WHY CAN'T WE HAVE CANNABIS CAFES HERE?
Imagine if we lived in a society where drugs weren't just lurking in the background, but one where our entire social life, from celebrations to wakes, from sporting events to eating out, from entertaining at home to oiling the wheels of industry, were all structured and organised around the consumption of drugs.
And imagine if it wasn't just the consumption of any old drugs, but the consumption of a single drug whose use is so integral to our daily lives that even the dominant religion of that society has adopted it and sanctified it as its official drug of choice.
No prizes for guessing that we are talking about alcohol. It's a drug which lubricates many a good night out but which also drags a trail of unwanted social chaos in its wake. Nor is it to everyone's taste.
Now, imagine a scenario where a large section of that very same society would prefer, at least for a part of their social life, to have an alternative to the use of alcohol. These are likely to be people who believe in democracy and choice, who believe in the toleration of other people's views, but are fed up with the aggression, violence, crime and stupidity associated with alcohol abuse.
What happens then? What happens if these generally law-abiding persons dare to suggest that they would prefer to relax and socialise using an alternative to alcohol, using a drug which causes relatively few problems, relieves stress, is pleasurable without being addictive, and which leaves the user fit for work the next day?
The stark reality is that those who want to relax with cannabis can either go to the Netherlands to enjoy their pastime - in one of the 900 cannabis coffee shops opened there specially for the purpose - or they can stay at home in alcohol-soaked Scotland and have the full weight of hypocritical laws come down on them until they either give up their use of cannabis ( highly unlikely ) or are driven underground and into criminality ( like the 100,000 cannabis offenders busted every year ).
Either way, it's a terrible situation to put people into for committing a crime that has no victims.
The government must be crazy to think that such a state of affairs could go unchallenged indefinitely. And it looks now as if the day of reckoning is drawing near. An incipient United Kingdom cannabis coffee-shop movement has begun to develop, which is prepared to spearhead this new stage in the cannabis legalisation debate.
The UK's first cannabis coffee shop opened in Stockport on 15 September last year, and in spite of three police raids, it is still opening its doors daily, staffed by dedicated activists who are prepared to defy the law and show in practice that the open and regulated sale of cannabis is of no threat to anyone - except perhaps the profits of the alcohol industry and the black market criminal gangs. And why not? Why should anyone be afraid of the proposed cannabis coffee shops opening up in cities like Dundee and Edinburgh?
In spite of the deliberately misleading attacks on them, the famous Amsterdam coffee shops are identified primarily with an atmosphere of tolerance and good-natured fun from which the whole city reaps benefits.
The coffee shops attract peaceable good-humoured tourists to the city, bringing much-appreciated trade to hoteliers, shopkeepers, museums and many other sectors of the local economy.
It is worth comparing Amsterdam's herbal tourist trade with Edinburgh's new-found status as the Stag and Hen Night capital of Britain - a dubious honour bestowed on the Scottish capital ever since the bars in Dublin starting barring these drunken, vomiting, fighting pests from their famously hospitable Temple Bar District.
Edinburgh already has a vibrant gay scene around the city's Broughton Street area, it has implemented a harm-reduction policy towards prostitution, the city has fantastic late-night dance clubs and bars, and multi-cultural festivals like the Mela. It also has, of course, internationally recognised theatre, music, film, literary and Hogmanay festivals.
All of these enhance Edinburgh's reputation as an exciting, dynamic place where different cultures and lifestyles are not only accepted but celebrated.
Licensed cannabis coffee-shops would only add to the city's already cosmopolitan reputation, which, in turn, would add to the allure of the city as a potential holiday destination - as Edinburgh's Hogmanay supremo, Pete Irvine, recently acknowledged - and he's a man who spends more time than most listening to what foreign visitors think of Edinburgh.
The benefits to the local citi-zenry would be just as enticing. The sale of cannabis could be taken out of residential areas - where it is often sold alongside harder drugs like heroin. And, for users, it would end years of unjust persecution which wastes police and court time.
Recent studies have indicated that UK tax revenue raised by legalising cannabis could be in the excess of UKP 1.75 billion. This could be used to help treat individuals damaged by the effects of heroin and alcohol abuse for example, or to pay for its prescription to sufferers of illnesses like MS.
Licensing the sale of cannabis is such a pragmatic idea, with so many positive aspects to it, that when it finally happens most people will wonder what all the fuss was about in the first place.
Kevin Williamson is writer and publisher of Rebel Inc!