Last Saturday, being in Malta for a change (as opposed to Gozo, lest the Lil'Elves think I'm some bloated plutocrat who trips abroad more than every so often) I was in town for a coffee and snacklet or two, as one does, and I came across a bunch of peaceful types having a bit of a demo about legalising pot.

Now, believe me if you will or don't, I don't give much of a toss, but I've never sampled the jolly old weed, though at my elbow as we speak is a hip-flask with a few shots of Scotland's finest and I'm about to fire up one of Toscana's equally fine ones. Both of these habits are as noxious to the health as having a couple of tokes, from what I read, if not more so, so I'm in a good position to have something of an evening's rumination about why Mary Jane is not smiled fondly upon by the powers that are, while Al. C. O'hol and his his stable-mate Tob'Ac (and just so the Lil'Elves don't do it, I'll declare my interest as a lobbyist for the industry here) are gazed upon with much tolerance by the State, a phenomenon that gives the pot-heads plenty of scope for angst.

Frankly, I don't see why smoking a joint or so of an evening should be such a heinous crime, to which some will retort that I shouldn't be making such a fuss, because the cops don't go about feeling tokers' collars. True, but since the laid-back ones can't trot down to the local bar for their supplies, it being illegal to perform that little thing (supplying joints, that is) legalising cannabis is actually a prerequisite to indulging becoming as innocent an activity as having a fag or a swift half or more.

And let's not have any guff about gateway drugs and such-like, shall we? It is more than clear that there's more to real addiction than having puffed on a few, and anecdotes are not real tools for scientific research.

Alcohol and tobacco are legal and cannabis not simply as a result of historical happenstance, and we really should recognise the results of a dispassionate cost/benefit analysis, weighing up as it should the benefits to society of yanking the rug out from under the feet of the nefarious types who, because marijuana is illegal, use illegal means to get it to people.

Will this happen? Not a snowball's in hell, sadly, because the political parties don't have the spine for it, since the shrieking masses won't vote for them if they show even the slightest inclination towards being sensible.

Progressive thinking goes only a little way when votes are involved.