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It's the cannabis ban that is dangerous
Alun Buffry The Observer On-Line
Thursday 01 Aug 2002 Section: On-line letters extra 1. I would like to challenge Miss Greenfield to prove that my reason has been permanently damaged (or even temporarily). I have been smoking cannabis for over 30 years - sometimes in copious amounts - during which time I have graduated in Chemistry, written several books that have been published as well as a large number of published letters, obtained a diploma in computing and authored several major web sites. I have also been to prison for cannabis where there was also plenty to smoke and where I worked for charity fund-raising and organized fun days for well over 2000 mentally disadvantaged people. My reasoning is quite simply: the effects of cannabis on an individual are a matter of health, not law. By continuing to criminalise the production (at home) and supply of the plant to the many millions of users who do use it to no harmful effect does nobody any good. I would also like to make my own claim: that locking oneself away in a laboratory at a University is likely to permanently damage one's thought processes far more than cannabis. - Alun Buffry National Coordinator, Legalise Cannabis Alliance, Norwich 2. Cannabis harmful? I have been smoking grass regularly for over 25 years now. I have taught in universities and training colleges, and now work for an examination board. I smoke it because I like the effect and it helps me to focus. I don't touch tobacco (nasty filthy stuff with minimal buzz - what on earth do people get out of it?), and a pipe of good grass is the most effective way I've ever discovered of sobering up after a few glasses of wine if I'm then going to drive. Young people and cannabis? When my son was 14 he came to visit me one weekend with 3 of his school friends. They wanted to get drunk. They got rather silly, and ended up spewing all over the garden and the bathroom. It was a very boring evening. A few months later they came to stay for another weekend. This time they wanted to get stoned. We ended up having a wonderful evening, discussing their hopes for the future and playing music together. Thank god, I thought, he's discovered a civilized drug at last. Name and address supplied 3. No one I've ever known claims that cannabis and alcohol are the same. The claims made by aficionados of the happy weed are that it is significantly better than booze for several reasons. One of which is there is no hangover the next morning. And another being that the buzz one gets is mellower, hence the rarity of grassed up thugs as opposed to boozed up lager louts. Bruce Tober by email 4. Susan Greenfield states that cannabis users are "Characteristically...depleted of motivation." How, exactly? By their answering the question "Do you think it's important to earn £40,000 a year?" with the response "Not very"? Could it be that cannabis smokers are self-selectively persons who are not "motivated" to conduct their lives in a way dictated by others? Or that they disproportionately belong to social groups that see their prospects of conventional career success as unlikely? Martin Hancock Manchester 5. The true danger of cannabis is the fact that it is illegal. As a citizen of the United States we have more than 700,000 cannabis arrests annually, eighty percent of them for mere possession. This costs America approximately 10 billion US dollars a year to process and deal with such arrests, where the "criminal" is arguably hurting no one but himself. Kevin Okabe California 6. Suspicions that cannabis may be harmful to the person who uses it -- so far unproven -- do not justify arresting, prosecuting, fining or imprisoning people for using it. The same sort of arguments that are used to show that cannabis is harmful (and of course it is not a totally benign substance) could equally be used of tea or coffee. Should we then imprison people who sell tea and coffee, or come to that alcohol and cigarettes? Thousands of people across the world languish in prison thanks to the cannabis laws. Some are in jail for life, some even face execution. Nothing in Baroness Greenfield's argument justifies this massive abuse of human rights. Meanwhile, nearly a tenth of Britain's population smoke cannabis on a regular basis. If the stuff is as harmful as she suggests, then surely some form of harm reduction strategy would be in order -- encouraging people to smoke it without tobacco for example, or to use vaporizers -- rather than continuing to persecute its users. Daniel Jacobs London 7. Let's imagine cannabis had been legal up to now. Would there be a serious case for introducing a ban? Susan Greenfield's claims about the health risks might give a user something to think about, but they certainly don't justify singling out cannabis for suppression. As with tobacco, alcohol, fatty foods etc. it would be enough for the Dept. of Health to warn us of the potential risks. Ms. Greenfield argues that ending prohibition now would send out the wrong "signals" to the public. However in a civilized country the government doesn't issue its health advice via the criminal courts. We need to remember that every year cannabis prohibition leads to hundreds of blameless people losing their liberty. That is far too high a price to pay just to send a message. Antonio Torrisi London 8. I have regularly been using cannabis to counter the pain associated with a neurological disease for well over a year. I tried after the pain didn't go away anymore with stretching, exercise, using Transcutaneous Spinal Electroanasthesia (TSE) and trying eight different types of prescription painkillers. I thought cannabis would help, as I remembered football injuries didn't hurt after a joint when I used to smoke recreationally 20 years ago. Often nowadays I find it's the only thing that helps. That's my little contribution to the hundreds of years of human experience concerning cannabis. Its bad enough being ill, worse that the only thing that takes away the pain makes you a criminal & leaves you open to the nastier side of the state. Colin Yates London
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