Two cannabis smokers murder young man in London

Here’s a good example of a news outlet failing to mention cannabis in a report of a conviction for murder.

Last month, two men were found guilty of shooting a 22-year-old man named Hashim Ali at point blank range as he was sitting in a car in Hayes. In both its report on the conviction (Hayes murder trial: How jury convicted two friends of shooting Hashim Ali to death) and, a week later, the sentencing (Hashim Ali’s murderers jailed for a minimum of 30 years each over fatal shooting in Hayes), My London failed to mention what it reported in some detail a week prior to the conviction, which is that the two men had smoked cannabis the day of the murder, but were disappointed in the quality (Friends accused of murdering Hashim Ali in Hayes blame each other for shooting him through the heart).

My London is not alone in this. Most news outlets in their reports of the conviction mention only ‘drug dealing’, failing, or refusing, to see that it is the effect of cannabis on the mind, not a desire to control the trade in it, that is a more significant factor in this act of cold-blooded murder. Such selective reporting, sadly, is common.