Cannabis, Psychosis and Political Paranoia
I'm midway through my month-long Australian drug policy reform tour, and the reception couldn't be more encouraging. The hundreds of people I've met along the way -- police officers, city officials, parliament members, university students and professors, everyday Australians -- have been warm and gracious, whether in agreement or in expressing openness to debate.
Except for a curt encounter in Perth.
I was not prepared for the smug, dismissive behavior of a Member of Parliament. Then again, how does one cram for an ambush? Colluding with the woman were a like-minded colleague and two uniformed police officers (presumably invited to mount a unified front, the cops were models of courtesy and decorum).
At the last minute, the woman had changed the meeting from the House of Parliament to her office in a quiet Perth suburb, neatly avoiding inclusion of our words in Hansard, the name given to transcripts of parliamentary proceedings; available to all, Hansard is a treasured Australian tradition dating to 1896.
As she met me at the door the MP sternly castigated my "agenda" -- we'd just met. Each time I attempted to lay out this "agenda," she and/or her colleague interrupted, keen to educate me on how terribly wrong and dangerous I am to Western Australians. (I don't know about you, but if I had an unsuspecting enemy in my lair I'd be inclined to keep my mouth shut and start amassing intelligence.)
As billed, Western Australia leans right, its ruling politicians generally conservative, generally enamored of nanny-state initiatives, generally resistant to talk of meaningful drug law reform.
Indeed, the premier is set to roll back provisions of modest cannabis decriminalization enacted by the state in 2003.
Claiming that cannabis is a hard drug, that it causes schizophrenia, that it is arguably a "gateway" to harder drugs, Western Australia Premier Colin Barnett is introducing legislation that would reduce from 30 to 10 the number of grams needed for a criminal prosecution; prohibit the growing of even a single pot plant; and ban smoking implements (with a $5,000 fine for sale of such products to adults, $10,000 to minors), thus sending pot smokers back to the dark ages of carcinogenic PVC containers and garden hoses.
Oh, and he's planning to give police the "right to go up to anyone they wish to and introduce a stop and search power." (Australia's politicians have failed to produce a bill of rights, apparently in the face of long-standing, overwhelming citizen support.)
What is it that keeps certain politicians from comprehending the immutability of the law of supply and demand, and the calamitous effects of prohibition? Let's say, for the sake of argument, that cannabis rots the membrane in your nose, scrambles your brain and produces a psychosis of Texas Chainsaw Massacre proportions. Wouldn't that be justification for the government to regulate and control the substance, rather than leave its commerce in the hands of drug kingpins and street traffickers?
Of course, the great majority of the 22 million Americans who regularly smoke marijuana and the 100 million who've tried it at least once, including our last three presidents, seem remarkably resistant to grave health risks, including murderous or suicidal tendencies.
This is not to make light of those who suffer problems with the drug. Indeed, our labeling of all users as "criminals" imposes a substantial barrier between those who need help and the compassionate, effective treatment they deserve.
As the rest of the world and, indeed, the rest of Australia moves toward more sane and sensible drug policy (see Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, California, et al), Western Australia is poised, under Barnett's Liberal-National Party coalition, to take a step in precisely the wrong direction.
And this just in: A Liberal (read "conservative" in the States) member of Western Australia's State Parliament is calling for drug testing of the state's politicians. Why? Well, in a West Australian survey last week of WA MPs more than a third of the respondents admitted to having used cannabis in the past (as did four members of Mr. Barnett's cabinet). The tally: 14 confessions, 24 denials, 56 assertions of "None of your business."
Follow Norm Stamper on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CopsSayLegalize
Thomas Frank: From John Birchers to Birthers
Conspiracy-mindedness isn't just for fringe political groups anymore; it makes for riveting entertainment. And it is all around us today, a disorder with an entire industry to act as its enabler.
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What's truly fascinating about this debate is that everyone involved on both sides openly acknowledges that cannabis cannot kill a human being. Cannabis has never killed anyone, unlike, let's say, toothpaste. Or crayons. Or, hell, BEER? And as far as gateway drugs, ya think that indroduction to the criminal underworld as a consequence of daring to possess dried flowers might contribute to one's, I don't know, continued participation in said criminal underworld?
I'm a medical marijuana patient here in Oregon, and though I've smoked cannabis occasionally since high school, like any normal person, it wasn't until I stood there in my basement and looked at a live, growing cannabis plant that I realized just how absurd this debate really is. It's a plant. It grows in dirt, out of a seed, and it needs water and nitrogen and sunlight. And there are US citizens rotting away in the penitentiary for growing it. And there are elected officials who are convinced that that is the right thing to do.
It's very clear to me now. Anyone who is in favor of of criminal prosecution for cannabis is either grossly misinformed, or morally bankrupt. And since most adults have smoked it, I'm going with the latter. Vote for prohibition, and I vote for someone else.
It would be nice if mass media and politicians alike were to finally allow science and facts into this debate. All the special interests and their paid for lackeys do is nothing more than emotional terrorism on the populus.
It's simple: politicians don't get reelected unless they have something to freak out over when the cameras are running. It doesn't matter if it's drugs, guns, street gangs, rap music, Harry Potter novels, video games, Twitter, or doughnuts...if they don't have an enemy to take a stand against, they're out of a job.
"Make them afraid of it. Give them someone to blame"
That's been the republican way of political persuasion for decades!
I'm guessing the liquor companies are quietly lobbying very hard all around the world to maintain the weed prohibition for fear of losing sales and optimizing profits . Having enjoyed both liquor and weed, I prefer weed. I've never smoked enough to make myself puke, where as I can't tell you how many times I've inadvertently prayed to the porcelain gods after drinking. I've never had a hang over from weed, and there's zero calories, assuming you can resist the munchies. There's no good reason for anyone to tell me what to do or not do in the privacy of my home, so it has to boil down to one thing and one thing only - money.
I think your right. I also agree with blackjac above. I cant figure why in Alaska it was legal for awhile then became illegal. Who gets hurt by stoners? Alcoholics are a different story especially the ones who own a car, but pot smokers? I know something else is going on here, you both might be correct.
Drug testing politicians is brilliant!
Mandate It!
They'd just cheat on it, like they do on other things.
I'd like to see a well-researched article here about the connection between the liquor-industry lobby and the continued prohibition of this mostly harmless vice.
Geez, I just realized I sound like Mr. Gumby from Monty Python. I need to get some rest.
The only reason prohibition of marijuana is legal in any country is because someone in that country is making lots of money from prohibition. Plain and simple. It is up to each country to identify the criminals responsible for prohibition and put them in jail. I am sick of conservatives destroying our societies for profit.
You can't legislate a cultural phenomenon one way or the other, but you can work to evolve a culture toward what you believe to be a more just attitude. If the majority of people believe in freedom and the concept of leaving people alone as they exercise that freedom then marijuana will become legal. If the majority of people believe that Jesus is telling them to control the actions of other people so that their decadence does not corrupt the pure at heart then marijuana will become illegal. On can use marijuana laws as a litmus test of the level of fundamentalism at large in any society. By this standard the US is not looking too well.
It took decades for non smokers to get protection from the toxic, and very foul smilling cigarette fumes that we needed to protect our lungs, sinuses, health and sanity.
Don't for a moment think that we will not fight the same battle over any other type of smoking.
Anyone who llives in an apartment complex has to live with their neighbors second hand smoke.
Many of us have experienced the brain numbing effect of the most volitile fumes of MJ which are carried through duct work, cracks chinks plumbing gaps and all the other "airways' available in multiple housing units.
And it stinks.
If you need it as a medication, get a perscription and a patch. My asthmatic lungs don't need the extra burden of you gasses.
Well if it was legal then they could go out on the front step and smoke MJ just like they are forced to smoke tobacco. And most would be happy to be allowed to freely fire up legally outside. But as long as it is against the law they will hole up in their home to fire up.
You want clean air? Fight for legalization.
Please educate your self on the actual component chemicals in cannabis. Exactly NONE of them are toxic. The concentrations required achieve a "high" are much greater than what can filter through a shared ventilation system.
You may be experiencing "brain numbing effects", but it sure wasn't from second hand smoke!
From the New England Journal of Medicine:
""The New England Journal of Medicine, a peer-reviewed medical journal, published a 1973 study titled "Single-Dose Effect of Marihuana Smoke. Bronchial Dynamics and Respiratory-Center Sensitivity in Normal Subjects," by L. Vachon et al., that stated:
"Marihuana smoke, unlike cigarette smoke, causes bronchodilatation [expansion of the air passages] rather than bronchoconstriction [narrowing of the air passages] and, unlike opiates, does not cause central respiratory depression.""
As a person with asthma, I can attest to it's effectiveness in opening airways and helping me breathe. btw, I had asthma at age 6, raised in a non-smoking environment and didn't use cannabis until about 16.
What about flatulance? Does that seep into your life through cracks and ductwork? You seem hypersensitive. Brain numbing effect of second hand pot smoke, never have ever heard that one before ever!!!!!
First you should realize that pot is not smoked nearly as regularly, nor as compulsively as cigarettes. Nor is pot smoke usually as thick as cigarette smoke. Usually, much less pot than tobacco is smoked at a sitting, and much less smoke is released. And, it is beginning to develop that unlike tobacco, which causes cancer, pot may actually reduce cancer rates, even among cigarette smokers. And of particular interest to you, MJ smoke actually dilates lung passages, where tobacco constricts them. Also, you should be reminded that even human noses are exquisitely sensitive instruments, which can detect as little as a few molecules of a substance, far below the threshold of harm. Just because you can smell it, doesn't mean it's doing you any harm.
But I can understand how someone who has a serious medical problem like asthma would be concerned. and may even get compulsive about it. Certainly you have rights, among them that people will respect your space, including not letting their smoke drift in your direction, especially if you inform them of your condition, and ask them not to. I can hardly imagine that pot smokers would ever refuse, in a case like that.
Its a class war thing. Rich people hate poor people and covet what little money the poor have. Marijuana prohibition serves to suck money out of the working class. Its even more profitable than lotto or pay day loans. And it puts a lot of working class people in prison where they become the rich people's wet dream. Slave labor.
Right. You know why MJ was so popular with poor people, Blacks and Mexicans? Because it was better, true, but even more because it was cheap. It grew everywhere, and you didn't need to buy it, with cash you didn't have. So naturally enough, Capitalists want nothing to do with any substitute for liquor that is easy to grow in one's back yard. So they got rid of it.
Of course, it was attacked on a number of levels at once. It was also eliminated because it would compete unfavorably with nylon and other synthetics in ropes and fabrics. It would even compete with cotton for making fine paper, and it might even compete with OTC and prescription drugs for the relief of minor discomforts and pain. All these special interests supported prohibition, and they got it.
The other angle is that racism and prejudice led to prohibition as a tool to stick it to Blacks and Mexican immigrants, who were the principal users. "If you're too poor to buy our drugs, by God, you won't have any at all." And "ni**ers and Mexicans don't deserve to have any fun, anyway." In other words, a way to stick it to groups they don't like.
And these same people think they are God's chosen gift to humanity, with the right and power to dictate other people's lives, and more pure than driven snow - after they polish off a couple of Martinis or a 6-pack, at any rate.
"What is it that keeps certain politicians from comprehending the immutability of the law of supply and demand, and the calamitous effects of prohibition?"
Money, and American corporate-political influence. Sad.
Becasue anything that makes you feel good that they cannot control they will defeat. That is why I am begging PLEASE some pot smoking rich guy out there here is the solution. Start a website that sells cannabis licenses to grow it in a marijuana freindly state that is accptable. Ohio. That's right. Ohio is regarded as conservative and yet has very liberal marijuana laws. Go there and start a website that sells licenses to grow marijuana, 4 crops a year, limit 5 lbs a crop and it must be done indoors or in an controlled environment. Put a disclaimer on the bottom that this is just for educational blah blah blah to keep the pawyers at bay and charge $2000 a year for that license . Do it all with Visa or Mastercard. Then go to the politicians on the hill and say I have X million ready to deliver to the state coffers. Who wants to take up this cause.
Prohibition doesn't work, but for the record, a big reason my bro has schizphrenia is all the pot he smoked from age 13.
The way it works, is that a tendency to schizophrenia must pre-exist; then a drug like marijuana is really, really bad for that person, and LSD is much, much worse. FYI, anyone who gets an extremely icky paranoid feeling when smoking pot... that sometimes lasts for days, after the pot-smoking experience... should STOP, immediately... (Mark Vonnegut, Kurt's son, wrote an amazing confessional book, about a marijuana-triggered schizophrenic episode he suffered, called The Eden Express; it is MUST reading.)
But thankfully, for your family and everyone else, that pre-existing tendency to schizophrenia, in such degree or quality as to react dramatically and frightfully to marijuana, is very, very rare. In fact, I'm not sure if there's a mainstream medical basis for the things I'm saying, yet... last time I did research, no one had any stats on marijuana and mental health, because problems are SO rare, but maybe that's changed, and someone can correct me... for instance, Mr. Vonnegut repeatedly claims the pot had nothing to do with it, even while his narrative clearly tells you the opposite. Interesting...
Your brother had schizophrenia BEFORE he smoked pot. Pot did not and does not cause schizophrenia. If you want an intelligent discussion, you must first make a coherent and intelligent statement or opinion.
Jason Schiffman, PhD, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, et al, reported in their article, "Symptoms of Schizotypy Precede Cannabis Use," published Mar. 30, 2005 in Psychiatric Research:
"The onset of schizotypal symptoms generally precedes the onset of cannabis use. The findings do not support a causal link between cannabis use and schizotypal traits."
People with psychiatric problems often self-medicate. Which came first, the schizophrenia, or the weed?
that implies pot smoking is a pre-requisite for the disease ------i suspect there are a lot of people who have the disease but who have never smoked pot.
to claim anecdotal proof of cause and effect is wrong here.
I've been brought up in the DARE school program (which, as I understand, wasn't really too successful) so I am very familiar with the gateway argument, and to some degree its probably true. But we have about a dozen substances that can already kill you, including tobacco and alcohol. maybe its time we stop griping over its supposed ill effects and look at the good it can do. I've heard the stuff can ease the woes of a cancer patient. As for pot causing psychological disorders, well...how many medical products are being advertised on TV that admit that they can result in fatalities? Its not like pot can do any worse than that.
Of course the sanest argument to just legalize drugs and tax them at the drugstore never crossed their minds. The prices of the drugs are reduced 95%, no profit for independent dealers, no territory to fight for all the current illicit money, fewer thugs, fewer prisoners, fewer jails, prisons, cops, courts and lawyers. It makes way to much sense especially in the redneck states.
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