Just an observation, but many of the pro weed brigade on here seem to write in exactly the same style. Almost as if many of them are in fact the same person.
As to the Irish Republican movement what a joke they have become? All that carnage and death for an Independent Ireland, and now they are all EU fanatics. Ireland doesn’t even have its own currency any more. It’s ability to set its own interest rates given away to German bankers. Hilarious. And they can’t even blame the British for this loss of sovereignty. They did it to themselves.
Your IRA/Republican types are more likely to be found trying to get into Brussels these days to give away even more of the Irish people’s rights, in exchange for salaries and tax free pensions of course.
Posted by: Sally | 10 March 2019 at 06:04 PM
@Bradley:
***Nothing to do with social media then?***
Probably more to do with social pathology, which began when socialism came in.
Posted by: Douglas Oswell | 10 March 2019 at 05:53 PM
Nothing to do with absent fathers then.
Posted by: Ginty | 10 March 2019 at 05:37 PM
I do not think Mr Hitchens is right to claim that cannabis use is "the only significant social change in this country that correlates with the rise in homicidal violence". I would argue that decades of neoliberal capitalism, initiated by Thatcher and exacerbated since the financial crash of 2008 by 10 years of Tory austerity have caused profound social changes to this country. Inequality has risen dramatically, prospects of finding a job with decent wages have shrunk for young people, schools and social services have been underfunded, youth centres and libraries have had to close. All this is much more likely to contribute to the rise in gang violence than the consumption of cannabis. As others have pointed out, if there were a real correlation between cannabis consumption and violence as Mr Hitchens hypothesises, then countries or areas with higher cannabis use would be experiencing higher numbers of violent crime. I have yet to see any evidence of such a correlation.
Posted by: Charlie B | 10 March 2019 at 05:24 PM
What about prescribed drugs, like ssri, benzos etc? I don't think there are many studies associating violence with cannabis, but there are several with ssri and violent acts against themselves and others.
Posted by: Pete C. | 10 March 2019 at 05:19 PM
Cannabis: Maybe cannabis, opioids and etc., is a symptom of something deeper more sinister going on? I just watched a documentary on "youtube" on US tax exempt foundations (Carnegie Endowment, Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation) with Norman Dodd and their goals. Please also see information on John Taylor Gatto's "Dumbing Us Down". These foundations ultimate goals seems to want us to live in fear, hate, and mistrust of each other and to remove our God given intelligence and creativity. To demoralize us. And when I write us I mean the common people of the world.
Posted by: Anna Carter | 10 March 2019 at 05:11 PM
If you think smoking cannabis can be equated with alcohol, as a cause of violence, you need to try it.
Posted by: Grenville Matta | 10 March 2019 at 05:05 PM
Thank you Mr. Hitchens for your writing many articles on the harm caused by cannabis. Here in the States the drive to stop its legalization is far worse than in Britain. Here its use is profound and many Americans are just oblivious to its effect. And far worse is that no one is seeing its use slowly but surely being used by children. In my local high school, my niece told me she had to run out of one of the rest rooms was reeking of cannabis, students behind a closed stall smoking it. Nothing was done, she told me, to discipline those fellow classmates. Here in the States, the cause is lost.
Posted by: Jose Garcia | 10 March 2019 at 04:56 PM
If you read the MSM at all, you are most unlikely to belong to the demographic that puts you at high risk of being stabbed. Similarly, you are unlikely to be at risk, as a result of using illegal narcotics, of developing the psychosis that will lead to you stabbing somebody. The chances are that you will seek treatment, or those around you will insist that you be treated, long before that can happen. The chances are that you will be rich enough in money, time and opportunity to do something about your problems.
To put it another way, the people being stabbed, and the people doing the stabbing, are mostly of little account. Some on here may claim that they care about them, but I think it likely that is mere virtue signalling.
Violent crime is still something that overwhelmingly affects the poor and marginalised in this country. There is no political will to help these people. The people who form opinions, the people who vote, and the people who mostly pay taxes, are able to buy freedom from the residential areas and the personal circumstances that would put them at risk of violent crime.
The difference between now and the 19th century is stark. Back then, many people saw it as their duty to intervene to try to improve the lot of those who were worse off. Now we mostly indulge in a bit of virtue signalling, perhaps up ticking an online comment somewhere, before returning to our safe lives in our safe enclaves.
Posted by: John Main | 10 March 2019 at 04:54 PM
"Its (cannabis's) widespread use is the only significant social change in this country that correlates with the rise in homicidal violence."--- And that is the alpha and the omega of your argument? Pathetic. What about the austerity policy, Brexit, unemployment, huge numbers of non-natives moving into our urban environments? What about the massive increase in use of legal highs, synthetic cannabinoids, methamphetamine and cocaine over the same period? Peter, you are starting to sound like the old geezer who sits at the back of the bus, shouting at the traffic. Even your hero Alex Berenson's book 'Tell Your Children' has been roundly dismissed, if not ridiculed, for its completely unscientific basis and misuse of statistics. Tell you what, Peter, why don't you spend a few weekends in your local A&E department and see just how many of the enraged, dangerous yobbos causing havoc have only smoked weed that evening. My sister used to work A&E and they just love pot smokers, they sit in the corner for an hour until they feel better and then get a cab home: zero trouble, zero violence.
Posted by: David P | 10 March 2019 at 04:22 PM
Forgive me for interrupting the dope smokers who have taken over this thread, wafting and wheezing their disgusting substance all over the rest of us (much as they are here in Canada), but regarding Ulster, I am not sure how 'surely it was understood at the very least' carries with it the force of law? There was no amnesty for state-sponsored murderers in the Belfast Agreement. Your (Mr. Hitchens') implication that there should have been such an amnesty is interesting to say the least. It represents a complete reversal of your position regarding secrarian and/or political murder in Northern Ireland, whereby you deplored the amnesty handed down to (especially) IRA killers. Your muttering and moaning about the treatment of the Bloody Sunday killers is, well, unprincipled - to put it very mildly.
That said, good luck with the job application. May I suggest that when you become R4 Controller, your first act should be to appoint yourself chief presenter of the Today programme. For the first time in at least a decade it would actually be worth listening to.
Posted by: Val Hayes, Toronto, ex-Dublin | 10 March 2019 at 04:11 PM
Cannabis is legalised in Canada, but we don't have knife crime like that here???
Posted by: skibum | 10 March 2019 at 03:48 PM
The bbc is a tax I can’t get out of paying. I rarely watch any of the endless loop of rubbish it broadcasts even the news is little more than tittle tattle
Posted by: Ian | 10 March 2019 at 03:45 PM
Nothing to do with social media then?
Posted by: Bradley | 10 March 2019 at 03:31 PM
Jack | 10 March 2019 at 08:15 AM asks "That job at the BBC... where was it advertised?".
An excellent question. My guess is that it was advertised somewhere the BBC's top management were hoping only Lefties would see it.
Posted by: Bill | 10 March 2019 at 03:21 PM
I agree completely with Athanasius | 10 March 2019 at 07:31 AM, about the current Brexit debacle.
The people of NI say they want to be part of the UK. I have no problem with that, but then they must abide by the decisions made by the majority of the UK's population. If they don't like those decisions then they should leave and set up on their own, or join their island-neighbours in Eire, or whatever.
I am rather tired of them (and the Scots) telling us there was no majority for Brexit in their territory.
It is rather like being a member of a tennis club. You abide by the club's rules as determined by the entire membership from time to time. If you don't like those rules, then you hand in your notice and leave.
Posted by: Bill | 10 March 2019 at 03:18 PM
Unless we bring back the treason act then treason will be the default position for most MPs, Mr Redwood seems to believe?
Posted by: Very interesting | 10 March 2019 at 02:56 PM
Could the rise in knife crime not be correlated with the rise in demand for cannabis? But I feel it's pretty speculative to blame the smoking of cannabis in itself. Were gangs during the era of prohibition not fighting over territory? Could the increase in knife crime not simply be because we are trusting an extremely lucrative unregulated market in the hands of people, who because of the risky nature of being a 'drug dealer' are more likely to be criminals? Excellent article, I think it must have tried to write itself, you may have just gotten the wrong end of the stick
Posted by: Connork | 10 March 2019 at 02:44 PM
'Its widespread use is the only significant social change in this country that correlates with the rise in homicidal violence.'
No-one in the UK really cares when they are lied to, anymore.
That went away with the disapproval of swearing.
However, I hope Mr Hitchens dishonest moral preening as a 'truth teller' still annoys you as much as it does me.
So, lets see if you mind being told the truth to.
1) My father was born in Antigua.
2) Above, Hitchens is not telling the truth.
...is he?
Posted by: J. Richardson | 10 March 2019 at 02:18 PM
I'm not sure it's as simple as one would assume from this article. The relationships between drugs and violence are not in doubt, one can't help smell a political agenda as clear and strong as the cannabis you obviously dislike. Yes Peter actually think.
Posted by: Christopher McDonald | 10 March 2019 at 02:03 PM
The author wrote 'the Profumo affair, which didn't matter at all' ; I'm certain it did in a subtle but substantial way indeed. It was the end of the Conservative Party as it had been but was still able to stagger on as the only viable alternative to Socialism ; or perhaps it died seven years earlier with the humiliation of the failed Suez adventure following which it was cunningly able to re-brand itself with a new leader who would willingly submit his Party to the new liberal trendy age that was emerging ; the Profumo affair was his Waterloo.
Posted by: TERENCE COURTNADGE | 10 March 2019 at 01:53 PM
I’d love you to get the BBC job.
Posted by: Des | 10 March 2019 at 01:52 PM
Also i should have mentioned my son has 2 ex schoolfriends who have just recently been sentenced for the sort of crimes you mention... and I asked him why are they doing this theyre not poor they have decent parents ...And he said its all about the money and the Rolex’s and the Gucci’s...thats what they all want... If you think about this it’s true all you ever see now is people flashing what theyve got on social media and tv... Rappers, rich kids, The kardashians they cant have one cartier bracelet they have to have 6 and the same with cars, watches, bags, trainers...
Posted by: kater | 10 March 2019 at 01:36 PM
In response to this article, specifically this following quote
“These drugs do not just intoxicate, as alcohol does. They make their users mentally ill, irrational, uninhibited, careless of the consequences of what they do”
I would like to signpost you to the medical research centre for cannabis, they have backed up research that will help you identify what is so wrong about your “opinions”
Posted by: Naomi | 10 March 2019 at 01:31 PM
I thought the whole point of cannabis use was to chill you out... So you may well come up with brilliant plans and schemes, while you sit there puffing away..but thanks to the influence of pot youve been smoking, you just cant be asked to carry them out...
Posted by: kater | 10 March 2019 at 01:28 PM
Just an observation, but many of the pro weed brigade on here seem to write in exactly the same style. Almost as if many of them are in fact the same person.
As to the Irish Republican movement what a joke they have become? All that carnage and death for an Independent Ireland, and now they are all EU fanatics. Ireland doesn’t even have its own currency any more. It’s ability to set its own interest rates given away to German bankers. Hilarious. And they can’t even blame the British for this loss of sovereignty. They did it to themselves.
Your IRA/Republican types are more likely to be found trying to get into Brussels these days to give away even more of the Irish people’s rights, in exchange for salaries and tax free pensions of course.
Posted by: Sally | 10 March 2019 at 06:04 PM
@Bradley:
***Nothing to do with social media then?***
Probably more to do with social pathology, which began when socialism came in.
Posted by: Douglas Oswell | 10 March 2019 at 05:53 PM
Nothing to do with absent fathers then.
Posted by: Ginty | 10 March 2019 at 05:37 PM
I do not think Mr Hitchens is right to claim that cannabis use is "the only significant social change in this country that correlates with the rise in homicidal violence". I would argue that decades of neoliberal capitalism, initiated by Thatcher and exacerbated since the financial crash of 2008 by 10 years of Tory austerity have caused profound social changes to this country. Inequality has risen dramatically, prospects of finding a job with decent wages have shrunk for young people, schools and social services have been underfunded, youth centres and libraries have had to close. All this is much more likely to contribute to the rise in gang violence than the consumption of cannabis. As others have pointed out, if there were a real correlation between cannabis consumption and violence as Mr Hitchens hypothesises, then countries or areas with higher cannabis use would be experiencing higher numbers of violent crime. I have yet to see any evidence of such a correlation.
Posted by: Charlie B | 10 March 2019 at 05:24 PM
What about prescribed drugs, like ssri, benzos etc? I don't think there are many studies associating violence with cannabis, but there are several with ssri and violent acts against themselves and others.
Posted by: Pete C. | 10 March 2019 at 05:19 PM
Cannabis: Maybe cannabis, opioids and etc., is a symptom of something deeper more sinister going on? I just watched a documentary on "youtube" on US tax exempt foundations (Carnegie Endowment, Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation) with Norman Dodd and their goals. Please also see information on John Taylor Gatto's "Dumbing Us Down". These foundations ultimate goals seems to want us to live in fear, hate, and mistrust of each other and to remove our God given intelligence and creativity. To demoralize us. And when I write us I mean the common people of the world.
Posted by: Anna Carter | 10 March 2019 at 05:11 PM
If you think smoking cannabis can be equated with alcohol, as a cause of violence, you need to try it.
Posted by: Grenville Matta | 10 March 2019 at 05:05 PM
Thank you Mr. Hitchens for your writing many articles on the harm caused by cannabis. Here in the States the drive to stop its legalization is far worse than in Britain. Here its use is profound and many Americans are just oblivious to its effect. And far worse is that no one is seeing its use slowly but surely being used by children. In my local high school, my niece told me she had to run out of one of the rest rooms was reeking of cannabis, students behind a closed stall smoking it. Nothing was done, she told me, to discipline those fellow classmates. Here in the States, the cause is lost.
Posted by: Jose Garcia | 10 March 2019 at 04:56 PM
If you read the MSM at all, you are most unlikely to belong to the demographic that puts you at high risk of being stabbed. Similarly, you are unlikely to be at risk, as a result of using illegal narcotics, of developing the psychosis that will lead to you stabbing somebody. The chances are that you will seek treatment, or those around you will insist that you be treated, long before that can happen. The chances are that you will be rich enough in money, time and opportunity to do something about your problems.
To put it another way, the people being stabbed, and the people doing the stabbing, are mostly of little account. Some on here may claim that they care about them, but I think it likely that is mere virtue signalling.
Violent crime is still something that overwhelmingly affects the poor and marginalised in this country. There is no political will to help these people. The people who form opinions, the people who vote, and the people who mostly pay taxes, are able to buy freedom from the residential areas and the personal circumstances that would put them at risk of violent crime.
The difference between now and the 19th century is stark. Back then, many people saw it as their duty to intervene to try to improve the lot of those who were worse off. Now we mostly indulge in a bit of virtue signalling, perhaps up ticking an online comment somewhere, before returning to our safe lives in our safe enclaves.
Posted by: John Main | 10 March 2019 at 04:54 PM
"Its (cannabis's) widespread use is the only significant social change in this country that correlates with the rise in homicidal violence."--- And that is the alpha and the omega of your argument? Pathetic. What about the austerity policy, Brexit, unemployment, huge numbers of non-natives moving into our urban environments? What about the massive increase in use of legal highs, synthetic cannabinoids, methamphetamine and cocaine over the same period? Peter, you are starting to sound like the old geezer who sits at the back of the bus, shouting at the traffic. Even your hero Alex Berenson's book 'Tell Your Children' has been roundly dismissed, if not ridiculed, for its completely unscientific basis and misuse of statistics. Tell you what, Peter, why don't you spend a few weekends in your local A&E department and see just how many of the enraged, dangerous yobbos causing havoc have only smoked weed that evening. My sister used to work A&E and they just love pot smokers, they sit in the corner for an hour until they feel better and then get a cab home: zero trouble, 
zero violence.
Posted by: David P | 10 March 2019 at 04:22 PM
Forgive me for interrupting the dope smokers who have taken over this thread, wafting and wheezing their disgusting substance all over the rest of us (much as they are here in Canada), but regarding Ulster, I am not sure how 'surely it was understood at the very least' carries with it the force of law? There was no amnesty for state-sponsored murderers in the Belfast Agreement. Your (Mr. Hitchens') implication that there should have been such an amnesty is interesting to say the least. It represents a complete reversal of your position regarding secrarian and/or political murder in Northern Ireland, whereby you deplored the amnesty handed down to (especially) IRA killers. Your muttering and moaning about the treatment of the Bloody Sunday killers is, well, unprincipled - to put it very mildly.
That said, good luck with the job application. May I suggest that when you become R4 Controller, your first act should be to appoint yourself chief presenter of the Today programme. For the first time in at least a decade it would actually be worth listening to.
Posted by: Val Hayes, Toronto, ex-Dublin | 10 March 2019 at 04:11 PM
Cannabis is legalised in Canada, but we don't have knife crime like that here???
Posted by: skibum | 10 March 2019 at 03:48 PM
The bbc is a tax I can’t get out of paying. I rarely watch any of the endless loop of rubbish it broadcasts even the news is little more than tittle tattle
Posted by: Ian | 10 March 2019 at 03:45 PM
Nothing to do with social media then?
Posted by: Bradley | 10 March 2019 at 03:31 PM
Jack | 10 March 2019 at 08:15 AM asks "That job at the BBC... where was it advertised?".
An excellent question. My guess is that it was advertised somewhere the BBC's top management were hoping only Lefties would see it.
Posted by: Bill | 10 March 2019 at 03:21 PM
I agree completely with Athanasius | 10 March 2019 at 07:31 AM, about the current Brexit debacle.
The people of NI say they want to be part of the UK. I have no problem with that, but then they must abide by the decisions made by the majority of the UK's population. If they don't like those decisions then they should leave and set up on their own, or join their island-neighbours in Eire, or whatever.
I am rather tired of them (and the Scots) telling us there was no majority for Brexit in their territory.
It is rather like being a member of a tennis club. You abide by the club's rules as determined by the entire membership from time to time. If you don't like those rules, then you hand in your notice and leave.
Posted by: Bill | 10 March 2019 at 03:18 PM
Unless we bring back the treason act then treason will be the default position for most MPs, Mr Redwood seems to believe?
Posted by: Very interesting | 10 March 2019 at 02:56 PM
Could the rise in knife crime not be correlated with the rise in demand for cannabis? But I feel it's pretty speculative to blame the smoking of cannabis in itself. Were gangs during the era of prohibition not fighting over territory? Could the increase in knife crime not simply be because we are trusting an extremely lucrative unregulated market in the hands of people, who because of the risky nature of being a 'drug dealer' are more likely to be criminals? Excellent article, I think it must have tried to write itself, you may have just gotten the wrong end of the stick
Posted by: Connork | 10 March 2019 at 02:44 PM
'Its widespread use is the only significant social change in this country that correlates with the rise in homicidal violence.'
No-one in the UK really cares when they are lied to, anymore.
That went away with the disapproval of swearing.
However, I hope Mr Hitchens dishonest moral preening as a 'truth teller' still annoys you as much as it does me.
So, lets see if you mind being told the truth to.
1) My father was born in Antigua.
2) Above, Hitchens is not telling the truth.
...is he?
Posted by: J. Richardson | 10 March 2019 at 02:18 PM
I'm not sure it's as simple as one would assume from this article. The relationships between drugs and violence are not in doubt, one can't help smell a political agenda as clear and strong as the cannabis you obviously dislike. Yes Peter actually think.
Posted by: Christopher McDonald | 10 March 2019 at 02:03 PM
The author wrote 'the Profumo affair, which didn't matter at all' ; I'm certain it did in a subtle but substantial way indeed. It was the end of the Conservative Party as it had been but was still able to stagger on as the only viable alternative to Socialism ; or perhaps it died seven years earlier with the humiliation of the failed Suez adventure following which it was cunningly able to re-brand itself with a new leader who would willingly submit his Party to the new liberal trendy age that was emerging ; the Profumo affair was his Waterloo.
Posted by: TERENCE COURTNADGE | 10 March 2019 at 01:53 PM
I’d love you to get the BBC job.
Posted by: Des | 10 March 2019 at 01:52 PM
Also i should have mentioned my son has 2 ex schoolfriends who have just recently been sentenced for the sort of crimes you mention... and I asked him why are they doing this theyre not poor they have decent parents ...And he said its all about the money and the Rolex’s and the Gucci’s...thats what they all want... If you think about this it’s true all you ever see now is people flashing what theyve got on social media and tv... Rappers, rich kids, The kardashians they cant have one cartier bracelet they have to have 6 and the same with cars, watches, bags, trainers...
Posted by: kater | 10 March 2019 at 01:36 PM
In response to this article, specifically this following quote
“These drugs do not just intoxicate, as alcohol does. They make their users mentally ill, irrational, uninhibited, careless of the consequences of what they do”
I would like to signpost you to the medical research centre for cannabis, they have backed up research that will help you identify what is so wrong about your “opinions”
Posted by: Naomi | 10 March 2019 at 01:31 PM
I thought the whole point of cannabis use was to chill you out... So you may well come up with brilliant plans and schemes, while you sit there puffing away..but thanks to the influence of pot youve been smoking, you just cant be asked to carry them out...
Posted by: kater | 10 March 2019 at 01:28 PM