By Des Humphey

I have just watched Talk to FRANK’s latest cannabis awareness commercial, which is quite frankly the most insulting cannabis propaganda, the tax-payer funded anti-cannabis site has aired to date.

The advertisement shows five butchers sitting round a table with a school party theme of soft drinks and silly hats, passing around a joint of beef between them, somehow confusing the carcass of a dead animal with a cannabis spliff. Is this really how FRANK believes cannabis consumers act and go about their daily business?

I’m slightly perplexed: As a tax funded, government drug education service, we’re left in the dark to how a side of beef fits into the Lancet Relative Harm Scale. I’m sure, in the numerous harm scale studies that exist, that raw bovine has not been factored into any assessment.

FRANK appears to give the impression that cannabis consumers cannot tell the difference between a lump of meat and a fine joint of organically grown medicinal cannabis.

Somebody needs to point out to FRANK that a hunk of raw meat is far, far more dangerous than any cannabis joint would ever be. That joint of meat is probably crawling with e coli.

FRANK should know meat isn’t all that lean and that cholesterol from saturated animal fats might eventually clog up your heart. Cannabis is never going to do that. I love red meat, but i believe it is significantly more damaging to my health than cannabis.

Given that falling use has been stipulated as a reason for current drug policy intransigence, and that usage has arguably fallen under softer law enforcement practices, it’s of great concern that FRANK will be a forerunner in the awareness campaigns of Sunday roasts. The increased usage of under cooked meats is a health risk. Buffet culture is indeed a worry, and FRANK’s resources are well spent in combating this growing epidemic, but does this ad send out the ‘wrong message’? – Which we are of course very concerned about given that drug policy is not based on science and evidence, and is purely founded upon ‘sending messages’. Perhaps the government were at a loss to know what to do with all the horse meat?

I’m worried on behalf of our membership, some of which are in the meat trade and are butchers. We’ve always assumed that our butcher friends are pillars of the community. However, does this ad infer that we need to encourage of meat-vendors into treatment? Is beef a gateway meat which will lead to harder cuts such as venison?”

What FRANK appears to be doing here is undermining the intelligence of cannabis consumers.

Would FRANK class Queen Victoria, who used cannabis tincture for PMT, the same as the butchers in the FRANK advert? And what about Sativex, a powerful cannabis tincture prescribed by doctors and grown here in the UK by GW Pharmaceuticals under license granted from the Home Office?

FRANK has always tried to make out that people who consume cannabis turn out to be no good lazy stoners, that do not amount to anything in society. Well FRANK, if you do your research, like you should do, you will find so many famous people who have consumed and still do consume cannabis.

Famous people who have smoked cannabis include, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Bob Dylan, Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Richard Branson, Michael, Phelps, Michael Bloomberg, Morgan Freeman, … the list is too long, even our current Prime Minister, David Cameron, smoked cannabis at Eton. Here is a list of MPs who have smoked cannabis, perhaps they should be contacted to clarify it wasn’t a leg of lamb they had a puff on?

If FRANK really wanted to help out, it should be running a Harm Reduction campaign, such as do not add tobacco to your joint, as this is more harmful. Why doesn’t FRANK tell people the difference between Indica and Sativa strains or how to inspect cannabis to check it has not been contaminated? Of course they won’t do this, as that would be sensible, no they would rather ridicule cannabis consumers.

FRANK is supposed to be a place for people who require help, not to insult cannabis consumers.

Cannabis has been around considerably longer than FRANK, and it will be here far past the day FRANK goes into obscurity. Drug information campaigns are important, there is more misinformation out there regarding cannabis than there is solid fact. This video does nothing to inform, or even amuse, except on an ironic level. If the state is going to provide an example of “better behaviours”, five fat guys passing around an unhygienic slab of raw meat isn’t really hitting the mark. It isn’t healthy behaviour, it isn’t related to the actual subject matter, and irony of ironies – the hunk of meat is actually more dangerous than cannabis.

I have this message to FRANK – Please let me remind you that Talk To FRANK is a tax-payer funded operation whose remit is to educate those same tax-payers about drugs. It is your duty to educate these people using facts, evidence and to include all aspects of cannabis use – not just those which fit in with the Government’s ideologically based policies.