Daily Mail Stormzy Drug Howler

When it comes to currently illegal drugs, we know where the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre and his obedient hackery at the Daily Mail stand. They are vehemently opposed to any move to ease off the so-called “war on drugs”, despite it having failed miserably, and served only to increase the number of those addicted, and their subsequent misery. The Mail also disapproves of people who are not white - although it’s usually deniable.

Stormzy - under press attack once more

So the hit-job on grime artist Stormzy - for which no-one has owned up to having written it - was predictable. So was the headline “Popular grime artists such as Stormzy are fueling [sic] the use of 'skunk' by treating cannabis as 'product placement' in their chart-topping songs, researcher warns”. Mail readers be warned - keep your kids away from drugs.

But then it became clear why no-one in the Northcliffe House bunker wanted to claim credit for the hit job, which told “Ian Hamilton, based at York University, warned the popular music genre [grime] contains hundreds of lyrics glorifying the use of the class B drug … Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, he described songs featuring mentions of weed, including those by Stormzy, Kano and Wiley, as 'essentially product placement’”.

Hamilton went on to assert “Lyrics can plant the seed of an idea, and it’s not an abstract idea, it’s something they do pretty quickly and at low risk … If the association, viewing it as a product placement, is cool and something that may enhance their status as a young person, then that becomes quite attractive”, but then digressed slightly: “The problem we’ve got in the UK is the way that cannabis is used with tobacco”.

Hamilton’s forte is to warn of the dangers inherent in mixing cannabis with tobacco, because the latter carries known cancer risks. Cannabis alone, as he points out, does not. So he’s not at the same place as the Dacre doggies, who are just trying to scare the crap out of anyone considering going near anything that is currently illegal.

Who's calling me a f***ing racist scare merchant, c***?!?

Consider conclusions from some of the research with which he has been associated - for instance “at a population level, an increased risk of psychosis from cannabis use is low, and those vulnerable to developing serious mental health problems is relatively rare”. The Mail titles are forever telling readers that cannabis means increased psychosis risk.

On top of that own goal, the response from Stormzy has been direct, as he told the Dacre doggies “White rockstars (and pop stars) have been sniffing coke and taking MDMA and singing about it since the beginning of music - just admit you’re anti-black … Imagine raising your child, loving and nurturing them. Sending them off to school and then uni for them to grow up and then get a job working for the fucking Daily Mail. Embarrassing”.

So there won’t be any converts to the Mail’s nudge-nudge nonsense from his fans, then. And “embarrassing” is spot on for an article where no-one wanted to have their name appear on the by-line. Going after Stormzy on the grounds that he’s doing what white artistes have done for more than half a century is beyond contemptible.

But it keeps the readers frightened and ignorant, so that’s all right, then.