The Green, Green Grass...

The Green, Green Grass…

I don’t understand why open cannabis use has increased so markedly in this neighbourhood in the last couple of years, but it certainly has. If you walk along by the canal any afternoon or early evening your senses will tell you that cannabis is being smoked or has recently been smoked. I first noticed it when the numbers of more or less permanently-moored boats increased, but it is clear now that this is mostly happening ashore.

The policemen and PCSOs seem to take no notice. Now in a sense I can understand that; cannabis use is a fairly low-grade crime, and what is the point of antagonising, and ultimately criminalising, otherwise blameless individuals if they aren’t causing a nuisance or harming anyone else?

Fair enough, but some of the groups of people who seem to gather round here to smoke dope do actually seem rather intimidating, and come pretty close to being a nuisance. And surely it is, actually, against the law, isn’t it? More than that, my own experience inclines me to be rather less than relaxed about cannabis use.

A few years ago I conducted a funeral for a young man who had died suddenly and inexplicably (sudden death syndrome) but the striking feature of the household was the industrial quantity of cannabis consumed, especially by the young man. Of course it may not have had anything to do with his death, but it worried me, as it seemed to be the only unusual thing about him.

More recently I have been struck by how many of the mentally ill locally are also cannabis users, and how regularly one hears horror stories about bad experiences from skunk, the genetically-engineered high strength cannabis which seems to be the only sort you can get in London now. Yes, I know there are nice respectable people with MS who say it eases their pain, but there are also vulnerable, damaged people for whom it triggers psychotic episodes. So, pardon me if I’m a bit illiberal about this one.

Little Silver Canisters

The other morning I met one of the school staff putting a load of rubbish in the bins, which she had just swept up from near the church. It turns out that this was a large quantity of nitrous oxide canisters, sudden evidence of the craze for laughing gas reaching our estate. Perhaps that explains the noise that woke us up at 2am, though I don’t remember laughter being prominent. This seems a particularly futile exercise in escapism, as I am told the effects are very fleeting. Presumably that is why there were lots of canisters, which look a bit sinister, frankly. I suspect that’s part of the attraction for Gilbert & George, in whose most recent show the canisters were a repeated motif. Having a pile of them on the pavement doesn’t make the neighbourhood feel hip or edgy, I can assure you.

Mounting the Pavement

A young man who uses our support services needed our help to put pressure on his landlord because of an incident. A Range Rover had mounted the pavement and crashed into the front of their building, at 3 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. He says that shots were fired, and that a chase had taken place. He apparently knows the driver, who denies firing the shots, “Because if I had shot, I wouldn’t have missed.” Ho, ho, very amusing. The transport of cocaine was allegedly involved. I jokingly asked whether it was a black Range Rover with tinted glass, and was pleased to be told that it was! When we first came here, eight years ago, you could be confident that if you saw one of those on the estate it was bound to be a drug dealer, but now it’s much less predictable, because crazy property prices have meant an influx of wealthy Arabs and people with diplomatic plates. Still, this one conformed to type; having wrecked the Range Rover, he apparently came back in a Porsche.