News Segment

MOTORHEAD’S LEMMY TELLS WELSH POLITICIANS: LEGALISE HEROIN:

November 3, 2005

LONDON (AFP) – Pinstriped Welsh lawmakers came face-to-face with one of heavy metal’s most infamous hellraisers and were promptly told to legalize heroin.

Gravel-throated Motorhead frontman Lemmy was invited to the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff by the normally stiff-upper-lip Conservatives after one of their number was moved by the singer’s condemnation of drugs on a recent television documentary.

Motorhead are reputedly the loudest band on the planet — and the message was loud and clear to those within earshot.

“I have never had heroin, but since I moved to London from north Wales in ’67 I have mixed with junkies on a casual and almost daily basis,” Lemmy told lawmakers.

The singer — famous for hits such as the Ace of Spades and Killed by Death — said: “I also lived with a young woman who tried heroin just to see what it was like. It killed her three years later.

“I hate the idea even as I say it, but I do believe the only way to treat heroin is to legalise it.”

Legalising the drug would wipe out dealers, prevent the spread of drug-acquired infections and potentially generate tax revenue, he added in prepared remarks.

Sending young people to prison for possession or use of the drug also runs the risk that they will become more hardened criminals on their release, the politicans were told.

The bassist — real name Ian Kilmister — reputedly has a high tolerance for Jack Daniels whiskey. But he refused to comment on other substances.

“Heroin is the only one I have seen anybody die of,” he said

Assembly member William Graham, who invited the singer, declined to say whether he would be singing from Lemmy’s hymn sheet during future policy discussions.

“Lemmy has an alternative solution to the one presently being tried. The message is against drugs,” he said.

Courtesy of www.afp.com