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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Cannabis Decriminalisation - the facts
Canna Zine Sunday 08 Jun 2008 Having clicked on to this page I assume you're curious about the debate one way or another. And you've therefore almost certainly already heard - or used - the following arguments against legalisation. It's a 'gateway' drug. It leads to use of hard drugs like cocaine and heroin. OK, let's do a survey here. How many people out there have smoked dope? Hands up. Now, how many of you have since gone on to heroin? Hands up again. Personally, my hand stayed down for that second question and so I assume, did Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, Home Office drugs minister Vernon Coaker, leader of the Conservatives (and soon to be Prime Minister?) David Cameron, and also (to a lesser degree) new Mayor of London Boris Johnson. All of whom admit to 'experimenting' with cannabis in the past. There is nothing inexorable about drug use. I've been smoking weed, on and off, for about 12 years now and I'm still waiting for my inevitable move onto hard drugs - indeed, any other drug at all. However, it is often true that when surveying cocaine or heroin addicts, it is generally the case that cannabis was their first illegal drug of choice. Fair enough. But just because there is an association between starting with cannabis and moving onto heroin, this does not mean there is a causal relationship. One could just as easily say that alcohol is a 'gateway' drug, as most heroin addicts have touched alcohol at some point in their lives - and we can buy that from the shop down the road. It's the very fact that cannabis is illegal that may be the strongest factor in associations between heroin use and cannabis use. By forcing the user to criminalise him or herself in order to get supplies of cannabis, the system also forces the user to come into contact with a culture in which other drugs, especially Ecstacy and acid, but also coke and smack, are being traded. If you hang around with people who smoke pot, chances are you're also going to be hanging around with people who drop pills and maybe snort coke. Separate the two out - by, for instance, having tolerated outlets for selling weed, as in Amsterdam, and you break this connection and maybe make it less likely that cannabis will act as a 'gateway'. Fact is, there are millions - literally - of cannabis smokers out there who have never touched anything harder "inevitability" of hard drug use following on from smoking weed is MYTH NUMBER ONE. Yes, it has happened in some cases. But that's the variety of life - it will continue to happen whether or not cannabis is legalised. This problem belongs in the debate about heroin use, not cannabis use. It'll just lead to more widespread use. We'll become a nation of dopeheads. First of all, this argument contains the inherent point that increased use of cannabis is A Bad Thing. Pointing this out to people usually results in anything from a bemused stare at best to foaming-at-the-mouth fury at worse. "Of COURSE it's bad, you idiot!". But is it? No-one has ever died from an overdose of cannabis. The amount needed to kill you compared to the amount needed to produce active effects (i.e., get you high) is something like 10,000 times as much, maybe more. You certainly get sick if you've had too much, and there can be psychological effects (see below), but physically, cannabis is a very safe drug. Compare this to alcohol, where the ratio of fatal dose to active dose can be as low as 10:1 in some cases. The long term effects of alcohol use are also more damaging. Alcohol-related deaths run into the tens of thousands every year in Britain alone, and this does not include people killed by drunken drivers, beaten up by pissed-up rednecks (or husbands), etc. etc. Cannabis, on the other hand, reduces violent tendencies. If both cannabis and alcohol were illegal but there was a choice of legalising one, I know which one I'd choose. And perhaps this is closer to reason cannabis isn't legal? But those arguments are put again and again by pro-cannabis advocates, and I know no anti-drug mouthpiece ever really listens to them. So let's assume, for a moment, that reducing cannabis use is your aim. In that case, why keep it illegal? If the aim of keeping it illegal is to reduce use, quite simply, this is a strategy that is failing, all over the world. A recent report estimated that in Britain, 1 in 3 of all adults under the age of 35 had smoked cannabis at some point in their lives and half of all these - that works out at about 4 million people - had done so in the last month. That's a hell of a lot of use. (It's also worth using as an argument in its own right) What legal penalties do is deal only with the symptom of drug use and not the cause which is a classic failure of government policy in just about any field you care to mention. Why do people take cannabis? Simple. Because it's an enjoyable drug. Sounds so obvious when it's said yet this bare fact is almost never addressed by anti- (or sometimes even pro-) drug campaigners. Another fact however: it has some negative effects. It can cause psychological problems such as lethargy, loss of memory, paranoia and apathy, though these are almost never permanent and will fade within days of giving up the drug, even for the heaviest smoker. Excessive use can retard social skills and the ability to perform tasks requiring hand-eye co-ordination or numeracy, but again, none of these are permanent. But, simply, we're not allowed to have a rational debate about cannabis because it's illegal. Pointing out that, actually, people smoke not because they're deprived, or alienated, or rebellious, but simply because pot is often a useful and enjoyable experience, is treated as akin to heresy. Yet it's the truth. What we need - again, assuming that reduction of drug use is the aim - is clear, impartial, rational information on the pros and cons of drugs, as is generally given out for alcohol. Merely loading on the negative does nothing to prevent the teenager experimenting, for they hear one thing from "authority" and another from friends who have a different idea of "truth". In the end, the teenager realises authority is talking bullshit. If authority treated its citizens like adults, and said - "look, it's up to you what you do with your body as long as you don't hurt anyone else: here are the pros and cons, we trust you to make up your own mind", not only might we have a more sensible drugs policy, we'd have a better opinion about authority full stop. If only. It causes psychological and physical problems. Legalise it and no-one'll get up in the mornings. We've dealt with some of this argument in the previous section. Yes, cannabis does cause some psychological and physical problems, but that's because it's a drug, just like alcohol, tranquilisers and so on, all of which are freely available. Above the age of 18 we are (supposedly) responsible adults. We can vote, we can drink alcohol, we can have children, and as responsible adults surely we have the right to assess risk for ourselves, based on full and accurate information about the pros and cons of any given activity. The reason I put this in as a separate section has a lot to do with having watched a mid-afternoon studio discussion programme on BBC2. One of the pannelists was Jan Betts, a noted anti-drug campaigner in the UK (her daughter Leah died from taking an Ecstacy tablet at a nightclub aged 18). She pointed out that cannabis is an undesirable drug because it makes people "lose their respect for authority - they won't get up in the morning if they can buy it in the shop". The irony of that comment wasn't lost on me. What she was saying, basically, was that cannabis leads to people thinking for themselves, and this is a bad thing!! God forbid that we should ever allow the people access to a drug that might stop them blindly accepting the shit we're fed every day by the press and government! Heaven help us if suddenly people reject the work ethic bullshit (work, consume, be happy, we'll look after you, we have your interests at heart)! Oh my God - a drug that gives people independence of thought, flexibility of mind! Ban it, ban it now! Generalisation is the death of any argument. Look, after a night out on the booze, I'm sure we all know how hard it can be to get up in the morning then. But we do get up, because most of the time, life is worth getting up for - and if it's not, that's not the fault of the alcohol, it's the fault of life itself. I'll present my case again. I've held down a 25K a year job at age 21. I got a first class BA degree whilst working part time to support myself. I'm now doing a PhD and I've published academic papers. And throughout almost all that time I've smoked cannabis, not every day, but regularly. I get up in the morning because my life, my family, my friends and my job give me reason to get up. If your teenage son or daughter can't be bothered with life, don't blame cannabis. Look at yourselves. It'll just make it even easier for evil dealers to target our kids. Ah, the shadowy evil dealer, pushing drugs outside the school gate. Now, there's no smoke without fire. These people are out there and I'm sure that, like me, you'd like to see them off the streets. So legalise it. If you can buy weed in the shops, why the hell do you need to come into contact with these people? These are the 'gateways' (see above), not the drugs themselves. Besides, this "evil dealer" is a pretty substantial myth in its own right. Here's a simple fact for you: three-quarters of ALL cannabis users get their drugs from friends, not "dealers" (UK Govt figures). The wonderful thing about cannabis is that you can grow your own and bypass the market entirely - it's a very anti-capitalist drug! Which, incidentally, is probably another reason why big companies aren't keen to see it legalised without strong restrictions on home-growing, in order that their monopoly on supply wouldn't be threatened. I'm not suggesting, and I don't think any pro-cannabis advocates are, that we simply toss joints out onto the streets and into the shops like M & Ms. What I would like to see is at least an admission that cannabis and alcohol are equivalent. That is, restrict cannabis purchases to over-18s buying from certain tolerated, or even licenced, premises only. This is basically the system that operates in Amsterdam, and believe me, the fabric of society there is not crumbling. There is one argument against legalisation that comes out of this, and to be honest, it's the only anti argument I can think of. Simply legalising, especially if this is accompanied by strong licencing restrictions (which it probably will be), leaves the door open for a wholesale commercialisation of the scene. The price of an eighth has been constantly 15 UK pounds since I've been smoking - how many other commodities have not changed their price in 12 years!? You can bet this won't last after legalisation, not when the tobacco or pharmaceutical corporations get involved. You can also bet that, although they'll deny it (just as they do with alcohol and cigarettes), there will be a marketing push aimed at getting young people smoking. This I would be against, not because I'm against smoking, but because I believe everyone should be free to make their own decision, based on impartial, or at least accurate information given for the purposes of education, not profit-making. With that in mind, that's why I believe decriminalisation on the Dutch model is the way forward, not immediate and full legalisation. But my overall response to this argument is this: Cut out the dealer! Decriminalise and grow your own! Summary. Cannabis is not a gateway drug. Even if it is true that most heroin users have also used cannabis, this could be a) also true of other substances such as alcohol and b) an association rather than a causation. Legalise cannabis and cut it free from the hard drug subculture. Cannabis is a safer drug than alcohol. It leads to less deaths direct and indirect, suppresses the violent tendencies that alcohol releases, and has fewer long-term effects on health. Let's have a sensible statement of pros and cons. Sure, cannabis use can cause problems: but there are also benefits. Decriminalise, then we can have a sensible debate, presenting information so responsible adults can make up their own minds about what they do with their bodies. Four million people in the UK have used cannabis in the last month. Society is not disintegrating as a result. And compare this to foxhunting, the banning of which its practitioners believe will lead to negative effects on society as a whole. How many people have hunted with hounds in the last month? Even if it's as many as 40,000, that's only 1% of the number of cannabis smokers. Lines drawn around legislation are often arbitrary. Are you saying that each and every one of these 4 million is a desperate loser, a waster, a drop-out? Bollocks. Most of them will be people you know, holding down good jobs, good lives, good families. Let's look at the empirical facts - cannabis use exists, and is not doing the UK any harm. Nor is Holland a country sinking into a pit of cannabis-inspired debauchery, and they decriminalised it 30 years ago. The "evil dealer" is another myth. Most people buy from friends. Cut out the dealers that do exist by decriminalising and encouraging people to grow their own. Even if you don't agree with me and are now angry enough to need a stiff drink. I leave you with this line: it isn't mine, but unfortunately, I can't remember who said it: A CRUTCH IS A CRUTCH, WHETHER IT'S MADE OF WOOD OR ALUMINIUM Adapted for the Canna Zine from material originally written by Drew Withers http://pr.cannazine.co.uk/content/view/341/27/
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