After tending to the plants this morning, spliff hanging from my mouth as I work, I paused to think. What would happen if the police were to walk in now?
I’d be dragged off, arrested, charged, and sent to court. Given my previous convictions, I’d probably receive a hefty fine and some community service (my grow isn’t large, but large enough).
Some of you may even think I deserve jail time for cultivating a few plants that have been grown for millennia. As a recreational user, it’s a risk I’m willing to take. But what about those people who really need cannabis?
Never trust propaganda with bad punctuation
For some people with MS, leukemia, Crohn’s disease or AIDS, being in ready supply of cannabis isn’t about getting high. It’s about maintaining their standard of living, managing pain, and being able to eat, walk and sleep. Depriving them of their only relief from debilitating ailments is a monstrous wrong.
Despite overwhelming evidence of cannabis’ safety compared to alcohol, tobacco, and almost every pharmaceutical drug, the law forces sick people to obtain their medicine from unscrupulous drug dealers.
Cannabis laws have roots in corporate corruption and racism. In the early 1900′s, there was rising tension over Mexicans entering the USA; incidentally, the Mexicans smoked a lot of cannabis. On the East coast, they were more concerned about black jazz musicians.
Rumours were proliferated by William Randolph Hearst, a media mogul with a vested interest in hindering the hemp paper industry to safeguard his investments in timber. Harry Anslinger, an ambitious Bureau of Narcotics agent, saw this opportunity to expand the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to police marijuana in addition to cocaine and opium. They used Hearst’s newspapers to instigate a furor, with lies more flagrant than the worst of today’s redtops.
Now, nearly 100 years later, medicinal users the world over are struggling to find medicine (or being arrested for growing their own). Non-violent recreational users are prosecuted for a victimless crime, prisons overflow, and billions are spent annually on enforcing laws that have failed. They aren’t going to stop my grow, but they will stop sick people getting what they need.
"Despite overwhelming evidence of cannabis’ safety compared to alcohol, tobacco, and almost every pharmaceutical drug,"
References? You make some good points otherwise, but I'm highly doubtful about the 'almost every pharmaceutical drug' bit.
I think he (or she?) is right… Almost every pharmaceutical drug has serious side effects, often possibility of lethal O.D. Cannabis, as far as I know, doesn't – I don't have a reference to hand, but I've read that the schizophrenia link has been distorted and exaggerated massively.
"Almost every pharmaceutical drug has serious side effects, often possibility of lethal O.D"
Really? Every drug? Paracetamol, Ibuprofen and aspirin don't have that serious side effects if I remember rightly, plus, a lethal OD is not a 'side effect' of a drug.
forgive me if I've misremembered, but Paracetamol has a terrible toxicity profile, causing liver damage with only small overdoses. I remember a bio natsci friend coming back from a summer lab spent testing liver cells with paracetamol and vowing never to touch the stuff again. Aspirin would never be allowed onto the OTC market if it was brought out nowadays, because it's side effect profile is enormous, and has some weird interactions.
The only safe one of those 3 is ibuprofen (which can still cause stomach ulcers if taken in large doses or for a long time) which (probably) has an enormous (and I believe unknown) LD50. For instance you can take 800mg (twice the packet dose) of ibuprofen every 4 hours for a whole day and have no side effects.
I took 'side effects' to mean possible effects from using pharmaceutical drugs in recommended and safe dosages. Of course if taken incorrectly or in large quantities they are unsafe, but routine and proper use of these drugs doesn't generally cause serious side effects.
even calpol?
Nah man, dem pills is bad innit.
Waheyheyheyhey! This here boy's a wee bit naughty! To be fair to the fella its for a good cause, like.
I've always thought that these "alcohol is worse than illegal substance X (Cannabis in this case, but I've heard the same argument for other drugs). Alcohol is legal. Therefore lets legalise substance X" are completely flawed to be honest. It's always seemed to me that the logical conclusion of that line of argument is to make alcohol illegal rather than make substance X legal, especially given that legalising substance X would just mean people would use it with alcohol (as opposed to instead of it which is necessary for that argument to actually work)
Yep, making alcohol illegal has a great effect on society. You have my full support.
I'm not saying we should actually ban it, I'm just pointing out that it's the logical conclusion of the above argument.
Why, given the harm caused by banning it, is the logical conclusion not to legalise cannabis? Especially since doing so has been shown to reduce use. Either your logic or morality is flawed, I believe.
Well you're a prick.
I always enjoy reading non-partisan articles.
This is the debate section, not news. I don't mind a little vested interest here, as long as the argument's convincing. This one is.
Cannabis should probably be legalised. Barring any nasty long-term effects that we aren't aware of, it doesn't seem to be any more harmful than tabacco or alcohol, so it's inconsistent to permit those and not cannabis. You don't have to condone it, but legalise it and slap a hefty tax on it. Undermine the illicit market and give the exquecher an early Christmas present.
An average article. Needs more detail and substantiation. Oh, and STOP treating the legalisation in medical contexts and general legalisation as if they were the same issue. They aren't.
yeah, you're right. it's not like cannabis has been linked to any debilitating psychoses or anything..
Actually, the Keele Study (which was what Gordon Brown used to justify the reclassification of cannabis to a Class B drug) very clearly says that there is no link in spite of rising numbers of users.
Try reading a little more than what the Daily Mail have to say on the topic next time …
http://www.ukcia.org/research/keele_study/Assessi…
I'd like to point out that, regardless of the article's content/author's views, you are in fact a criminal.
Extraordinary! On first reading it's not at all obvious, but now that you've made me aware of it I can't believe I didn't see it before.
CAMBRIDGE TOFFS ON DRUGS RAMPAGE
Twaaaaaaaat. never done anything illegal; ever? get off your high horse and return to either the pitt club or friendless natscis you belong with
Your bit about 'cannabis laws' is strange seeing as we're not in America. Also, trying to link your activities to medicinal cannabis is a bit lame.
Okay, possibly cannabis should be legalised for medical use.
However, that doesn't at all mean it should be legalised for recreational use. Cannabis has a number of nasty side-effects, including paranoia. Plus, it builds up in the fatty deposits of your brain and body, meaning that when you call on your fat reserves – like if you're running a marathon or in an exam – you get high. Great. Just what you need.
Also if you were caught growing cannabis you might be let off with a fine/community service, but it would damage your chances of ever becoming a doctor, lawyer, policeman etc.
No, it's broken down into non-psychoactive compounds when it's stored. You would not get high.
Paranoia is not enough to criminalise something. The only deaths it causes are just caused by the law
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/09/ramarley…
Legalising has been shown to reduce use, anyway. People seem to just ignore this fact because it doesn't seem like it would be true.
People should be free to do what they want with themselves if it doesn't have a negative effect on others. It should just be legal – it would make a lot of people safer, and could actually keep people away from the types that are more likely to be using other drugs.
<People should be free to do what they want with themselves if it doesn't have a negative effect on others.>
In that case, why don't we legalise all drugs? Arsenic over the counter for "recreational use"? Why not!
In reality drug abuse has a negative effect on the families and friends of the drug user, not to mention putting the strain on the taxpayer when the NHS foots the medical bill.
I think you may find that the 'war on drugs' costs the tax payer a LOT more. And drugs could be taxed, so they'd save us money. And legalisation has been linked with reduced abuse, so I don't think your 'LOL LEGALISE EVERYTHING?!' suggestion is quite as ridiculous as you make out.
Drugs are available anyway, anyone can get hold of them. If they were legal, it would all be a lot safer, and an awful lot of criminal gangs would lose an awful lot of power.
Well, there's definitely a case for legalising all drugs, and quite a compelling one in my view. But that's another debate.
Drug abuse is always bad, but cannabis can be used in moderation, just as alcohol can. As for the medical bill, I'd have thought that the cost of policing cannabis use is pretty hefty (and taxing cannabis would be a nice little earner for the government as well).
have you ever tried it?
While I generally agree to conditional legalisation of drugs I disagree with a number of your arguments.
Firstly Cannabis smoke contains similar carcinogen doses as tobacco smoke, but also can induce psychosis. Pharmaceuticals undergo incredibly rigorous testing processes and are immediately removed if dangerous side effects are detected (unless the diseases they are intended to treat are very serious and there are few other drug options, eg. chemotherapy for cancer). Pharmaceuticals also come with the correct doses labelled on them, side effects and warnings when they shouldn't be used, and are usually proscribed by a doctor.
Secondly the usage of cannabis medicinally should be limited to usage of purified compounds taken orally or IV, after thorough clinical trials and only as proscribed by a doctor. This has absolutely no bearing on whether it should be legal to possess and smoke the entire plant.
So psychosis is a "dangerous side effect", but liver toxicity from overconsumption of paracetamol isn't?
When was the last time you actually read the list of "Possible side effects" on any prescription medication you received?
The links between cannabis and psychosis have been vastly over-exaggerated by redtop media and politicians that want to keep the law the way it is. In the words of Prof. David Nutt, they are tenuous at best.
You might not be aware but pharmaceutical cannabis already exists in the form of "Sativex". The trouble is, Primary Care Trusts won't prescribe it because the UK Government has only issued one Home Office license to a company called GW Pharmaceuticals who now hold a complete monopoly on the industry and can charge what they like.
http://clear-uk.org/access-sativex/
The difference is that we know very well how much paracetamol will cause liver failure, and if you read the instructions on the packet and take as instructed, it won't happen.
Actually I generally make a point of reading the possible side effects. Most of them are short term and low probability or will only occur if you greatly exceed the proper dosage.
You may well be right about the psychosis link. Have any studies been done?
Concerning 'Savitex', no I hadn't heard of it, but I thought it's generally normal for a drug company which comes up with a drug to be the only company to sell it until the patent runs out, even if it's just a natural product which has been purified. The article you've linked seems to suggest that the primary care trusts are resisting its usage simply because it comes from cannabis, in which case that's the not the government's fault because they've made it clear that the product is legal.
The Keele study – the one Gordon Brown used to justify reclassification of cannabis (http://www.ukcia.org/research/keele_study/Assessing-the-impact-of-cannabis.pdf) found no link in spite of rising numbers of users.
Cannabis has been used as a medicine and recreational drug for many many hundreds of years, thousands even. Its safety profile and toxicity data is just as well known as that of paracetamol, and it's nigh on impossible to kill yourself or do any harm beyond some temporary paranoia (panic attack) through over-consumption of cannabis. There has never been a recorded fatality through cannabis consumption. Ever. Anywhere.
That's the thing though, GW pharmaceutical DIDN'T come up with this drug. It's just a solvent extraction, and pot smokers the world over have been smoking hashish (a cannabis extract) for hundreds of years, and in more recent times, BHO (butane honey oil – butane extraction rather than ethanol like GW Pharma prefer) and QWISO (isopropyl alcohol rather than ethanol).
Anyone with a bag of cannabis, some ethanol, peppermint flavouring and a little time could make "Sativex". It's not a complicated process, and GW Pharmaceuticals certainly weren't the first to think of the idea.
The article linked was just one of many, but if you speak to medicinal users, you will find the country over they're not being prescribed sativex because of the outrageous cost.
More to the point though, why do patients need a pharmaceutical company to extract and purify their medicine just because the UK can't get over this draconian morality issue when it comes to cannabis? Some medicinal users claim the plant itself when smoked is even more effective than sativex, as well as being cheaper, less harmful (ethanol is, after all, a toxic, deadly and addictive drug) and easier to produce.
". Plus, it builds up in the fatty deposits of your brain and body, meaning that when you call on your fat reserves – like if you're running a marathon or in an exam – you get high."
What the actual fuck are you talking about? This is complete and utter nonsense. Residual THC left over in fat cells is NO WHERE NEAR the amount that would be required for even a threshold dose.
And your argument about growing cannabis damaging your chance of becoming a lawyer or whatever because it's illegal is totally circular.
Troll or idiot.
I've got no idea about the first part, but the second part isn't circular, they're responding to two different parts of the article:
1. Cannabis should be legal
2. Cannabis growing does not CURRENTLY make you a criminal.
And in response to 2, er, yes it actually does.
There are much more indulgent ways to get struck off the medical register (but they all involve putting things in the mouth).
The Tab has gone to shit.
Well argued, I think. I don't think this article is necessarily geared up to justify the author's stance on smoking weed, so I'm not sure why people are attacking the basis of this article. As ever, this is a piece to highlight how recreationally smoking cannabis makes you a criminal but binge drinking dangerous amounts of alcohol is perfectly above-board.
There was also some stuff about medicine, but I'm too baked to contemplate those issues.
'I'm too baked to contemplate those issues'
I just wish the people suggesting that it's right for medical cannabis to be illegal had to sit face to face with chemo patients, close to death, being deprived of the one thing that works to fight their crippling nausea. I don't see how there could be an argument for that. I don't see how anyone can be a human being and at the same time suggest that those people deserve to be labelled as criminals.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKGn41-TObI
I would actually respect someone who stood up and said "I want it legalised because I want to get high without the fear of getting arrested." That's fair enough. All the 'medical' argument brings to mind is the image of some healthy guy with dreadlocks and a leaf t-shirt pretending that the interests of cancer patients are all he cares about.
For the record, I actually think it should be legalised and controlled. I just don't smoke it myself.
Arguments regarding "side effects" or safety should be completely separate from arguments regarding legality.
The safety of something to an aware consumer is completely detached from its legality, or so it should be in a free society. Its safety affects the end user, not society, and therefore should be the responsibility of the individual to decide on their own usage.
It's nothing short of upsetting to see (what I presume are) Cambridge students casually casting aside man's most important right, liberty, in favour of tenuous "but it's bad for you" arguments.
Why, because something is (at best, arguably) bad for me should I be legally prevented from taking this? If I administer my drug of choice in the quiet of my own home, wIll my actions do any harm to society, or anyone else for that matter? No.
This runs true for all drugs – yes, that includes heroin or crack. The negative societal side effects of drugs are a side effect of their illegality. Crime linked to drug usage is a function of drug criminalisation. When was the last time you heard of serious crimes being committed as a result of the NHS methadone programme?
In fact, if you are so concerned about personal well-being, and not just creating some Daily Mail idealist nation, you might consider that much of the personal harm done via administration is a side effect of illegality – ODing and administration of unclean or faked narcotics, for example. Is this more likely to happen when drugs are controlled by underground suppliers or when they are controlled by regulation and pharma companies?
There exists no good reason whatsoever, beyond a state-enforced morality, for the criminalisation of drugs. Personal harm done should not be a consideration – if I want to hurt myself, I'll do it, thanks very much. You know where you can stick your Evangelist moralities.
<if I want to hurt myself, I'll do it, thanks very much>
Next time you're about to jump off a building I'll just leave you there then. We should disband the Samaritans and other similar groups as stopping people from hurting themselves is clearly infringing their liberty.
a very low reading age. I made it explicitly clear that drug criminalisation is anti-liberty. The Samaritans are not criminalising anything/anyone.
Given that I am ostensibly pro-liberty, how did you manage to infer that I would have the Samaritans disbanded?
And next time I am about to jump of a building (which, fortunately for me, does not happen very often), please do leave me there. Judging by your comment, even in my suicidal state, I would be in a much better position to conduct a rational analysis of the situation.
So much wrong with this, I don't even know where to begin.
Three things:
Firstly, liberty is NOT just about doing whatever you damn well please. It is also about how much capacity to act in accordance with your wishes you have. Example: A person in a wheelchair is obviously in some important sense less free than a person who can walk.
Sometimes restricting personal choice in favour of increased capacity to act is actually better for our liberty overall. The NHS requires people to pay taxes to fund it. That's mandatory, and so a restriction of your liberty. But the trade off is you have a service that tries to ensure you enjoy all the capacity to act that a healthy body accords. Same with the police, except in addition to taxes we also surrender some of our freedom to act without being arrested, and the benefit we enjoy is relative freedom from others interfering with our lives through theft, assault, fraud, etc.
Secondly, assuming that you are not some kind of reclusive misanthrope (I'm not ruling out the possibility judging from how hostile you are to any kind of paternalistic interference), and you do in fact have people who care about you, like family and friends, then potentially self-damaging choices DO have an affect wider than yourself. Particularly if you intend to avail yourself of the NHS in order to mitigate that damage. If you do that, then you're making demands on the resources of society. If you had not chose to risk self-injury, then the resoucres used to treat you would have gone towards safeguarding the personal capacity of someone else. You are thereby curtailing the liberty of others in the form of the opportunity cost of treating you.
Thirdly, trying to link disagreement with your point to Daily Mail style moralising is cheap.
Basically what I'm trying to say is that you can be a staunch libertarian if you want, and be totally free to make your own choices. But part and parcel of that is forgoing the benfits we all enjoy in order to maximize our liberty (construed in the broad sense) by imposing SOME restrictions on personal choice. Might I suggest you try living in America, and see how much "liberty" the land of the free really affords its citizens?
None of which is to say I disagree with you. Given that the state has a balancing act between safeguarding personal choice and safeguarding capacity to act as two means of securing liberty, smoking weed probably falls into the category of those activities the state should permit (for my reasoning, see my post above).
FIrst reasonable response. Congratulations. Big fan of your argument. Totally accurate with reasons for leagalisation. Having chosen to inject in the past,my body, my choice to harm is you wish to call it that, my consequences with painful withdrawral. Hurt not even a modicum of society, had good times, bad times. But worth it, because I am the ONLY one who has the right to decide what I put inside me.
Stupid person. Stupid suggestion. Stupid argument.
Thank god we have your insights though, this article has been saved.
We can all stop commenting now guys, Voice of Reason's got it covered.
You upset me, now we are both in the wrong
What's wrong with the punctuation on that poster?
'With it's arms around your children'
We have enough of an obesity crisis as it is without legalising the munchies.
Crohn's is made WORSE by cannabis, not better, just sayin'
Simple simon simplifies.
http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.answers.p…
Left side is entirely anecdotal, right side is truthful. I'm pro-Cannabis legalisation, I have no problem with it, but it is completely disingenuous to try and tell people with medical conditions like Crohn's that it will help in order to help your case.
And yes, I do have it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUqX07JX_3c
I was going to comment on the tab, but then I got high
The first part of the article, i.e. how a student basically became a producer of (class C, admittedly) drugs showed a lot of promise. The second half was just another tedious rant about how weed isn't really dangerous. Snore.
Yes. Let's legalise Cannabis, that's a great idea.