Posted on 08/06/2006 6:04:24 AM PDT by Wolfie
Reefer is Worth Getting Mad About
Vienna -- Supporters of the legalization of cannabis would have us believe that it is a gentle, harmless substance that gives you little more than a sense of mellow euphoria.
Sellers of the world's most popular illicit drug know better. Trawl through websites offering cannabis seeds for sale and you will find brand names such as Armageddon, AK-47 and White Widow. "This will put you in pieces, then reduce you to rubble -- maybe quicksand if you go too far," one seller boasts. This is much closer to the truth.
In Canada, as in most parts of the world, cannabis is by far the drug of choice. An estimated 4 per cent of the world's adult population -- that's about 162 million people -- consume cannabis at least once a year, more than all other illicit drugs combined.
Does that matter? I firmly believe it does, because the cannabis now in circulation (like Canada's BC Bud) is many times more powerful than the weed that today's aging baby boomers smoked in college. The characteristics of cannabis are no longer that different from those of other plant-based drugs, such as cocaine and heroin.
Evidence of the damage to mental health caused by cannabis use -- from loss of concentration to paranoia, aggressiveness and outright psychosis -- is mounting and cannot be ignored. Emergency room admissions involving cannabis are rising, as is demand for rehabilitation treatment. These health problems are increasingly being seen in young people.
North America is the world's largest cannabis market and most of its cannabis is homegrown. The U.S. market alone has been valued at more than $10-billion. As Canadians are starting to discover, a market that size inevitably attracts organized crime. So cannabis is a security threat as well as a health risk.
Amid all the libertarian talk about the right of the individual to engage in dangerous practices, provided no one else gets hurt, certain key facts are easily forgotten.
Firstly, cannabis is a dangerous drug, not just to the individuals who use it. People who drive under the influence of cannabis put others at risk. Would even the most ardent supporter of legalization want to fly in an aircraft whose pilot used cannabis?
Secondly, drug control works. More than a century of universally accepted restrictions on heroin and cocaine have prevented what would otherwise have been a pandemic. Global levels of drug addiction -- think of the opium dens of the 19th century -- have dropped dramatically in the past 100 years. In the past 10 years or so, they have remained stable.
Cannabis is the weakest link in the international effort to contain the global drugs problem. In theory, it's a controlled substance. In practice, it's running rampant. It grows under the most varied conditions in many countries, a high-yielding plant that can be grown indoors. This makes supply control difficult.
But we can tackle demand, particularly among the young. That need not mean sending them to jail. Young people caught in possession of cannabis could be treated in much the same way as those arrested for drunk driving: fined, required to attend classes on the dangers of drug use and threatened with loss of their driving licence for repeat offences. Prison would be a last resort. Schools and universities should apply zero tolerance.
National policies on cannabis vary and sometimes change from one year to the next. The experience of countries that were more tolerant of cannabis use is ambiguous and not persuasive. The distinction between "soft" and "hard" drugs is, at best, artificial, especially with such a damaging psycho-active substance as modern-day cannabis. Even some advocates of cannabis as a "soft" drug are now reconsidering as they observe the devastating health consequences of abuse.
Canada was a pioneer in introducing systematic anti-smoking policies, which are now being copied around the world. Their success demonstrates that preventive measures can help to change attitudes. Similar policies are needed to prevent cannabis use getting completely out of control.
Let's draw the right conclusions. Cannabis is dangerous. We ignore it at our peril.
Antonio Maria Costa is executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Actually, just last year two dutch dock workers got hit by a falling crate containing 1 ton of Jack Herer. They probably were the first to die from weed overdose, but can you safely say they were the last?
We must be from the same era.
My friends and I would pitch in $5 apiece and get a lid fo $20.
Once in awhile, we could scrape together the $40 for a bag of *gasp* Columbian.
Would you call "fatally overdosing" a characteristic of a drug? I guess so. Yet you favor the legalization of heroin.
"Actually, Ken H has shown that drug addiction is higher in war-on-drug meccas like Singapore than it is in the USA."
KenH being the foremost expert on the subject, or a way for you to make a claim without taking responsibility for it? The latter, I'm guessing.
KenH is comparing two different cultures and claiming significance. That's like saying saki use in Japan is higher than in the U.S. because of Japanese laws.
It was written by someone who obviously has never done a bong hit.
You know that.
Dosage is of course irrelevant. The "worst case scenario" is the baseline, and it only gets worse from there.
I'd call the (im)possibility of producing a fatal overdose a characteristic of a drug.
I guess so. Yet you favor the legalization of heroin.
How is that relevant to the author's moronic claim that "The characteristics of cannabis are no longer that different from those of other plant-based drugs, such as cocaine and heroin"? Do you agree with that claim?
Actually, Ken H has shown that drug addiction is higher in war-on-drug meccas like Singapore than it is in the USA.
KenH being the foremost expert on the subject, or a way for you to make a claim without taking responsibility for it?
Ken H having collected and presented the data. (Doesn't make him the "foremost" expert ... but more so than either of us.)
KenH is comparing two different cultures and claiming significance.
I think Ken H is pointing out that cross-cultural evidence does not support the idea that "drug control works." But unlike you, I don't presume to put words in Ken H's mouth.
Dirt Weed Man!! Now, for nostalgia, how about $35 for a 5 finger lid of the Columbian......dat wuz sweeeet!
This one brought out the usual freeper suspects and marijuana users. LOL.
Gosh , I guess the BC & Amsterdam pot smokers must be flooding the emergency rooms & morgues, smoking all that powerful weed.
What? Their not? I did hear that piazza delivery orders are up in both locations!
I'm saying that I'm confident that "This will put you in pieces, then reduce you to rubble -- maybe quicksand if you go too far" is laughable hype, not a basis for a sound pro-pot-ban argument.
Naw ... A CA Guy hasn't chimed in yet to proclaim the article's brilliance.
and marijuana users.
Which of the posters to this thread are marijuana users, and how do you know? Or are you just smearing advocates of liberty?
Have anything to say about the article, or are you just here to insult people?
UN bureaucrats claiming the sky is falling get their due.
It was a joke. Please go take a GIANT toke on your bong and mellow out. Loosen the wedgie up a few notches also.
As my husband says, it's pathetic that at our age, when we talk about offering our guests some great Colombian after dinner.... it's just coffee. :)
Which might be significant if the author stated, "The characteristics of cannabis are no longer that different from those of other plant-based drugs, such as cocaine and heroin."
Go away.
"I think Ken H is pointing out that cross-cultural evidence does not support the idea that "drug control works."
How do you conclude that from "drug addiction is higher"? Drug control in Singapore could very well be working, just that drug addiction in Singapore is higher than in the U.S.
Heroin addiction is higher in Baltimore than in Chicago. What does that have to do with our drug control laws?
P.S. No one authorized you to be Thread Nanny Cop. When I feel I need a little 'scold' nipping at my ankles, I'll ping you. Till then, butt out!
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