Windsor family isn't perfect is a headline that goes back so many generations, it has lost its shock value. But after the British tabloid News of the World revealed that PRINCE HARRY, 17, third in line to the throne, had spent last summer boozing it up at a local pub and smoking cannabis both there and on the grounds of Highgrove, his dad's country home 100 miles from London, the media have gnawed on the story like a Labrador retriever with a steak bone. Like so many royal tales before it, Harry's travails offer hacks an irresistible chance to slalom between salivating prurience (was he having sex too?) and tongue-clucking high-mindedness (how hard this must be on the poor Queen!). [continues 640 words]
Technically, it is still illegal, but so many cannabis users flout the law that governments opt to go easy. Stroll down electric avenue in Brixton, south London, and three guys might offer to sell you marijuana within five minutes. It's O.K.; the cops here won't arrest you for possessing a little. And it's no different on much of the Continent. Cedric, an 18-year-old Swiss student, smokes dope regularly with his friends on trains, in the streets and parks of Geneva, even during high school recess. "The teachers know about it but don't say anything," he says. In Marseilles two months ago, 20 crewmen on the aircraft carrier Foch had consumed cannabis so flagrantly on board that a military court had to punish them but handed out only suspended sentences. [continues 1035 words]
