What if?

What if Sir Walter Raleigh had come back with marijuana instead of tobacco. Say he'd given Lizzie a pipe full of skunk instead of tobacco? Just think how that would have changed the world we live in today. Imagine that all the laws and all the rules had been made by people skunked out of their heads. It would have changed history.

For a start the date he got back would be wrong. If he had been smoking weed instead of tobacco it would have taken twice as long. They would have stopped at every island on the way back for more food, got lost at least once, got involved in god knows how many long discussions about absolutely nothing and would have to sort out transport from Portsmouth to Plymouth because they docked at the wrong port!

We would never have had the British Empire. No way. We might have thought about it but never quite got round to it. Anyway there would be plenty of time because I guarantee that skunk would spread around the world as quickly as tobacco so everybody else would be putting things off as well.

We probably wouldn't even have bothered to colonise the places we had already discovered so America wouldn't exist. There's a thought, no Mcdonalds, no Starbucks, no friendly fire! The Indians would still be calling it what they used to call it. Ours.

We wouldn't have global warming, we wouldn't have bothered inventing the petrol engine. We would only have bothered with things that made our current situation even more enjoyable. And we wouldn't ban smoking in pubs!

But we probaby wouldn't have any proper rules and laws. Even if we did have we'd have far to many and enforce the wrong ones. We would probably employ people to run things for us and to enforce the laws but then be so lethargic that we let them take over. Before we knew it they would have all the power and all the authority, they wouldn't be working for us any more they would be working for themselves.

Next they would be taxing us, trying to keep us poor, using our money to run the place their way. They would pretend we had a say but because of our lethargy it wouldn't be true. The minorities would be in charge, each furthering their own cause at the expense of the rest of us. And we would let it happen. We did when we were straight so what chance would we have had if we'd all been stoned.