebellion kicks in and the damsel-in-distress pricks her finger, resulting in her falling asleep, not dying.

Supposedly, 100 years pass and, being comatose, she doesn't age^†, hence when a prince/king/knight stumbles upon her lying asleep, he finds her youthfully attractive and instantly sexually assaults her.

^†I think a Doctor would disagree with that supposition.

I'm struggling to find a moral to this story. Maybe it's about her father. If he'd let her prick her finger on any other spindle, maybe she would have died, and he could see to it that she gets a funeral instead of lying at the mercy of a lecherous nobleman of the following century.

Morals aside, this story clearly presents women either as young, attractive damsels-in-distress or as bitter, bedraggled, elderly outcasts, which, once again, brings me to my next – and final – folk-tale.

Hansel and Gretl

This one is spectacular. In addition to the usual stay away from strangers message, it also comes with this brilliant slice of sweet advice:

If it looks too good to be true, get the hell out of there.

Hansel actually commits murder in this tale. Why? At what point did the lonely, elderly woman pose a threat? Does he suffer no consequences? Is it okay to murder callously those who have no surviving relatives or friends? Perhaps it is acceptable, from a moral perspective, to kill anyone who lives in a house made from food, given that gingerbread is a natural resource in limited supply.

On top of that, Gretl presents herself as an utterly useless younger sister, whilst the old woman who painstakingly built a cottage made solely from confectionery – except for an oven, which is fair enough really. How else do you make gingerbread? – is presented as villainous and ill-meaning. Here's the life-lesson from that snippet of information:

If someone does something extraordinary, they must be a bad person.

Why are people so afraid of change? Of the different? Quite clearly, this elderly woman wanted to build something of which she could be proud. If the previous tales are anything to go by, she was likely traumatised as a child for being trustworthy, dependent upon men, victim to an over-protective father and fondled during her sleep by supposed heroes. If she is so sadistic as to want to entice children into her cottage, I'd imagine it is solely for the company of which the desire and lack thereof are undoubtedly a cause of societal disorder.

I find it somewhat disconcerting that, even given the blatant disregard for women that propagates every fairytale in existence, the ideal of a Prince Charming still prevails.

If it looks too good to be true, get the hell out of there.

Crime and Punishment

It was a dark February night. Three young men were walking home after a day's shopping, but this does not make them any less heterosexual. Suddenly, a moron leaps out from behind a hedge, runs at the most handsome of the three boys, swings unsuccessfully for his head, gets behind him and puts him into a headlock. After struggling with the drunken fool, Robin James – that's the handsome one I was telling you about – broke free and walked briskly away from him. It was at this point when Niall – at least in the top three of the most handsome of the lads – politely asked the moron what he thought he was playing at. The moron – lacking the ability to communicate with intelligence ‐ responded to this perfectly reasonable question with a well-aimed right hook, followed by a unsportsmanlike knee to the ribs. Somewhat satisfied with this display of stupidity, the degenerate stood back and observed Niall's cowering. Following this, the three desirable young gentlemen stepped up their pace, putting considerable distance between themselves and the assailant.

Alas, this was not the finale of the incident, for the drunkard tailed the boys down the street. During this pursuit, Niall phoned the police whilst bleeding from a cut above his left eye. Before long the idiot had regained his previous aggression and sprinted towards the trio, throwing his fist at the back of Robin's head, missing only due to the agility of the handsome adolescent, who ducked, sensing the oncoming fist. At this point, Bobby ran, followed by Niall and Robin, unperturbed until reaching Niall's house some 500m away. Half an hour passed before the police pulled up outside the house, at the same instant that Stig of the Dump crawled past, presumably still looking for a fight. The police arrested him immediately.

Today, justice was delivered, as, finally, the imbecile rekindled some dignity by pleading guilty.