Cannabis: Young & Old Love To Go To Pot
Oct 16th, 2009 | 6 responses
In many parts of India you can see people enjoying bhang/hashish (or cannabis/marijuana) by the roadside without attracting a look of surprise or disapproval. It is only when the Western world began to raise hue and cry that people in the urban areas began to smoke/drink it discreetly at the occasional activation of the dormant laws.
In nearly 80 per cent of India it is still openly consumed (generally in moderation); some places even have legal shops. India does not suffer from the Western world’s obsession with “sin” and “evil” that invariably leads to suppression, excesses and confusion. A recent Western study again serves to create unnecessary alarm instead of creating a healthy debate on this issue.
The Independent of Britain reports: “Today, an estimated one in 25 adults of working age – 166 million people around the world – has used cannabis to get high, either in ignorance or defiance of its damaging effects on health. Now, the extraordinary popularity of the drug is posing a significant public health challenge, doctors say.
“Writing in The Lancet, Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland and Louisa Degenhardt of the University of New South Wales, Australia, say cannabis slows reaction times and increases the risk of accidents, causes bronchitis, interferes with learning, memory and education and, most seriously, may double the risk of schizophrenia. Yet these effects have failed to dent its popularity.”
A comment that followed this article is pertinent: “If there has been an increase of schizophrenia at all in the West, and it can be established that there is a correlation with cannabis, couldn’t it be that cannabis makes a person see things more clearly? And seeing things more clearly, makes a person vulnerable and uncertain.
“And considering the utter and sheer stupidity of modern politics, I would definitely become schizophrenic if I had to grow up in these times. I would like to suggest that schizophrenia is first of all caused by a political system that is based on lies, distortion of reality, egoism, greed and most of all, a consistent lack of morality.
“If our enlightened leaders had put just as much effort in fighting the disastrous effects of alcohol abuse, just think how many lives could have been saved….”
Read the details about the study here…
And here…
So what can be done? Despite stringent laws that the Western world has, a country cannot put such a huge population behind bars. In fact, the first question to be asked is why so many people are turning to drugs? Is there something basically wrong with the manner these countries are being run? We generally look at the symptoms and not at the real disease.
Or, is there a conspiracy to make such a highly popular natural drug illegal so that the mafia, and their benefactors in high places, rake in the mullah? British actor David Niven recalled in his wonderful book “Moon’s A Balloon” how he indulged in bootlegging in America during the prohibition days there.
No one dare question the dangerous side-effects of certain drugs produced by the pharmaceutical industry, which is said to be most powerful and, in terms of profit-making, next only to the arms manufacturing industry.
Alcohol and medical drugs manufacturers are encouraged to glamorize their products and seduce the most vulnerable population. It is only recently that stricter warnings have been implemented on cigarette packets. So we now have powerful alcohol, medical drugs and tobacco lobbies who would not allow any competition. These well-entrenched lobbies influence decision-making at the top worldwide.
Says a Wikipedia entry: “Cannabis was criminalized in the United States in 1937 due to Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. Several theories try to explain why it is illegal in most Western societies. Jack Herer, a cannabis legalization activist and writer, argues that the economic interests of the paper and chemical industry were a driving force to make it illegal.
“Another explanation is that beneficial effects of hemp would lower the profit of pharmaceutical companies which therefore have a vital interest to keep cannabis illegal. Those economic theories were criticized for not taking social aspect into account. The illegalization was rather a result of racism directed to associate American immigrants of Mexican and African descent with cannabis abuse.”
Wikipedia also provides details about various issues under discussion. For example: “No widely accepted study has ever demonstrated a cause-and-effect relationship between the use of cannabis and the later use of harder drugs like heroin and cocaine.
“Cannabis is indigenous to Central and South Asia. Evidence of the inhalation of cannabis smoke can be found as far back as the 3rd millennium B.C., as indicated by charred cannabis seeds found in a ritual brazier at an ancient burial site in present day Romania.
“Cannabis is also known to have been used by the ancient Hindus of India and Nepal thousands of years ago. The herb was called ganjika in Sanskrit. The ancient drug Soma, mentioned in the Vedas as a sacred intoxicating hallucinogen, was sometimes associated with cannabis…”
If governments and the United Nations are seriously worried about public welfare/health they should work towards stopping illegitimate wars, hunger and famine that create mass suffering, killings and tragedies. Thoughtless, shortsighted and greedy acts and deeds of governments create ripe climate for increased consumption of intoxicants, the more potent the better.
6 Responses to “Cannabis: Young & Old Love To Go To Pot”
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One need not travel to China to find indigenous cultures lacking human rights or to Cuba for political prisoners. America leads the world in percentile behind bars, thanks to ongoing persecution of hippies, radicals, and non-whites under prosecution of the war on drugs. If we’re all about spreading liberty abroad, then why mix the message at home? Peace on the home front would enhance global credibility.
The drug czar’s Rx for prison fodder costs dearly, as life is flushed down expensive tubes. My shaman’s second opinion is that psychoactive plants are God’s gift. Behold, it’s all good. Canadian Marc Emery sold seeds that enable American farmers to outcompete cartels with superior local herb. He’s being extradited to prison, for doing what government can’t do, reduce U.S. demand for Mexican.
Only on the authority of a clause about interstate commerce does the CSA (Controlled Substances Act of 1970) reincarnate Al Capone, endanger homeland security, and throw good money after bad. Administration fiscal policy burns tax dollars to root out the number-one cash crop in the land, instead of taxing sales. America rejected the plague of prohibition, but it mutated. Apparently, SWAT teams don’t need no stinking amendment. Father, forgive those who make it their business to know not what they do.
Nixon passed the CSA on the assurance that the Schafer Commission would justify criminalizing his enemies, but it didn’t. No amendments can assure due process under an anti-science law without due process itself. Psychology hailed the breakthrough potential of LSD, until the CSA shut down research, and pronounced that marijuana has no medical use, period. Drug juries exclude bleeding hearts.
The RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993) allows Native American Church members to eat peyote, which functions like LSD. Americans shouldn’t need a specific church membership or an act of Congress to obtain their birthright freedom of religion. John Doe’s free exercise of religious liberty may include entheogen sacraments to mediate communion with his maker.
Freedom of speech presupposes freedom of thought. The Constitution doesn’t enumerate any governmental power to embargo diverse states of mind. How and when did government usurp this power to coerce conformity? The Mayflower sailed to escape coerced conformity. Legislators who would limit cognitive liberty lack jurisdiction.
Common-law must hold that adults are the legal owners of their own bodies. The Founding Fathers undersigned that the right to the pursuit of happiness is inalienable. Socrates said to know your self. Mortal lawmakers should not presume to thwart the intelligent design that molecular keys unlock spiritual doors. Persons who appreciate their own free choice of path in life should tolerate seekers’ self-exploration.
Thank you for this well written and insightful article. Having lived under prohibition my whole life, I can see clearly that the 'war on drugs' is the cause of horrific suffering and gross injustice. Any sane, intelligent person can easily understand this, but still the entrenched war profiteers stand in the way of an easy solution. I am not saying that indiscriminate drug use is OK, only that the current system causes far greater harm, and can never be the solution.
“Canadian Marc Emery sold seeds that enable American farmers to outcompete cartels with superior local herb. He’s being extradited to prison, for doing what government can’t do, reduce U.S. demand for Mexican.”
That's somewhat specious, but I agree wholeheartely that Mr. Emery shouldn't be extradited to the USA and be put in prison here. While I'm not naive or the anarchic equivalent of a toddler in demanding people can do whatever they want, I'm against all the wrongful parts of the Drug War (which includes not only the use of incarceration when it's not warranted, or at least constitutes an expensive misuse or overuse of scarce, expensive, dangerous facilities that should be re-examined as part of a set of reforms of our criminal justice system, but also the practice of civil asset forfeiture, i.e., property seizures, with inversion of presumption of guilt — you have to prove your money and other property are yours and to prove a negative, that they were not obtained through any involvement with illegal drugs, to get your things back). The federal-versus-state nature of the laws is another host of problems. As for marijuana itself, this is probably the one drug most deserving as well as likely someday of decriminalization. (It's naive at least to insist that all drugs of all kinds be treated the same.)
Good post, good comments. One correction: According to USDA, pot is our #3 cash crop, after soy and corn and ahead of wheat. Wheat. The bread of life. What nation in its right mind makes its #3 cash crop illegal, black market and tax-free? Then spends $30,000 or so a year each to incarcerate those who use it anyway. We could kill the black market, source of all drug-related crime, overnight. We could have a tax on it that makes tobacco tax seem like a bargain. Swell the federal coffers, relieve staggering amounts of state debt for incarceration, police and court costs. The fact we have not, and that we are on a path of decriminalizing rather than legalizing, seems to me a pretty strong argument that fiscal reasons are at play, that wealthy and powerful interests have a vested interest in keeping it illegal. At least the decriminalizing will relieve some of the burden on police, courts and prisons. Here in Colorado, simple possession (a class 2 petty offense) is a lesser crime than littering (a class 1 petty offense).
Good article. The time to legalize weed is way overdue.