Drugs: Smoking Pot ? it's just for dopes - by Allan Taylor

Cannabis Coffeeshop Amsterdam ("the Upcoming")

A study of 1000 cannabis users, by researchers in Dunedin, New Zealand, which claims the dubious distinction of being the first city to hold a Global Marijuana March, has concluded that the earlier you smoke cannabis, the more harm it causes the brain. Moreover, the more you smoke, the greater the impact on your IQ. For the researchers, it has confirmed what many already thought they knew, that cannabis users are likely to under-perform in the real world, if, that is, they ever become a part of it.

Whether this will influence addicts remains to be seen. My guess is that Hotel California still has its fans who will remain loyal until they've puffed their last joint. What the new research should do, however, is spike any proposal to legalise cannabis which, in its present form, is a much more potent drug than that which many of my contemporaries inhaled. Not only is it addictive and incapacitating, it leads its users on to other, even more dangerous drugs. Indeed, far from legalising it, the police should be exercising the powers they already have, and clamping down on it instead of turning a blind eye.

Widespread use of such "recreational" drugs is a legacy of the 1960s, popularised by rock bands, the most influential role models in history. If the Beatles or the Rolling Stones were in favour who could deny themselves? LSD, said Lewis Yablonsky, a professor who studied hippies as others once did cannibals, offered "is the key to cosmic consciousness and universal unity". On the other hand, cannabis, when smoked communally, was a more basic staple of everyday life, helping to cement the "circle of friendly love".

When you were away with the fairies, which is exactly where many of the users were for much of the time, you could chunter about "flower power" to your heart's content without fear of anyone dismissing you as a heidbanger. Like every scene, the drugs one had its cult figures, most notably Timothy Leary. A Harvard academic with about as much common sense as Prince Harry, Leary gave scientific heft to the notion that drugs were the conduit to a good society.

Note EU-Digest: walking through the Amsterdam "Green Zone" and the Zeedijk (Sea-Dike) area and being engulfed by the smell of Cannabis one quickly realizes that not too many people/tourists visiting this beautiful historic city seem to have read the above article by Allan Taylor of the Herald Scotland.

For lots of tourists, the Amsterdam Cannabis cafés provide a chance to smoke cannabis legally without coming into direct  contact with dealers of “harder” drugs such as cocaine, and the cafés are visited by tourists with 23% of Amsterdam’s five million annual tourists visiting a café during their stay.

Read more: Smoking cannabis? it's just for dopes | Herald Scotland