Stirring the Pot (Should cannabis be legalised?)

Member Name: Aspen

Product:	Should cannabis be legalised?
Date:	05/09/01 (61 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: I hate to say this, but "see opinion".

Disadvantages: Illegality.

(This opinion has been edited, at the request of Dooyoo, to remove references to another contributor's opinion. I have no problem with that. I merely add this note, because some of the comments prior to this update will appear irrelevant, and this is by way of explanation.)


I do not have the expertise, or the statistics, as others do, on which to base this argument.


What I do have are two case histories. Both concern parents, of my own age group, and close friends. But with very different attitudes.


Case 1.

The parents considered drugs in any form to be abhorrent. Neither smoked, and drank only in moderation. If the kids had come home with even a whiff of nicotine all hell would have broken loose. Before they were eighteen, a shandy at home at Christmas was a treat.

Now, as a close friend, I know that these kids were smoking at fourteen, going into the local pub and being served at fifteen, and hiding it all from their parents.

I also know that one of them, at sixteen, was trying cannabis.

But it had to be surreptitious. None of these things could be talked about. Such things were verboten.

By nineteen, one son was a heroin user.

But because such things were verboten, his parents didn’t even know he’d ever had so much as a fag.

Now, as a parent – deal with that.


Case 2.

The parents shared the wine round the Christmas table, with the kids, from a very early age. One parent smoked, the other didn’t. But when the whiff of nicotine was first detected on the school blazer, it was talked about. Not condemned, talked about.

All the pros and cons were discussed, openly. But if the fifteen-year-old’s decision was to continue to smoke, fine. It was done openly.

And one of the parents, being a secondary school teacher, was well aware that four out of five kids have tried cannabis before they’ve
left school.

Discussion in that household was open – and let’s face it, we of the sixties generation have all been there. We may have chosen to leave it behind, but we’ve been there.

These parents’ decision, when the son discovered dope, was to tell him to invite his mates round.

Yes, I’ve sat round that family table, and shared a joint with two generations.

But the important point was, they knew where he was and what he was doing, and who he was doing it with.

Now, in his twenties, he still has the occasional joint. But he has never ventured into anything harder, because he was never driven underground.

And a more balanced, mature, worldly-wise young man you would be hard pushed to find.


Case studies over, but a little more . . .


I have never personally used cannabis as a recreational drug. But I have used it as a stress-reliever. Something to fall back on when things get on top of you.

I have used nicotine for the same purpose, and am now hopelessly addicted.

I have used alcohol for the same purpose, and have come damned close to being addicted.

I have never found cannabis to be even remotely addictive.


Given my present situation, which many of you understand, I am currently on tranquillisers and anti-depressants. The tranquillisers are Diazepam. I have already been taking Diazepam for longer than it is generally accepted for this substance to become addictive. My GP has told me so, but continues to prescribe it.

I can miss out the Diazepam for a day, have a joint instead, and cope with the pressures in front of me, in exactly the same way. The joint is not addictive.

But it cannot be prescribed.


As a sufferer of clinical depression, I wish I could have (legally) a non-addictive joint when I felt I needed it, rather than a pre-determined ration of an addictive prescribed drug, whic
h both I and my GP know will be hell-and-all to stop.




I do not believe that cannabis is addictive.

Cannabis only leads to harder drugs because it is driven underground, and has to be obtained from unscrupulous sources eager to encourage the use of addictive substances.

Cannabis is a worthy addition to the portfolio of alternative medicine.

Cannabis is less harmful than nicotine.

Cannabis is less harmful than alcohol.

Yes, cannabis is harmful when used in excess. So is chocolate.

Cannabis is mainly used in excess because of the buzz of illegitimacy.

Remove the buzz of illegitimacy and you will remove most of the excess.

And, above all, I reserve the right, in this nanny-state, to do as I wish within the confines of my own home.


This British anti-cannabis thing is very British. Very insular. Very we-are-always-right.

Once upon a time, we were convinced the world was flat.

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