Amazing Grass (Should cannabis be legalised?)

Name: Ophelia

Hello doyoo user, You have to be logged in to use these functions... Login or register Close window

Send message to member

Product:	Should cannabis be legalised?
Date:	26/03/02 (379 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Medical benefits, relaxant, taxation

Disadvantages: Lead to other drugs?, bad for you?

Bill Clinton smoked cannabis but didn’t inhale, you might smoke cannabis, your friends might smoke cannabis, your children might smoke cannabis. Cannabis is certainly used widely throughout the country and is briefly experimented with by thousands of others. This is currently illegal but should it really be criminalized?

I will start by taking a look at some of the arguments used by the anti-legalisation brigade and try to dispel these myths. I will then have a further look at cannabis itself and see if it is just a ‘big bad drug’ or whether it has characteristics for which it could be cherished and, which if legalised, could be utilised by the general public.

DOES CANNABIS LEAD TO HARDER DRUGS?

Some people experiment with cannabis, they try LSD or speed or coke. The type of person who explores drugs and ends up on one of the ‘harder’ drugs, such as cocaine or heroine, may well have at one point smoked cannabis. However, this does not mean that it is logical to reverse the statement and say that it was due to the fact that they smoked cannabis that they went on to further experimentation.

While marijuana remains illegal it will have the label of being a ‘drug’. Young people often feel the need to rebel against society or their parents and one of the ways that they do so is through drug taking. As long as cannabis remains labelled as a ‘drug’, it will hold a mysterious allure and in the process of the ‘rebellion’ cannabis will not be taken alone but it is likely that other ‘harder’ drugs will be used. However, once the label ‘drug’ is removed cannabis is no longer mentally associated with harder drugs and it would not occur to a smoker to take other ‘drugs’ any more than it would currently occur to a drinker to try smoking normal tobacco.

At the present there may well be instances were a person has tried cannabi
s and has later taken a ‘harder’ drug. If this is the case there is one extremely likely cause: the dealer. While cannabis is illegal it is sold on the black market by dealers. A dealer’s prime concern is to make money and in this regard they seem to have no morals or concern for the welfare of their ‘customers’. It is in the dealer’s best economic interests to get a cannabis smoker on to a ‘harder’ drug because the harder and more addictive the drug the more money the ‘customer’ will spend. This may seem implausible but it is a fact, it happens and I have seen it. Once cannabis is legalised, the dealers will be taken out of the equation and the risk of them pushing harder drugs and the availability of harder drugs to the cannabis smoker is eliminated.

ARE THERE DELETERIOUS EFFECTS OF CANNABIS?

Memory

While cannabis may have an effect on memory while it is being smoked this quickly wears off as the effect of the drug itself does. Numerous studies have been carried out which have concluded that memory is not adversely affected. As an example the LaGuardia Commission Report of 1944 stated ‘cannabis smoking does not lead directly to mental or physical deterioration. Those who have consumed marijuana for a period of years showed no mental or physical deterioration which may be attributed to the drug.

Lethargy

When cannabis is smoked it may cause lethargy, however, as a non-smoker if I smoke a strong nicotine cigarette I feel very heavy and lethargic and so the effect caused by the cannabis can be compared to this. As with a normal cigarette any lethargic effects wear off when use is discontinued.

Cancer

In 1994 the National Toxicology Program of the US carried out a study of the effects of cannabis and it concluded that there was no evidence that cannabis could cause cancer and there was evidence that smoking marijuana actually lesse
ned the risk of carcinomas.

Lungs

It is a well established fact that nicotine cigarettes can be extremely harmful after prolonged use. Cannabis, unless mixed with normal tobacco, does not pose a threat to the lungs. The University of California carried out an 8 year study and concluded that ‘findings from the present long term follow up study of heavy, habitual marijuana smokers argue AGAINST the concept that the continuing heavy use of marijuana is a significant factor for the development of lung disease’.

THE LESSER EVIL?

Cannabis is not a toxin.

Cannabis is not addictive.

You cannot overdose on cannabis.

Thousand of people every year die from lung cancer, high blood pressure, emphysema or other diseases brought on my the use of normal cigarette smoking.

Alcohol is addictive and you can die from drinking too much. I hardly think I need specify all the deleterious effects which alcohol can have on the habitual user. However, this is one further comparison between alcohol and cannabis which I would like to draw; someone who has drunk a lot may become rowdy and violent, as we are all aware from trouble after ‘chucking out time’ but a person who has smoked cannabis becomes very relaxed or ‘chilled’. The social environment is more likely to be threatened by an alcohol consumer than it is by a cannabis smoker.

When bearing all this in mind, is cannabis really so bad? Is it so bad that it should be illegal?

THERAPEUTIC QUALITIES

The Ancient Egyptians and Chinese regularly used cannabis (or the concentrated active compound, tetrahydrocannabinol) as both a preventative and curative medicine. It was also used in England, as is documented by Culpepper’s ‘Complete Herbal and English Physician’ of the 17th century in which he wrote that it was effective for the treatment of ‘jaundice, colic, bleeding from the no
se or mouth, destroys worms in man or beast, eases gout, pain in the hips, dispelleth wind and the fresh juice mixed with a little oil and butter, is an extremely good cure for burns’.

While cannabis may be useful to eradicate wind (according to the honourable Doctor Culpepper) there are other beneficial results of its use. The symptoms of numerous illnesses and disabilities have been shown to be eased by the use of cannabis including: glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, depression, asthma, nausea from chemotherapy, menstrual pain, migraines, insomnia and stress.

In addition to these direct benefits, cannabis is an extremely effective substitute to be used when attempting to end an addiction. Drug addicts and alcoholics can use cannabis while they are attempting to break their addiction and I personally have seen this in action (the person in question has now been without alcohol for 2 months).

TAXATION

I have now concluded my main reasons for wanting the legalisation of cannabis. At the risk of being considered frivolous I would also like to briefly mention one further ‘advantage’, and here I use the word loosely, as it would certainly not be considered as such by cannabis users.

Once cannabis is legalised the government can obviously restrict distribution, as with alcohol and cigarettes but they can also tax it! Millions of pounds a year would be raised through taxes and think what good that could do for our schools or the NHS.

STOKE THE BONG AND PASS THE SPLIFF

The use of cannabis in medicine has often been discussed in the media. It is well known that it can be extremely effective in pain relief and the relief of other symptoms and legalisation for the prescription of marijuana as a medicine is a step that could be taken prior to wholesale legalisation.

I do believe that cannabis should be available to the public and not just available by prescription. Studies have shown i
t has no adverse effects and is inarguably less harmful than alcohol or nicotine, which are currently legal drugs. Legalisation of cannabis would remove the control of its sale from the streets and would lower the risk of users being tempted by other drugs.

There seems to be no rational reason to keep cannabis illegal and it seems that the government is doing so only because they are afraid of public reaction and losing votes.

So, is it your turn to roll a joint?

Summary: