(think she might be pocketing that)
I wrote this at university, so excuse some of the bad writing, its UK centric but does apply to US also:
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Humans have used cannabis for many centuries; the first recorded mention of the plant being used was in 2737BC in which cannabis is referred to as a “superior” herb by the world’s first medical text – Shen Nung’s Pen Ts’ao in China. There are also recorded uses of the plant by the Hindu’s in India as far back as 1400BC and it is believed to have first been cultivated in the UK as far back as 40AD at old Buckingham Mere.
Cannabis is commonly associated amongst today’s culture as a plant, which when dried and smoked produces a “high” psychoactive effect upon the user, this effect has been claimed to help stimulate creativity and even enhance the users enjoyment of music. In fact, the first Jazz musicians used cannabis extensively as they claimed that it helped them play and improvise to a higher standard. Furthermore many people suffering from crippling diseases such as multiple sclerosis have claimed that by using cannabis their pain is substantially decreased much more so than by using any conventional medicine. However the plant is also commonly associated with the “hippy, dopey” generation (perfectly personified in the character Shaggy from Scooby Doo) and has often been declared by many as a “gateway drug”. -Suggesting that it tempts people into trying other, harder drugs – such as heroin or crack cocaine. There have also been suggestions that it may increase the severity of mental illness – especially schizophrenia and lead to short term memory loss amongst heavy users.
However there is evidence that as far back as 70BC that cannabis was already being praised for its medicinal purposes by the then Roman emperor’s surgeon - Dioscorides. Furthermore the stalk of the plant has been used to make paper and other materials since as far back as 100BC. In fact there was already a hemp paper industry starting up in the UK by 1494AD and by 1563AD Queen Elizabeth I made it law that land owners with 60 acres or more would be fined 5 pounds if they did not produce hemp. In fact it was lawfully acceptable to use cannabis or grow hemp until 1928 in the UK when on September the 28th the “Dangerous drugs act” became law, making cannabis illegal. This was despite the fact that 16 years prior in 1912; at the second international meeting on drugs at the Hague, 46 nations decided there should be no law restricting the use of cannabis.
(From Mandeson.D. (1995) From Mr Sin to Mr Big, A history of Australian Drug Laws. Oxford University Press Melbourne).
So what is the truth – why is cannabis illegal? – is it really that bad for you that it must be prohibited? Does the law work? And what would happen if cannabis were legalised? - These are the questions that this investigation aims to address.
{All dates in introduction from: Christopher.R Montgomery.N (no date) A cannabis chronology: Cannabis Internet Activists Website (location unavailable). Available from: http://www.ukcia.org/culture/history/chrono.html- unless otherwise stated}.
Why is Cannabis Illegal?
The Egyptian influence
In order to answer this question we must first look back to see why cannabis was made illegal in the first place and then look at why it has remained so since.
Cannabis was completely legal until 1928 when the “dangerous drugs act” was passed in parliament, in fact until 1879 cannabis hemp was the most-cultivated non-food crop on earth and its fibber was the most traded commodity. However its production went into decline with the introduction of cheaper fibres such as cotton. Nevertheless an efficient cannabis processor known as a decorticator was created and cannabis hemp started to grow as a valid product in world trade.
After the First World War addiction to opiate narcotics was becoming a serious problem. So much so that the Governments of the western world decided to set up a conference to discuss the issue in 1924 in Geneva. Although set up to discuss the opiate drugs, the Egyptian delegate M. El Guindy raised the issue of addiction to hashish (a substance formed from dried cannabis) which he termed “chronic hashishism”. In a clearly carefully prepared address Guindy painted a terrible picture of how this addiction to hashish had affected his nation using claiming that the use of cannabis may be responsible for up to 60% of cases of insanity in his country:
“In general, the absorption of hashish produces hallucinations, illusions as to time and place, fits of trembling, and convulsions. A person under the influence of hashish presents symptoms very similar to those of hysteria…”
“The illicit use of hashish is the principal cause of most of the cases of insanity occurring in Egypt...”
“Generally speaking, the proportion of cases of insanity caused by the use of hashish varies from 3 to 60 percent of the total number of cases occurring in Egypt…”
Guindy at the 1924 Geneva conference
[Excerpts from Opium As A National Problem. – a paper documenting the Egyptian delegates speech at the 1924 Geneva conference for opiate drugs, provided via email from Howard Marks – no further information available]
Guindy’s speech worried the delegates from the other countries, who’s Governments were already concerned about the effect of addiction to the opiate drugs. Thus they needed to be seen to be taking a tough stance on all drugs that may cause detrimental effects to society. Cannabis was included in the list of prohibited substances – it became misclassified as a narcotic drug and due to the conditions of the conference law was passed (the dangerous drugs act in 1928) banning the use of cannabis along with heroin, opium and cocaine. However, there may have been other motives aside from the risk to the general publics health that contributed to the banning of cannabis. - Egypt had a large cotton exporting industry. When the decorticator was invented creating an upturn in the hemp industry it is only logical that the Egyptian Government would have been concerned that they may lose profit on one of their largest exports. Therefore it cannot be ruled out that this situation may have been influential in their decision to bring up the dangers of cannabis at the Geneva Conference. As by getting cannabis banned throughout the west – they would be minimising the damage an up turn in the hemp industry could cause their economy. However although cannabis was made illegal – hemp as a product was not and thus cannabis was still readily available to those who wanted to smoke it.
So cannabis was now illegal – but how did it remain so until the present day – how did people not realise that it was no way near as dangerous as the opiate drugs with which it had been lumped?
The power of…synthetic fibber?
In the late 1920’s Dupont (a multinational pharmaceutical and petrochemical giant) was ready to release a product in which they had invested many millions of dollars in development – Nylon. However with the advent of the sudden upturn in hemp production – the decision makers at Dupont became worried – seeing hemp as their biggest threat. Dupont had close ties with Harry Anslinger (–head of the FBI 1930-62) via its banker -Andrew Mellon who was a close relation of Anslinger.
Anslinger had previously worked for the US treasury Department enforcing alcohol prohibition. When the decision was made to admit its failure. (Perhaps via Mellon’s influence) Anslinger decided to pursue those who smoked cannabis or “marijuana” (as he termed it in order to de-associate it with hemp – a profitable product). This worked out perfectly for both parties – Anslinger kept his job (he became head of the newly formed Bureau of Narcotics – now known as the D.E.A) and Dupont had less to fear from the growing hemp market. Further more it gave Anslinger a reason to deal with the “Mexican problem” as cannabis was popular amongst Mexican workers in the south – Anslinger thought that by pursuing cannabis he could discourage Mexican immigrants from moving to America.
A man on a mission
Anslinger used the help of his friend Randolph Hearst, a rich newspaper tycoon, to begin a campaign of misinformation via posters and public service programmes. They made many ridiculous claims against the plant – ranging from the completely absurd: “that smoking cannabis could cause men to grow breasts” to the politically motivated: “cannabis was being supplied by the (communist) reds in order to undermine American society”. The success of their campaign cannot be underestimated – despite senior figures such as the mayor of New York’s outspoken outrage at their claims. Much of what they said in their public information films ingrained itself into the public knowledge and has frequently been quoted as fact and used as evidence in support of cannabis laws despite the lack of any significant evidence (example; the gateway drug hypotheses – see next paragraph). Anslinger’s campaign was so incredibly effective that by 1938 the US Congress passed the Marijuana Transfer Tax Act, unaware that what they were banning was hemp – a product they had been successfully trading in for years. This was excellent news for Dupont – they had just seen their main competitor completely wiped out. However when world war II started this policy had to change in order that they could produce the necessary fibre for war. Anslinger’s reefer madness campaign was dropped and replaced with “Hemp for Victory” in order to encourage farmers to grow cannabis. Furthermore, in the early 1940s the LaGuardia Report was published. It stated that;
"The use of marijuana did not lead to physical, mental or moral degradation and no permanent deleterious effects from its continual use…"
The war ended and Anslinger was worried. He needed a new angle, what he came up with was a twisted stroke of genius. He developed the “gateway drug” hypothesis (that using cannabis led to harder drugs – i.e heroin), this was incredibly clever as he could use the ever present public fear and awareness of addiction to the opiate drugs in order to create an irrational and misguided image of the effects of cannabis. He created an illogical myth that ingrained itself in the minds of the people throughout the western world and still lives on today. However – combining this claim with the notion that cannabis was being supplied by the communist “reds” hit home with many American’s who felt (ironically) that; by blindly adopting without question, the “facts” put forward in these public information films they were assisting in ridding the influence of the “reds” and thus supporting the very fundamentals that their country is built upon, as the saying goes: “America, the land of the free”.
Anslinger’s one-man crusade against the use of cannabis was incredibly successful. So much so that it widely affected world opinion, in 1961 he pushed for a worldwide treaty regulating narcotic drugs throughout the world, the UN agreed and the Single Convention Treaty was passed. Anslinger never stopped in his quest to tarnish the image of cannabis, even claiming that the reason for America’s poor performance in Vietnam was down to the soldiers smoking the wild growing cannabis whilst in action and thus mellowing them out and making them unable to kill. Anslinger died in 1975, his influence on western opinion regarding cannabis issues cannot be underestimated, he left behind a legacy of misinformation and myth, which still survives in the present day.
Information on Anslinger from Mann.R Vesta.S (1999) Grass: The history of the American Governments war on marijuana, more information at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0214730/.
To view some of Anslinger’s propaganda click these links, or go to the video folder on the cd.
THE TERRIBLE TRUTH / NARCOTICS / DRUG ADDICTION
Enter the hippy
After the convention in Geneva, law in Britain still allowed the use of cannabis for medicinal use. However as public opinion changed with the spread of these cannabis “myths”, created mostly by the onslaught of propaganda across the Atlantic in the USA, spread mainly by word of mouth. By 1954 parliament decreed that cannabis was no longer a lawful medicinal product. It is not known on what evidence this was based. Nothing much happened until Britain signed up to the 1961 (Anslinger pushed) UN Single Convention treaty. As a result of this treaty law was passed in Britain (1964-65 Dangerous Drugs Acts) in order to prohibit all transactions in cannabis – the hemp industry was dead.
However towards the end of the 1960’s, despite the Governments ever increasing anti cannabis stance, cannabis use was becoming ever more popular amongst the young. A new movement was taking place amongst the young - fed up with a history of bloody wars and inspired by the radical new music that was being created: the hippy’s had arrived. The main message of the hippy movement was a simple one: “peace and love”. As a result of cannabis’s mellowing effect on the psyche when smoked, the plant became increasingly popular with the hippy movement and before long the two came hand in hand. The Government responded to this with the Misuse of drugs Act (1971), this introduced a new way of defining law in response to drug use that still remains in use today. They divided drugs into three classes according to the harm they caused the individual when used – A (the worst) to C (the least harmful). Cannabis was placed into class B where it remained until very recently. The Government also decided to distinguish between possession of drugs and the supply when handing out punishments. As they saw it the way to tackle the drug problem was to hand out harsher punishments for those pushing the product. It can be said that this was a sensible policy to adopt with drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine but in terms of cannabis use this part of the law is irrelevant. This is due to the fact that cannabis is commonly used as a social drug – in that unlike cigarettes a “joint” or “spliff” is usually shared amongst a group of people instead of each person smoking their own. According to this new law – the act of passing one joint to another person counted as drug dealing. The youth saw this law as stupid and ineffective. Cannabis use continued to rise and the law in the UK remained largely unchanged until the 1992 Transport and Workers Act - that gave employers the power to do random urine testing on their employees in order to find out whether or not they were cannabis (or any other drug) users, was put forward. - Despite protests from civil liberties groups, the act was passed.
The dangers of cannabis use
Just a question
This is one of the most difficult questions this investigation aims to address, in that throughout the history of cannabis prohibition there have been so many absurd claims against the plant and tons of medical research that come to entirely different conclusions as now admitted by the Government on their anti-drugs website:
“The evidence for cannabis as a “gateway” drug, which leads on to other drug use is inconclusive.”
A million methods
Cannabis can be taken in four main ways, smoking it in a “skin” (piece of rolling paper), smoking it via a water bong, eating it and by using a vaporizer. Smoking any drug is unhealthy – no one contests this. Cannabis contains higher concentrations of carcinogenic materials than tobacco smoke. However, although cannabis smokers do usually inhale deeper and longer than tobacco smokers (in order to increase the effect) it is very unlikely that they smoke the same quantity with many tobacco smokers on at least 20 or more cigarettes a day – a heavy cannabis smoker would smoke around 4 joints a day. However those that smoke cannabis combined with tobacco are significantly increasing their health risks as recent studies show that the greatest pre cancerous abnormalities appear in those who smoke the two drugs together.
(details from Joy.J (1999) Marijuana and medicine: assessing the science base, National Academy Press pg 111).
Furthermore it is claimed that by smoking cannabis via an alternative method – via a water bong or vaporizer you significantly decrease the amount of harmful carcinogens you ingest. A water bong works on the principle that the cannabis smoked is pulled through a bowl of water before being inhaled – the theory is that the water removes many of the carcinogens before the smoke enters the user. There is significant evidence to back up this claim in that after use the bong water is frequently black having removed much of the harmful material. The vaporizer is a machine that heats up the cannabis to a temperature just before it starts to burn. At this temperature the cannabis naturally releases T.H.C (–the chemical that gets the user “high”) without releasing any smoke and thus eliminating any harmful carcinogens from the smoke that enters the user via other methods. Finally by making cannabis butter (works on the same principle as the vaporizer) one can use it for a wide variety of foods and it will still have the same effect (although not as immediate) as smoking the plant – the user inhales nothing. So, cannabis is harmful when smoked - there are no doubts about this, however it can be used in ways in which the user inhales no smoke, which leads us onto the next logical question – are there any psychological dangers associated with cannabis use?
Reefer Madness
When smoked the effects of cannabis can be felt almost immediately, one feels a sense of relaxation and comfort – music may be appreciated more and interpreted in new ways and giggling fits may occur, some people report an increased sense of creativity and an increase in the appetite is incredibly common. However feelings of paranoia and anxiety are also common in some people. Furthermore some long-term users report that after a while cannabis stops inducing the “high” and instead only induces feelings of paranoia. In a recent study of cannabis users 27% reported “anxiety” as an affect and around 30% gave ‘negative experiences’ as their reason for permanently quitting cannabis.
[Info from :D.A. Cohen, Hendrien L. Kaal (2001), The irrelevance of drug policy. Patterns and careers of experienced cannabis use in the populations of Amsterdam, San Francisco and Bremen. Page 75, available at http://www.cedro-uva.org/lib/cohen.3cities.html]
Cannabis has often been associated with schizophrenia; however research now shows that although smoking cannabis excessively may induce schizophrenia early in those predisposed to develop the disorder – there is no evidence that it can it. A good point to make here is that if one suffers from any mental health problems taking any drug excessively is only going to make it worse.
When eating cannabis instead of smoking it, although minimising the physical health risks – the effect is much, much stronger. This is due to the liver metabolising THC into 11-OH-*9-THC – a compound that is three time more psychoactive. Thus the effects of ingesting cannabis can be very uncomfortable if one develops paranoid feelings or feelings of anxiety as they will be three times stronger than when smoked. Furthermore the effects take around 1-2 hours before they materialise – thus this may trigger shock in people if ingesting cannabis for the first time, as they may not expect it – or feel that the drug has not worked. However for many people ingesting cannabis is an extremely pleasurable experience as they get three times “higher” than they would had they smoked it and need not worry about the effects on their lungs.
What about the other’s?
So cannabis does have some detrimental effects – possible paranoia and lung damage. One could argue this is reason enough to keep it prohibited. However, we openly embrace alcohol and tobacco. These drugs are addictive substances – although addiction to tobacco does not affect someone that badly immediately – it greatly increases the chance of developing lung cancer in later life. Those who suffer from chronic alcoholism often find it incredibly hard to give up, despite the fact that drinking too much can cause destruction of the liver. For example George Best, a high profile footballer, in his time threw his life and career away by drinking too much – he became fat and unfit and even after having a liver transplant he still struggles to stay away from alcohol- his story is typical of many in the modern western world. In contrast – no one has ever died from cannabis use – only those who mix cannabis with tobacco have developed lung cancer. Also although cannabis can cause anxiety effects and paranoia – the effects of drinking too much are well known – dizziness, loss of inhibitions, rowdiness and violence are common. This is made worse by the fact that we in Britain have a culture of binge drinking in which people shove as much alcohol down their throat before the 11 ‘o clock bell rings. One only has to watch one of the millions of CCTV documentaries that fill the airwaves to see the affect this has on many people – the police often struggling to deal with the many fights that break out in urban areas.
Conclusion
For a wild growing plant, cannabis has had a colourful history. As illustrated in this investigation the reasons why cannabis were made illegal in the first place are little to do with what is often thought to be the reason it is illegal – health. Instead money, greed and even racism are the original main motivations behind the prohibition of cannabis. One can argue that cannabis harms the body and thus should remain a legal drug, this is true – cannabis does cause harm to the human body. However it is hypocritical for a Government to ban the public from using this drug when instead it allows the use of alcohol and tobacco. One (tobacco) a slow killer the other (alcohol) something which often fuels violence and rowdy behaviour. What makes things worse is that the Government still enforces the 11 o’ clock closing time – thus encouraging the binge drinking culture that has developed in our country. One only has to look to the countries in Europe where there are no closing times to see the radical difference in drinking culture. Fights are commonplace after football match’s between rival fans who have had a little too much to drink – what if our culture was one of binge cannabis smoking? – There would be less tension – no fans fighting after football matches – instead working on a plan to find the nearest Hamburger outlet. Cannabis laws around the world are a joke; one only has to look at the case of Howard Marks – arrested by the DEA and given a 25-year jail term in America’s roughest prisons for smuggling a dried plant – higher than what some people are given for murder. The British Government recently made moves to re-classify cannabis to a class “C” drug – giving a maximum two year sentence for possession. This act will be ineffective and useless – as by reducing the penalty for possession of cannabis the Government is sending out the message that it is not that bad to smoke it (which it isn’t). Thus this is likely to result in more people smoking the plant than ever before. However – because the Government do not completely legalise the plant – there will be no where for people to go to buy it – thus more money will end up in the hands of drug dealers who may also be pushing harder drugs – such as heroin and crack cocaine onto their customers – this is not the way to solve the drugs problem. Furthermore the fact that the Government continually delay legalising cannabis for medical purposes is a shambles, always stating that more research is needed or “in the pipeline”. Whilst they sit there and wait for their research people in incredible pain are being arrested for consuming and often growing a plant that gives them a better quality of life – it is one of the conclusions of this investigation that this is a waste of police, lawyers, judges, jurors, etc, etc time and public money. What is also shocking is that the “gateway theory” is still mentioned in the media in reference to cannabis issues, despite it being proven to be false. If anything the only possible element of truth that it could hold is that perhaps if an impressionable young person tries cannabis and realises it isn’t that bad at all – they may lose faith in the Governments flawed drugs policy and thus be tempted to try something harder, for example:
“If cannabis is illegal and its not that harmful then perhaps other drugs are the same….”
The Governments drug policy is sending out the wrong message.
In an email received from my local MP’s (Stephen Twigg) research assistant she states that the Government do not favour copying the Dutch method in Amsterdam where cannabis is completely legal, as:
“Coffee shops still have to go to the criminal markets for their supplies”
This is completely untrue – cannabis is grown in nearly all cannabis cafés in Amsterdam, and there is no reason why it should not be adopted here either. It is shocking that it is only the liberal democrat party that is brave enough to admit the failures cannabis prohibition has caused and favour complete decriminalisation. The email received on behalf of my local MP ended with the statement:
“If there is anything else that you feel I can be of any assistance with, on this or any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Nancy Tenenbaum (research assistant to Stephen Twigg)”
A reply was sent the very next day – raising the issues stated in this conclusion, they didn’t write back. Wankers
