Janey Godley: World of contradictions where Five-o say smoking's a no-no

DURING my recent trip to LA, I went to Venice Beach. If you took the gritty, maverick side of London's Soho, a smidgen of Amsterdam's coffee houses and a soupçon of Camden Market, whisked them altogether with some high-jinkery, medicinal marijuana and full-on sunshine, then Venice Beach is what would emerge from that hotpot.

There is a subculture in Venice Beach. It's a bit like a layer cake. The top is all decorative, expensively hand-finished and funky but, at the very bottom of that sweet alcohol-soaked sponge, are the homeless, the mentally affected and the Californi...