Why is Cannabis still illegal?

[Cheese Mechanic]

Oakey said:

Do you think we should ban tobacco then?

Which is very likely as to why they will not legalise Cannabis, easily seen to encourage smoking , something the politico's have been going to great lengths to discourage over the past years.

As for Alcohol, moderate amounts will do no harm, abuse of same will do though, like many things.

I know several people who have dabbled with weed, domne them no apparent harm, however, in one case, the only heavy user I know, is gradually showing very eratic behaviour. Coincidence? I'm inclined not to think so.

Edited by Cheese Mechanic on Thursday 30th July 14:02

[BJG1]

blindswelledrat said:

Interesting description.
A friend of mine was sectioned recently following drug addiction and mentalness and he was diagnosed with "self destructive personality disorder" or similar. Effectively saying that the mental illness caused the drug addiction and not the other way around.
Still unsure about it really.
I was also unsure whether it was a good thing to tell a drug addict that it is not his fault and he cant help it.
However he seems to be getting better so maybe my gut instinct of "what a load of psychiatric bks" was wide of the mark

I think most addiction, if not all, is a result of underlying trauma or mental health issues. It's a symptom not the illness.

Did you know, for example, that victims of child abuse are more likely to become addicts in later life than obese people are to develop heart disease?

[Frybywire]

FredClogs said:

There does seem to be a fairly strong consensus of the positive benefits of weed for minor pain relief, relief from stress and anxiety and as a useful muscle relaxant, the argument being so strong and supported that it led to the revolution of cannabis laws in several US states. There is also rising medical evidence of the benefits of cannabis oil in the treatment of cancer.

The mother of a very good friend of mine.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8AffIZssL4

[ofcorsa]

Cheese Mechanic said:

Which is very likely as to why they will not legalise Cannabis, easily seen to encourage smoking , something the politico's have been going to great lengths to discourage over the past years.

As for Alcohol, moderate amounts will do no harm, abuse of same will do though, like many things.

I know several people who have dabbled with weed, domne them no apparent harm, however, in one case, the only heavy user I know, is gradually showing very eratic behaviour. Coincidence? I'm inclined not to think so.

Edited by Cheese Mechanic on Thursday 30th July 14:02

I imagine its no coincidence that an erratic person is drawn to excessive drug taking.

[wc98]

jogon said:

C0ffin D0dger said:

Twenty years ago I'd be totally in the legalise it camp, used to enjoy a good smoke from time to time. However it did lead me to have a few episodes which you might argue could be unrelated to the dope but if nothing else it only helped to heighten my anxiety and paranoia at the time. Spent several months dealing with panic attacks and I'm not sure that once you've experienced that sort of thing that you're ever quite the same again. I can now identify the onset of a panic attack early on and do something about it, luckily I don't have them often if at all. Gave it up a long time ago and not sure I'd want to smoke it now as looking after two young kids is hard enough without an altered consciousness (sleep deprivation aside). So purely based on my experiences I'd say the long term issues to the mental health of users is real and should therefore be considered carefully before making it more readily available.

I would classify it as a gateway drug also, not saying I got offered heroin or crack but at that time cannabis was just a part of the drugs culture. Obviously ecstasy was the thing back then and of course whoever I was buying my weed of would have other stuff available. Consequently tried ecstasy, LSD, speed and cocaine at various times although was never the type to be out "partying" ever single weekend but stuff like that was available if I wanted it. I suppose if it were legal that element would be removed, you'd just go to the shop to buy some weed and there wouldn't be anything else available to you.

Ever been to a hazardous drinkers meeting? I gave up booze recently, 8 weeks on Monday, and have been and the stories told of anxiety, panic attacks and subsequent self medicating with further alcohol which only exacerbates the problem is quite a common theme. Should we ban booze too?

i would suggest the additional use of stuff like lsd had more of an effect than cannabis did. the only long term smokers i know that ever had any problems also drank and took other drugs to excess,a common problem in scotland.

currently i would think use of cocaine is more prevalent than cannabis in most urban areas,it has become mainstream in the last decade,and the pub drug of choice all over scotland now,particularly among the young ,but not restricted to them. i have a mate whose oil industry working brother and sister in law get through several k worth of cocaine a month ,utter waste of money imo, but each to their own. they are in their 50,s and drink with a group of similar age and habits.

for me, one of the main reasons recreational drugs have never been legalised is down to who the profits filter back to. more politicians than we would think will be benefactors in some way or another. there is no way any industry dealing in billions per year is operating in this country without those at the top getting a slice of the pie,all imo of course.

personal opinion would say legalise cannabis and come down harder on stuff like coke, heroin and the misuse of prescription drugs like valium ,that are at epidemic levels currently in some areas.

[FredClogs]

Frybywire said:

FredClogs said:

There does seem to be a fairly strong consensus of the positive benefits of weed for minor pain relief, relief from stress and anxiety and as a useful muscle relaxant, the argument being so strong and supported that it led to the revolution of cannabis laws in several US states. There is also rising medical evidence of the benefits of cannabis oil in the treatment of cancer.

The mother of a very good friend of mine.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8AffIZssL4

That's incredible, it's not the only story similar that I've heard. I'm no doctor but it does seem that there is some anti inflammatory benefits to cannabis and the way it suppresses over active immune responses and helps things like rheumatoid arthritis seem almost incontrovertible, and we all know how it help appetite. If I was seriously ill I know what I'd prefer if it were a choice of cannabis oil or morphine.

[HRL]

BJG1 said:

HRL said:

Not really a strange argument. I wouldn't class magic mushrooms or MDMA at the same low harm level as weed. LSD has been linked with plenty of mental health issues and MDMA is only low risk in its purest form, very rarely the form that finds its way onto the streets.

Weed is safer and less harmful than alcohol, and that's a fact.

Magic mushrooms and MDMA are less harmful than alcohol, that is a fact.

I'm not sure why you've brought up LSD, I didn't mention it and the chemical make-up of it is completely different to Magic Mushrooms, you cannot conflate the two.

You're right, MDMA is only low risk in its purest form and that rarely makes it to the streets - that is exactly why it should be legal.

Yep, you're right. I meant it to read Magic mushrooms and LSD because much as the two are different drugs in themselves, the highs and side affects are/can be pretty similar. Both are far more likely to cause, or exacerbate, pre-existing conditions or introduce new problems with an individuals mental health as witnessed with my own eyes unfortunately.

Not sure I could say that 'shrooms and MDMA are less harmful than alcohol though. Sure, if the samples are medical grade then perhaps I'd concede the point, but if not you'd have no inkling of the strength of the active ingredients in either.

If the majority of people smoked, or better still vaped, weed instead of drinking alcohol, the world would be a nicer please to live in on Thurs\Fri\Sat in most towns in the UK.

[BJG1]

HRL said:

Yep, you're right. I meant it to read Magic mushrooms and LSD because much as the two are different drugs in themselves, the highs and side affects are/can be pretty similar. Both are far more likely to cause, or exacerbate, pre-existing conditions or introduce new problems with an individuals mental health as witnessed with my own eyes unfortunately.

Not sure I could say that 'shrooms and MDMA are less harmful than alcohol though. Sure, if the samples are medical grade then perhaps I'd concede the point, but if not you'd have no inkling of the strength of the active ingredients in either.

If the majority of people smoked, or better still vaped, weed instead of drinking alcohol, the world would be a nicer please to live in on Thurs\Fri\Sat in most towns in the UK.

Unfortunately there's been limited trials since the 60s due to Government legislation, but both LSD and Magic Mushrooms have had promising results in treating mental health conditions, in the right doses and under the right conditions. Their legalisation would surely lessen the negative impacts they have, not exasperate them. There was a recent test of LSD that showed in small doses it helps the terminally ill come to terms with death, for example.

Anecdotal I know but I've been on a few different antidepressants, tried different therapy and seen a fair few doctors, I can categorically state the most effective treatment so far has been a dose of shrooms every few months.

[Cheese Mechanic]

ofcorsa said:

I imagine its no coincidence that an erratic person is drawn to excessive drug taking.

Started taking it for pain relief purposes.Now around 40 , was visited by an extreme form of arthritis in her mid teens. This lead to a loss of leg and has been wheelchair bound now for near 20 yrs. Historically no more erratic than any normal person. The behaviour change is profound.

She has been growing her own for many a year.

[HRL]

@BJG1 Then I hope medical science gets whatever it can out of shrooms if it helps people but the main risk reason I'd cite for keeping them and MDMA illegal for recreational use is simply that there are many people out there that just don't know when to stop. Not an issue with cannabis fortunately.

Too many shrooms or LSD will cause permanent changes/damages. A friend of mine many years ago had a passion for shrooms and is now a confirmed paranoid schizophrenic. Unemployable and living with his parents for the rest of his days at this rate I suspect.

You sound like you know what you're doing so good luck to you but please don't overdo it.

[entropy]

I'm all for legalisation but skunk/super skunk worries me and I'm not sure whether it should be legalised.

[Gecko1978]

Oakey said:

Gecko1978 said:

you make a good point but I think it comes back to the "Fun" issue. From what I understand thalidomide (spelling) worked really well for morning sickness. There were some downsides though. It was not a fun drug so was band. Now you want a new drug to be legal which we know can cause illness. Why should it be legal whats the benefit of encouraging its sale and use. I am not sure putting people in gaol is helpful in these cases but having it on sale next to marlboro lights etc which we are trying to discourage use of is just not logical.

Perhaps better to study health effects of cannabis like we have with alcohol etc then tell people the truth i.e. slight risk of mental health issues, respiratory illness risk, and constant talking sh!t an going to petrol station late at night for munchies.

Erm, it's thousands of years old.

Lol my point was u want to make something now illegal legal so newly legal if you will. The plant itself i suspect is many 1000's if not millions of years old. Then again so is anthrax.

[FredClogs]

BJG1 said:

Anecdotal I know but I've been on a few different antidepressants, tried different therapy and seen a fair few doctors, I can categorically state the most effective treatment so far has been a dose of shrooms every few months.

There are doctors in the states using Ketamin as a therapeutic "cure" for depression and anxiety related disorders. It's another drug that is now widely used clinically but as a street drug can turn from a good time to a real problem very quickly.

[HRL]

entropy said:

I'm all for legalisation but skunk/super skunk worries me and I'm not sure whether it should be legalised.

Agreed. Legislation and legalisation would go some way to manage that though, surely?

[BJG1]

HRL said:

@BJG1 Then I hope medical science gets whatever it can out of shrooms if it helps people but the main risk reason I'd cite for keeping them and MDMA illegal for recreational use is simply that there are many people out there that just don't know when to stop. Not an issue with cannabis fortunately.

Too many shrooms or LSD will cause permanent changes/damages. A friend of mine many years ago had a passion for shrooms and is now a confirmed paranoid schizophrenic. Unemployable and living with his parents for the rest of his days at this rate I suspect.

You sound like you know what you're doing so good luck to you but please don't overdo it.

Yes, I agree that they are extremely powerful drugs and should be treated with the utmost respect and care. I just think the current law is grossly unfair on those who wish to take them, which is usually harmless and for perfectly legitimate reasons. A while ago I may have been transporting some through Kings Cross for me and some friends to take on a lovely countryside retreat. We sat around in the forest, chilling out on hammocks, having a nice trip, discussing life, the universe and in wonderment of the absolute beauty of the world around us. Had I been stopped and searched at the train station, I'd have been facing a maximum sentence on life in prison, that is grossly unfair.

[BJG1]

FredClogs said:

There are doctors in the states using Ketamin as a therapeutic "cure" for depression and anxiety related disorders. It's another drug that is now widely used clinically but as a street drug can turn from a good time to a real problem very quickly.

People only take Ketamine recreationally because other, better drugs like cocaine and MDMA are harder to get hold of/more expensive. If they had reliable access to those drugs I'd wager ketamine use would plummet.

[FredClogs]

BJG1 said:

FredClogs said:

There are doctors in the states using Ketamin as a therapeutic "cure" for depression and anxiety related disorders. It's another drug that is now widely used clinically but as a street drug can turn from a good time to a real problem very quickly.

People only take Ketamine recreationally because other, better drugs like cocaine and MDMA are harder to get hold of/more expensive. If they had reliable access to those drugs I'd wager ketamine use would plummet.

Google, there is a drought on at the moment and people are quite upset about it, it's a real drug of choice for some people and there are some serious addicts, addiction causes pain that can only be removed by more k, a vicious cycle some are too daft to recognise or powerless to stop. I don't know why people do this stuff, they'd be better not doing it but they do do it, a kidney/bladder transplant doesn't seem to be on my list of must do's but...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/29811499/k-b...

[Disastrous]

blindswelledrat said:

Disastrous said:

He seemed to be one of those people almost determined to defeat himself somehow. Nice bloke and wouldn't harm a fly but I saw firsthand the grief he put his parents through and wouldn't wish it on anyone.
.

Interesting description.
A friend of mine was sectioned recently following drug addiction and mentalness and he was diagnosed with "self destructive personality disorder" or similar. Effectively saying that the mental illness caused the drug addiction and not the other way around.
Still unsure about it really.
I was also unsure whether it was a good thing to tell a drug addict that it is not his fault and he cant help it.
However he seems to be getting better so maybe my gut instinct of "what a load of psychiatric bks" was wide of the mark

I live in Glasgow thus know several people with addictions/mental health problems and I'd say it's pretty universally agreed that an alcoholic, a drug addict, a gambling addict etc has a mental problem first and foremost and will cast about until the alight on something that caters to their addictive need.

It's also no coincidence that so many addicts find solace in religion or art etc on recovering as it allows them a 'healthy' addiction in place of a destructive one. I'm very close friends with a recovering alcoholic and he absolutely believes it's him, rather than booze that is the problem. He was fortunate in that he was always quite successful and functioned at quite a high level and after a bit of a burnout in his 30's was able to replace alcohol with a family, creative endeavours, meditation and suchlike. He's also right into legalising drugs and not banning things as he reckons it would have made fk all difference to him anyway and it's better if people hell bent on taking drugs can get access to clinically 'safe' product.

That's why I'm not really into banning stuff. I think most of these people will eventually find something they can use to self-destruct with. More effort spent channeling that wilfulness towards healthier areas that are more in sync with the rest of society is probably a more valuable use of time, I would have thought.

[Dragoncaviar]

BJG1 said:

I think most addiction, if not all, is a result of underlying trauma or mental health issues. It's a symptom not the illness.

Did you know, for example, that victims of child abuse are more likely to become addicts in later life than obese people are to develop heart disease?

Not just more likely, but there is a stronger correlation between childhood trauma and addiction than between obesity and diabetes.

I'll repeat that once more for those that missed it. There is a stronger correlation between childhood trauma and addiction than obesity and diabetes.

Child abuse is as likely to cause addiction as obesity is to cause heart disease.

We KNOW where addiction comes from. Our current policy of prohibition is inhumane to the extreme. We take the most vulnerable, needy citizens in our society, and we churn them through the system for profit. Our entire model of addiction is based on faulty assumptions drawn from flawed experiments on rats. If you put a rat in isolation with nothing but cocaine or heroin, 9 out of 10 of those rats use the substance until it kills itself. What no-one thought to ask was what happens if you put the rats in an environment that's not a fking prison. Well, would you believe it, a happy rat with external stimulus and other rats to play with doesn't choose the drugs - in fact, it avoids them.

All those initial rat-in-a-cage-with-drugs experiments proved was that "severely distressed animals, like severely distressed people, will relieve their distress pharmacologically if they can." - Bruce K. Alexander.



Now I'll directly address some of the issues in these posts ... but I'm not even going to touch on the guy that was talking about brain damage from cannabis. If you're that ignorant to the facts and simply pass it off as "Well I couldn't really be bothered to do the research" then you don't fking deserve an opinion.

So someone said it's still illegal because it's easy to grow your own and we'd cut out the tax market ... well, for starers, it's not easy to grow. It's a long, drawn out process involving detailed, careful monitoring of many variables, it takes time, and at the very least, effort. For most, it's a labour of love. As hippie as that sounds, you don't grow good weed if your heart's not in it. Even in the US where they have legal, large scale warehouse production going on, the best weed always comes from that one dude who's got 6 lights in his garage. This isn't just the opinion of myself, but of many industry experts and leaders.

As well as that, just look at the Colorado model. The NW Pacific has a long history of growing pot. Colorado had medicinal marijuana before it had recreational marijuana, meaning anyone with a med card could already grow their own - people know how to grow pot out there, and yet ... and yet the recreational market has flourished like no-one expected. So much so that they generated too much tax, and due to Colorado state law, the citizens are due a tax refund because legal pot made too much money.

The suggestion that it's illegal because legal cannabis might not flourish in the capitalist market is wildly inaccurate speculation which has been proven wrong where legal markets do exist.


Some people mentioned the possibility of cannabis being a gateway drug. These people are mistaking correlation and causation. This has been refuted time and time again with models where controlled supply of cannabis has been shown not to lead to an increase in use of other substances. Not only that, but the illegal market drives this. I mean, st, when I was buying lots of weed, I'd also get lots of coke too, cos my illegal drug dealer also has cocaine. I've never bought an illegal substance whilst buying whisky though.


Other people seem to be under the impression that we don't know the long term risks of cannabis, and oh if only it was a drug that had been used for hundreds of years like alcohol ... Well st. Would you look at that. The Babylonians worshipped a wine goddess in 2700BC, but we know that cannabis seeds have been used as food in China since at least 4000BC, we have written evidence of cannabis use from a Chinese emperor going back to 2727BC ... this plant has a longer history of human use than any other drug.

So aside from the fact that the toxicological profile has been studied extensively, and in the millennia of human use, we've never been able to attribute a single death to cannabis ingestion (yet alcohol use by WHO estimates kills nearly 7000 people a day (2.5m/year globally)), you can't simply spout the bullst you read in the redtop media, because, you see, they lie to you, and they profit from your ignorance.

I mean, for instance, we've all heard that cannabis causes schizophrenia, but how many of us actually know where this myth (and let's be clear, that's all it is) actually comes from? Let me elucidate for you ...

So in 2004, Tony Blairs government decided to downgrade cannabis from Class B to a Class C drug. This symbolic gesture was little more than that, but then, in 2009, it went back to a Class B drug, largely over some perceived risk of schizophrenia which was whipped up by the Mail and other redtop media (again, you really shouldn't read that st, it rots your brain). Now, at the time, Gordon Brown was telling us all about this study which showed just how TOTALLY SUPER DEADLY all this killer skunkabis was. The study he kept citing was a study from Keele university, entitled “Assessing the impact of cannabis use on trends in diagnosed schizophrenia in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 2005″.

Now for some reason, this study wasn't made public for a few months. Anyway, once they did make it public, it turns out not only did the redtop media lie to you, but SO DID THE POLITICIANS!?!? Nooo. Politicians lying to serve their own interests? That doesn't happen, they're there to SERVE us, right?! RIGHT?!

Well, they did lie, and if you actually read the Keele study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19560900 - I'll get a non-paywalled version if anyone wants it), you'll see that the study found quite the opposite to what the politicians were posturing ... they even went as far as to say: "The study cohort comprised almost 600,000 patients each year, representing approximately 2.3% of the UK population aged 16 to 44. Between 1996 and 2005 the incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia and psychoses were either stable or declining. Explanations other than a genuine stability or decline were considered, but appeared less plausible. In conclusion, this study did not find any evidence of increasing schizophrenia or psychoses in the general population from 1996 to 2005."

Twin this with the fact that CBD is an antipsychotic being studied for potential anxiolytic applications, and we can see that perhaps underlying issues twinned with THC:CBD ratios (as has been mentioned above by others) has far more to do with this than some mystical power to induce schizophrenia contained within cannabis.

Good. So the cannabis schizophrenia one is a myth we can finally all put to bed? Nice.

Next up, someone was mentioning something about drug laws being a deterrent ... well, again, wrong. People still use drugs in Dubai/UAE where they carry the death penalty. That's just about as extreme as you can get for a deterrent, and yet ... people still do it. The US does indeed make a habit of handing out outrageous sentences for silly crimes. Currently (June 2015) 48.6% of federal prisoners are in prison for drug offences. A good friend of mine's father is in state prison on a ridiculous sentence (99 years, maximum the judge could give, prosecution recommended 12 years) for a non-violent cannabis offence. You have to understand that the prison system is run for profit in the US. This means we are literally creating a demand for prisoners, and what easier way to get prisoners than to bust a bunch of vulnerable drug users, and lock them up and throw away the key because their prior offences mean that mandatory minimum sentences come in to play, and even if a judge wants to be lenient, he can't.

There were some other issues people brought up, but to be honest, when you've been arguing this st for over a decade and you STILL see people spout the same bullst misinformation time and time again, it starts to take its toll, and my enthusiasm dries up quicker than it used to these days.

Still though, without wanting to go too conspiracy nut on you, let's get to the root of the OP's question.


Why is cannabis still illegal?

Well, you say 'still' illegal, implying you know why it was initially made illegal. For those that don't know, it was racism and corporate interests that saw cannabis made illegal. Harry Anslinger was the head of the Bureau of Prohibition, seen as a crazy racist by the crazy racists of the day, and he realised that if he was to fulfil his aspirations, he'd need more than opium and cocaine to chase. He had an ally in William Randolph Hearst, who was a newspaper mogul that had recently invested heavily in paper mills, and saw the threat hemp posed to his investments. Thus, reefer madness was born, and we were told that marijuana would make all the white women love black men and society would crumble (again, racism).

So, why is it STILL illegal today, despite the fact that there's a plethora of evidence to suggest it's largely harmless, and the whole situation would be better treated as a health issue rather than a criminal one?

Simple. Corporate interest. The alcohol and tobacco companies know that if cannabis was legalised, their share of that legal drug market would drop. This hasn't just been hypothesised by the likes of David Nutt, but it's also been observed in places like Colorado.

As well as this, cannabis represents an interesting area for the pharmaceutical industry. I'm not saying it's a cure for cancer (yet), but it is absolutely a medicine which has promise in treating a whole bunch of illnesses and diseases. It's why GW Pharmaceuticals were given a monopoly license to grow high THC cannabis for medicinal purposes, and it's on that platform they've launched two products so far - Sativex, for muscle spasticity associated with MS, and Epidiolex, which is their CBD based medicine which is being used in epileptics.

Now, you can't patent a naturally occurring compound, and even if you could, there's something almost mystical about how cannabis works. The US has been churning out pharmaceutically pure THC (dronabinol) since 1983, but isolated, it doesn't have anything like the host of medicinal applications which herbal cannabis in its pure form has. The same can be said for CBD. Isolated compounds just aren't doing the trick here. Given that there are some 80 different phytocannabinoids found in cannabis, along with 100+ different terpenoids all found in varying concentrations and ratios ... and all potentially addressing different issues or deficiencies within the human endocannabinoid system ... we can see that the puzzle becomes a little confusing.

Now I've no proof for this, but I believe legalisation has been stalled for so long in the UK simply to give GW Pharmaceuticals the head start they needed. Cannabinoid based medicines are in their infancy. Western science only discovered the endocannabinoid system in the 1980's, and research is still in early days. It's going to be absolutely huge though, and currently, GW Pharmaceuticals are leading the world in terms of academic, peer reviewed research. Israel and their various government sponsored experiments are the only place which come close to what GW Pharmaceuticals have done. Even the US with all their 'Medicinal Marijuana' can't claim to have the knowledge or experience or data which GW do. I mean, Sam the Skunkman gave them their genetics. Rumour has it they've got a phenotype which clocks in at 44% CBD. That's the kind of thing you only find from popping 100,000's of seeds and testing every single one.

So perhaps pharmaceutical lobbying pressure plays a part in why cannabis is still illegal. Alcohol and tobacco lobbying most definitely does. The final one we should tick off the list is the prison industrial complex. This is more prominent in the US than anywhere else in the world, and I'm not really sure how much to say about it, so I'll leave you with a statistic and a graph:

The US represents 4.4% of the worlds population. They have 22% of the worlds prisoners.

[BJG1]

FredClogs said:

Google, there is a drought on at the moment and people are quite upset about it, it's a real drug of choice for some people and there are some serious addicts, addiction causes pain that can only be removed by more k, a vicious cycle some are too daft to recognise or powerless to stop. I don't know why people do this stuff, they'd be better not doing it but they do do it, a kidney/bladder transplant doesn't seem to be on my list of must do's but...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/29811499/k-b...

That doesn't contradict my assertion.