Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Friday 27 September 2002, 6:00 PM
Thursday
Thursday 26/09/2002
One of the constant wonders of the Web is the large number of pro-cannabis sites out there: my experience of our tokin' pals is that operating the remote control to replay a Nightmares on Wax CD is at the very limits of human capability. Without getting into the whole debate about legalisation, health and social impacts, even the most ardent supporters of the right to spliff wouldn't call it an activity drug. Coke makes you talk rubbish for endless hours, making everyone else suspect you're a talentless dork with too much money, speed makes you get up on stage and prove the fact: dope removes the ability to do anything much except enjoy dodgy music and consume your own body weight in Pringles.
But somehow, tar-stained fingers have been extracted and keyboards dug out from mounds of ash and blim, and sativa-scented Web sites bloom like Early Haze Number One in a Dutch greenhouse.
The latest is everyonedoesit.com, launched today in a very hazy way at a Covent Garden nightclub by Howard Marks -- everybody's favourite superstar Welsh hashish smuggler. For an activity still roundly condoned by the Powers That Be, it's hard to see how the site could sail any closer to the wind: you can't buy half an ounce of black hash online, but everything else from seeds, papers, books, alternative smoking materials is there. Not that this stuff hasn't been online for a while, but this site refuses to be coy about it.
That can only be a good thing: demonising and mystifying drug use is rarely conducive to harm reduction, and letting people who know nothing about cannabis get a view of how the scene actually works will perhaps make it less scary and encourage a little more logic. And those who are only into the whole smoking thing because it's got that aura of illicitness about it may well lose interest in the same way. Wonder what it'll do to Pringle sales...
One of the constant wonders of the Web is the large number of pro-cannabis sites out there: my experience of our tokin' pals is that operating the remote control to replay a Nightmares on Wax CD is at the very limits of human capability. Without getting into the whole debate about legalisation, health and social impacts, even the most ardent supporters of the right to spliff wouldn't call it an activity drug. Coke makes you talk rubbish for endless hours, making everyone else suspect you're a talentless dork with too much money, speed makes you get up on stage and prove the fact: dope removes the ability to do anything much except enjoy dodgy music and consume your own body weight in Pringles.
But somehow, tar-stained fingers have been extracted and keyboards dug out from mounds of ash and blim, and sativa-scented Web sites bloom like Early Haze Number One in a Dutch greenhouse.
The latest is everyonedoesit.com, launched today in a very hazy way at a Covent Garden nightclub by Howard Marks -- everybody's favourite superstar Welsh hashish smuggler. For an activity still roundly condoned by the Powers That Be, it's hard to see how the site could sail any closer to the wind: you can't buy half an ounce of black hash online, but everything else from seeds, papers, books, alternative smoking materials is there. Not that this stuff hasn't been online for a while, but this site refuses to be coy about it.
That can only be a good thing: demonising and mystifying drug use is rarely conducive to harm reduction, and letting people who know nothing about cannabis get a view of how the scene actually works will perhaps make it less scary and encourage a little more logic. And those who are only into the whole smoking thing because it's got that aura of illicitness about it may well lose interest in the same way. Wonder what it'll do to Pringle sales...
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