Article from the Irish Examiner...
“GOD makes the earth yield healing herbs, which the prudent man should not neglect.” (Sirach:38:4). Well, quite — or as the legendary vernacular would have it, God made grass, man made booze — who do you trust?
Cannabis sativa, that hardy adaptable plant that grows everywhere from your window box to the mountains of Asia, Africa and America, has been cultivated by ourselves for over 10,000 years. You would, however, be (almost) forgiven for thinking that it is a highly addictive, dangerous drug, so draconian and misleading is our current legislation, which classifies a gram of cannabis resin to be more harmful and potentially lethal than, say, a crate of whiskey.
Yet the only recorded case of a person dying as a direct result of the cannabis sativa plant was when the unfortunate person was flattened by a bale of it falling on his head; this is in glaring contrast to the tens of thousands of poor saps who perish from alcohol related disasters each year, in stupid everyday tragedies involving everything from exploding livers to pranged cars, to murdered spouses and friends. And we pride ourselves on being a higher intelligence?
Why are the derivatives of the cannabis sativa plant now illegal? Its uses — medicinal, therapeutic, ceremonial, recreational — have been documented in most important civilizations throughout history, with the first recorded medicinal usage showing up about 5,000 years ago in the court of the Chinese Emperor Chen Nung. His physicians found it helpful in treating a plethora of nasties from dysentery to malaria.
It also has ancient connections with many world religions — Shintoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, the Zoroastrians, the Sufis of Islam, the early Jews, Coptic Christians, and of course the much loved Jah worshiping Rastafarians; in fact almost everyone except mainstream Christians, who have always preferred a drop of the hard stuff.
The cannabis plant, apart from being able to grow almost anywhere in all kinds of soil (although, like the rest of us, prefers warmer climates) has had many uses over the millennia: the fibre has long been used to make clothing, paper and rope; the seeds used as food for humans, birds and animals; and the oil, in pre synthetic days, was ideal for lighting, soap, varnish, linoleum and artists’ paints. What other plant is so diversely useful that it is technically possible to paint a picture using hemp oil paint on hemp paper, while wearing a frock spun from hemp, in a room illuminated by a hemp oil lamp, having just washed with some hemp oil soap, while nibbling on some hemp seeds, having just had some tincture of hemp to alleviate any variety of aches and pains? That’s without ever smoking the stuff.
It has been cultivated in India, the Middle East, South East Asia, America, and China since the year dot, yet many people in the West assume that dope smoking is a 1960’s hippie phenomenon. This might be due to the willful disinformation trotted out by successive Western governments, led by the United States, for reasons that can only be guessed at (although the notion of drinkers being easier to control does cross one’s mind — smokers are not as frequently insensible).
There may have been more sinister reasons; in 1971, a chemist at the Arthur D Little company exposed the US government as having paid millions of dollars to his erstwhile employers to try and find military uses for the plant, a year after the same government had classified marijuana as Schedule 1 (that’s Class A, the same as heroin). None could be found — the only uses the chemists discovered for the plant were completely benign. Any self respecting pothead could have told them that and saved them a fortune.
Yet, despite enormous evidence that the cannabis plant benefits a startlingly wide variety of medical conditions, it is still illegal in 44 North American states (but not in Arizona, California, Oregon, Alaska, and the Washington State and DC — so plan that trip accordingly) and most of Europe.
British police are practically begging the government to look towards our grown up Dutch cousins and de-criminalize it, but as yet the Blairites are terrified for alienating Mr and Ms Daily Mail, and in Ireland we seem to be too busy in the pub to care one way or another.
Current official attitudes appear to stem from the time of the Marijuana Tax Act (1937) in the States, when the US government — despite a steady stream of doctors and medical professionals singing the plant’s praises and discovering more and more medical uses for it — began taxing its medical use, refused to fund medical research into its healing properties, and penalized its recreational use.
The head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger, was responsible for release of the preposterous film Reefer Madness, an outrageously funny piece of black and white nonsense that depicted all American teenagers turning into psychopathic, thieving, sex crazed loonies after a lungful of cannabis smoke.
The film was about marijuana, not crack, PCP, ice, heroin, or Alien acid blood, but, sadly, millions of non dope smoking citizens took this piece of blatant falsehood as truth.
The human brain has its own unique receptors for THC (the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis), which would suggest that smoking or other methods of consuming the plant has been intrinsic in our development over vast tracts of evolutionary time. These neurone receptors are found in the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus, whose functions respectively relate to higher thinking and memory — which is why dope smokers are often deep in thought and have appalling short term memories.
Short term memory, however, is the extent of harmful side affects, unless you smoke haystacks of the stuff mixed with harmful tobacco. Otherwise your average dope smoker is generally mellow, given to giggling, introspection, profound thought (well, sometimes) and guzzling pies at 2am. There is no vomiting, no blackouts, no psychosis, no collapsing internal organs, no need to worry — the worst thing that can befall a serious dopehead is lethargy, amiable vagueness, perhaps mild paranoia and possible weight gain from all the midnight pies. And that’s worst case scenario.
Cannabis based medicines have been proved effective in the easing of symptoms of multiple sclerosis and other spasticity disorders, arthritis, spinal cord injuries, epilepsy, glaucoma, nausea (including the side affects of chemotherapy), insomnia, anorexia (think about it), and depression.
All of these serious unrelated conditions can be eased by the magic cannabis plant — so why in the name of common-sense are tetraplegics criminalized for buying dope, cancer patients denied access to it, and multiple sclerosis sufferers prescribed valium (highly addictive, and turns you into a robot) as an anti spasmodic instead of cannabinoid preparations?
Why are doctors not routinely prescribing derivatives of this gentle, healing plant as a complementary medicine, instead of stuffing their patients full of harsh non holistic chemicals?
In fact, why are millions of ordinary people who recreationaly choose a joint in preference to a pint classified as law breakers? Why is it all right, socially and legally, to get completely rat arsed in public, yet it is not all right to smoke a joint after a meal? Or smoke a joint anywhere, for that matter?
We are allegedly civilized people, yet we persist with embracing a government endorsed, government taxed drug that — after the first one or two units — dulls our cerebral function, makes us raucously boring, and will eventually make us slur, fight, throw up and pass out.
Yet Mr Plod will arrest the person walking innocently past the bar room brawl for having a gram of hash in their pocket.
