(no subject)
My first high-profile attempt to move towards cannabis relegalisation was to smoke a joint at a London police station and offer myself available for immediate arrest and imprisonment. The police declined. It occurred to me then (perhaps for the first time) that the police were not the enemy. Most policemen choose that profession for completely honourable reasons, such as protecting the society they love; they did not join to imprison people for smoking herbs. Policemen have walked the streets far more than the rest of us and know what the problems are and what caused them. The one's that I've talked with, almost without exception, do not see the consumption of cannabis as problematic, but they do see the law prohibiting it to be so. I cannot think of any law that has done more damage in terms of social upheaval, parent-child alienation and police-public hostility.
- Howard Marks, Book of Dope Stories.