Thankfully, the worlds press has for the most part, done away with yellow journalism. Yet for topics which governments would like to keep as quiet as possible it would seem yellow journalism is still rife, and certainly as far as cannabis news goes.
There are many reasons the establishment would like to keep cannabis outlawed. A fact proven by the lengths government ministers will go to disprove all of the positivity which surrounds cannabis use in medical applications.
For instance in the United States, 124,000 doctors recently (and publicly) backed the use of cannabis for medical use. And yet, government ministers in the United Kingdom simply refuse to even acknowledge this information exists.
Furthermore, according to the governments own advisory council, a board of experts who advised the Home Secretary that in their opinion it was a backward step to reclassify cannabis after user-figures since its last reclassification argument had shown a marked fall of between 20% and 25%, "The Council therefore advises that strategies designed to minimise its use and adverse effects must be predominantly public health ones. Criminal justice measures – irrespective of classification – will have only a limited effect on usage. We therefore urge you to invite the UK’s Chief Medical Officers to develop, on behalf of the government, a public health strategy that will meet our shared goals. Anything less will prejudice the health of future generations." "Anything less will prejudice the health of future generations."
Regardless of the sound, common-sense advice given by the ACMD the law is set to be changed, which will result in more people being criminalised with higher fines and longer prison sentences, which no-matter what way you look at it, is a bad policy choice.
Today its been announced that yellow journalism is not in fact, restricted to stories relating to cannabis. Not directly anyway.
Tube Party
Over the weekend of 31st May/1st June a party took place in central London, which was said to have been organised by a city banker named Alexandre Graham, a 26 year old who works for The Royal Bank of Scotland, and organised via the social networking website "Facebook". Initially built up as one last "hurrah" before new Conservative Mayor of London Boris Johnsons first policy change became law, the meeting was to "celebrate" the banning of alcohol on the Capitals public transport network.
Participants agreed to meet up at Liverpool Street station, and ride the circle line whilst drinking alcohol.
But as is often the case with alcohol things soon got out of hand, and the Great British press carried the stories, with pictures, proving once and for all the "Drink Aware" campaigns are nothing more than the alcohol industry paying "lip-service" to whats fast becoming a national epidemic.
The real social issue facing the UK as a country as 10's of thousands of people die or are hospitalised as a result of alcohol use, every single year. A statistic which simply doesn't apply with cannabis. But perhaps more worrying were the accusations from the RMT - the union which operates the railways, that the press only "touched" on the situation lightly, and in fact things were a lot worse than has been reported nationally and internationally. According to an RMT spokesman, "At least 50 London Transport staff were assaulted". Four tube drivers and two police officers were among those assaulted.
Six London Underground stations were closed and several trains were damaged and withdrawn from service following the party, at huge public cost.
The union also said at least 12 workers were assaulted at one station while others were spit upon and faced verbal assaults and threats.
One woman worker was hit with a bottle, a male staff member was punched in the face had beer poured over his head and a driver refused to move his train when a passenger climbed onto the roof.
On top of this police officers were assualted and police vehicles were subjected to damage including having tyres slashed with a knife, and windows smashed.
Union General Secretary Bob Crow said: "The more reports we get from our reps the uglier the picture of Saturday's violence becomes".
"Local reps are telling us that the scenes were among the most chaotic they have ever seen, with none of the mitigation and crowd-control that would be in place on New Year's Eve."
Cannabis has been in the news prety much constantly since David Blunkett reclassified it under Tony Blairs power back in 2003/4. But the cannabis issue has constantly been used as a cloaking device, to deflect the true magnitude of the alcohol problem this country faces, with titles such as the Daily Mail playing their part in nurturing this sitaution.
Lets face facts; If the tube party had been for cannabis users there would have been riot police brought in to break up the gathering before it even started, even though nothing like this would have happened had Alexandre Graham and his associates been using cannabis instead of alcohol.
As it is the people of London are just expected to pick up the pieces (and the tab) and get on with life, whilst the only people to really benefit from this mindless destruction, the alcohol industry, sit in their offices and count the profits they made after the blackest weekend since drunken Rangers FC supporters trashed Manchester City Centre a few weeks ago.
Its a growing problem, A recurring problem and one which the population demands, is brought to a halt. Today! Keep abreast of whats happening in the world by clicking HERE , and subscribing to the Canna Zine RSS news feeds. Have your say by clicking HERE and joining the Canna Zine discussion boards. |
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