ONE WAY TO PLEASE FARMERS AND JUNKIES

Emmet Stagg may have come up with the reason why so few people in the
Labour Party knew anything about - or couldn't remember - the pounds
28,000 loan written off by Woodchester Bank.

Cannabis!

Not that I'm suggesting they're all smoking their brains out on the
illegal leaf, but if they were it might explain how so few were aware
that so much was written off for so many. It might also help their
electoral profile with younger voters, who would see the party more in
touch with reality.

Now, Emmet Stagg wants cannabis decriminalised for purely altruistic
reasons because he insists that he himself does not indulge in it.

He smokes a lot - cigarettes - and imbibes in the odd drop of alcohol,
but nothing more.

So, it beggars understanding why he stood up in the Dail this week and
asked the Government to consider decriminalising cannabis.

As soon as his party colleagues got a whiff of what he was up to, they
went into immediate denial.

They would probably rather remember the Woodchester grant, than be
associated with anything like the legalisation of the drug.

Despite the fact that he utterly denies he’s on cannabis, I'm afraid
his logic for trying to have it almost available on draught defeats
me.

Having stated in the Dail that a recent youth survey showed that 60%
of people under the age of 24 use cannabis as their drug of choice, Mr
Stagg went on to say: "It is not sustainable to have 60% of the young
people of the country in criminal capacity."

If you follow his line of thought, it follows that if 60% of the young
people of this country decided to engage in murder, then murder should
be legalised in order to prevent so many young people being
categorised "in criminal capacity."

Naturally, he went on to mention the old chestnuts of drink and
tobacco which, because of the potential harm they could lead to,
should also be banned. I presume he doesn't want to deprive himself of
his cigs or his odd drop, but he’s on a loser there because both are
completely legal to indulge in.

After his performance in the Dail, the Labour Party didn't want to
know him, and referred any press queries to the man himself.

Rather like the writing off of the Woodchester pounds 28,000, party
headquarters didn't know, doesn't want to know and knows nothing about
it.

Of course, if they had any sense, they would back Emmet Stagg, go back
to the Woodchester for another lash of money to buy a bit of land and
start growing the stuff themselves. They could corner the market, pay
off the bank if that was necessary - and they'd be on a political high
as well. At least, with the under 24s.

Because that’s not on, Mr Stagg should look for support to one of the
most influential lobbies in the country - the farmers. Those lads will
turn their hand to anything that will bring a cheque through the
letterbox and at the moment their circumstances are dire. They must
be, because they promised Mary Harney recently they would pay as much
as 12.5% income tax if she would look after them.

To facilitate her, they were prepared to consider themselves as
private companies, like any ordinary multi national, in order to get
around the undoubted, unfair outrage that would follow from the
ungrateful PAYE sector.

No good. In typical fashion, our Tantaiste rejected such a generous
offer and the unfortunate farmers found themselves in the awful
situation of having to offer their wives as a bargaining ploy.

Their wives, they said, should be given a stay at home allowance. That
was probably the wrong tack, because Mary Harney wouldn't buy that
either. Had they argued the wives should be given an allowance for
being married to farmers, they would probably have had a stronger
case. Even the PAYE sector could hardly argue with that.

Getting back to Emmet Stagg, his best bet is to convince the farmers
to support him in his mission to have cannabis legalised.

All over the country, farmers are getting paid - or were up to
recently, at any rate - for set aside. That’s that wonderful EU
concept whereby farmers get paid for doing nothing with fields. They
don't grow anything in them and they get paid handsomely for doing
so.

Emmet Stagg could convince them to start growing cannabis on those
fallow acres and they wouldn't have to worry about craw thumping to
Mary Harney. I don't know what the street value of the stuff is at the
moment, but there’s obviously a big market out there for it.

The fact that it’s illegal to grow shouldn't bother the farmers too
much. Taking a couple of legs of New Zealand lamb out of a butcher’s
shop without paying for them is illegal too, but it hasn't bothered
their conscience too much.

When it comes to protecting their income, the farmers are in a field
of their own. And they're not beyond contriving a bit of publicity.

Some of them are also even prepared to engage in conspiracy, as
witnessed just this week by a disgraceful episode in a butcher’s shop
in Limerick, whose sale of lamb is 99% Irish.

According to an officer of the IFA, they got a member to order three
boxes of New Zealand lamb from the shop. Then, when the boxes had
arrived, other members went into the shop, took the boxes onto the
street and mounted a protest against the butcher for stocking the Kiwi
lamb. The very same lamb the miserable sheep farmers were protesting
about wouldn't have been on the premises only for them.