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November 03, 2003
Soft in the head
Daily Mail, 3 November 2003 According to the government, cannabis is no more dangerous than slimming pills or tranquillisers. Last week, under cover of half-term and the sacking of the Tory leader, the government finally carried out its threat to downgrade cannabis from a class B to a class C ‘non-arrestable’ drug. Tellingly, the Home Secretary David Blunkett was absent from a debate which – despite MPs’ protests -- lasted a mere 90 minutes. The government’s coyness stems from worries about public hostility to the clear signal it is giving young people that cannabis isn’t very dangerous. Just a few days later, fresh evidence has emerged to show just what a criminally reckless policy this is. The Government says cannabis doesn’t kill. Now, Britain’s most senior coroner has blown that argument out of the water. Hamish Turner, president of the Coroners’ Society, has said cannabis is increasingly the factor behind deaths recorded as accidents or suicides. He estimates that in the past year, cannabis was a significant contributory factor in about 10 out of 100 deaths with which he dealt. Other coroners agree, adding that cannabis is increasingly being found in the bodies of traffic accident victims, and warning that deaths will spiral if the drug is decriminalised. Cannabis, says Mr Turner unequivocally, is as dangerous as any other drug. It causes depression, paranoia and other mental health problems. And it kills. All this will doubtless come as a bit of a shock to anyone who has fallen for the disingenuous statements on cannabis churned out by the government, not to mention the propaganda emanating from the pro-legalisation drug quangos and charities egging it on. It is no surprise, however, to anyone who has actually read the literature. One Swedish study, for example, showed that cannabis had contributed to many homicides and other violent deaths, including motor accidents and suicides. These researchers concluded that ‘impulsive, intentional violent deaths seem to be characteristic for the cannabis user’ – patterns of behaviour and injuries which set cannabis apart from alcohol, amphetamines, cocaine or heroin. In the US, another study of 268 murderers showed that almost a quarter of them had been under the influence of cannabis when they had committed their crimes. Some of those interviewed said of the drug ‘it made me aggressive, violent’, ‘it lowered my inhibitions’ and ‘I don’t think I had done anything if I hadn’t been under the influence’. The stereotype of people just ‘chilling out’ on cannabis only applies to some people. By contrast, it can make others with different characters violent or lethal. So from society’s point of view, cannabis is just as dangerous as ‘hard’ drugs, and maybe even more so. Much of the debate about cannabis rests on the mistaken impression that users don’t harm anyone else. This is simply not true, because apart from its links to aggression and paranoia, the damage it causes to the brain can also create devastating personality changes. Habitual users often become passive, inflexible and rigid in their thinking; since they never question their actions, they are incapable of change. They can’t take criticism and instead feel misunderstood. So talking sense to them becomes a futile endeavour. This is surely why so much of the drugs debate feels to those opposed to legalisation like a dialogue with the insane – because indeed, they are talking to people some of whose brains can no longer deal with facts, deduction or logic. There is now significant evidence showing the damage inflicted by cannabis upon people’s minds. Only recently, an expert at the Dutch Trimbos addiction institute reported that cannabis doubles the risk of schizophrenia and other psychiatric conditions. As Hamish Turner so rightly observed: ‘Cannabis is a mind altering drug which has ravaging effects on the brain’. But the suspicion is that he has not seen it. The suspicion is that he listens instead to advisers who are pushing for drug legalisation –such as DrugScope, an organisation which receives millions in grants from the Home Office, despite having links with the network of European activists mounting a co-ordinated campaign to soften up the public for drug legalisation and undermine the UN’s prohibition of drug use. In the Commons debate on re-classification, the government’s case was a shambles. Caroline Flint, the hapless junior minister playing the role of Mr Blunkett’s human shield, was constantly on the back foot as angry MPs shredded her arguments. She tried to justify reclassifying cannabis on the grounds that treating all drugs as equally harmful and dangerous lacked credibility. But all drugs have never been treated as identical. On the contrary, as she herself had observed a few minutes previously, they are divided into three classifications. So her justification made no sense at all. When an MP told her that 14 year-olds taking cannabis were 60 per cent more likely to damage their brains, Ms Flint simply ignored his point. As Hamish Turner has correctly observed, some popular varieties of cannabis are up to ten times stronger than when it was used in the 1960s. But when the same point was made in the Commons, Ms Flint simply denied it. The minister tried to hide behind the ‘experts’ on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. But as the Labour MP Kate Hoey pointed out, this committee has hardly any scientists on it; almost half its members are committed to liberalising drug use, and it contains no-one from any organisations who oppose this policy. Ms Hoey has good reason to be angry. Her constituents were the guinea-pigs for the Lambeth ‘experiment’, the policing ‘blind eye’ to cannabis use which was a dry run for re-classification and which led to an explosion of all drug use in the borough. Now, the rest of the country’s young people are to be exposed to the same disastrous muddle. They will think – mistakenly but understandably -- that taking cannabis is legal, since the police broadly cannot arrest them. More of them will therefore take a drug that damages their brains. And there will be more contact with pushers dealing in hard drugs alongside cannabis, thus increasing all drug use – even though penalties for these dealers have actually been increased, as a nonsensical fig-leaf to conceal Mr Blunkett’s irresponsible capitulation. The government’s soggy policy, and the signals it has been sending out that our drug law is an ass, has already had disastrous consequences. British deaths from ecstasy, cocaine and amphetamines have rocketed by 47 per cent in the past year. And in dozens of these fatal cases, the victims also smoked cannabis. Coroners have explicitly warned ministers against the tolerance they are showing to cannabis. Other experts in pharmacology or toxicology say the same thing. They are all being ignored. The drug culture is now a recreational way of life for our young people, and the government has shamefully helped make it so. Posted by melanie at November 3, 2003
Comments
Nobody should deny that cannabis can lead to emotional, psychological and social problems. That would be a dangerous lie. But, it would be equally silly to pretend that millions of people in the UK use the drug with no ill effects. Posted by: Chris Conlon at November 3, 2003 12:53 PMI wonder if Chris meant "equally silly to deny"? If so, I would suggest that very few people who use cannabis do so with no ill-effects. That these ill-effects are only now being observed and understood explains why little harm has hitherto been attributed to cannabis. The suggested revisionism of Dr Turner is a case in point. I do think Melanie is sometimes in danger of over-egging the pudding a bit where cannabis is concerned though. Forgiveably perhaps, since the untruths peddled by the pre-legalisation lobby are nothing if not audacious in their turn, but manifest hyperbole deters those who might otherwise be convinced of this drug's genuinely dangerous effects. In particular, the assertion that cannabis use is likely to increase the risk of violent behaviour is demonstrably nonsense to those who have experienced its effects and anecdotally observed its effect on others. I'd be surprised if there weren't some people who were sent into a frothing rage by cannabis - some people react that way to sugar. By against this one would have to set the enormously (and dangerously) passifying influence it has on the vast majority of other users. I'm not defending the drug, I think its far more dangerous than is commonly supposed and that reclassification will prove a disastrous mistake. I'm only suggesting that throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it isn't going to get us taken seriously. (Then again, I'm ashamed to confess I took cannabis quite liberally at university myself, so perhaps I'm the one who's passive, rigid and inflexible in my thinking!) Posted by: Simon Jones at November 3, 2003 02:21 PMAfter reading Simon Jones’s comments, I read Melanie’s article again, testing every word, sentence and paragraph and reading between the lines in an attempt to discover the ‘over-egging’ he suggests in his posting. Nothing in her commentary or assertions appeared to me to be untrue, exaggerated, under researched or in any way unfair. And I speak as one who was on the front line of crime prevention and investigation from 1954 to the year 1999, first in the Metropolitan Police, later as a television crime documentary maker and finally as a security risk advisor to a group of central London hospitals. During that period the use of cannabis was an exponentially increasing contributory factor in the commission of crime; in anti-social behaviour; in family turbulence and in work-place under-performance and disruption. I met vast numbers of young people whose chances of leading a successful life were destroyed as a result of regular use of cannabis. I never met anyone who appeared to be the better for taking it, they all talked bollocks when under the influence of it and when they were not under the influence of it they talked even worse bollocks in defence of it. A large number of people attending the psychiatric clinics at the hospitals that I was connected with were there as a result of habitual use of cannabis. A very large proportion of people attending accident and emergency departments were there as a result of abusing drugs, almost all were cannabis users who had moved on to harder drugs. I met many people during my professional life that died as a result of abuse of drugs, including cannabis. I simply cannot understand why any sane, healthy person would want to imbibe or inhale chemicals to alter their mind and perceptions. As for people who are sick, depressed, or merely looking for diversion from a boring life, they will not improve their lot by contributing to the coffers of organised crime, abusing their brains and polluting the air with the fumes of stinking herbal substances that are illegal to possess and should remain illegal. Such sad people should seek medical or psychiatric assistance and legally prescribed medication will be provided if necessary, or advice and support if not. It is clearly impractical to legalise dangerous drugs. The government’s iniquitous loosening of controls over cannabis and the equally iniquitous support or apathy of opposition parties in these changes in legislation is yet another indication that we are entering a very dark period in our history. Keep up the good work, Melanie. Just continue to give us the facts, Ma’am. Posted by: Frank Pulley at November 5, 2003 01:49 AMThe elite within the BBC and certain newspapers have lobbied on the airwaves repeatedly for their personal proclivities to be legalised; and for their personal campaigns against the activities of others, to be criminalised. The Media Government full as it is of former TV producers, and representing as it does the very first Media Party Administration, has bowed to their wishes in so many areas. The society is not run for the benefit of the citizenry but in response to the charmed circle of influence-peddlers at the apex. This is one more item in their program which has led to the country pursuing strange policies of calling to ban tobacco, but legalise cannabis; or to charge motor accident victims to use hospital facilities but increase resources for lifestyle illnesses caused by drugs. The literature on cannabis is extensive, and even Pelican had a little book 20 years ago with reports on its effects. Like so much the media suppresses facts which do not fit its case, and behaves in much the same manner today as Stanley Baldwin described it 75 years ago. Posted by: Peter Williamson at November 5, 2003 05:36 AMI have never used cannabis, or come into personal contact with it. I am however familiar with a society where its use has long been endemic - Jamaica. What I have seen of that country and stories of those who have seen relatives destroyed by it convinces me that every bad thing attributed to cannabis is true. Of course, many of the good things also attributed to it may also be true, but the societal balance sheet is overwhelmingly negative. Jamaica is the most violent and disfunctional society in the Caribbean, and the role of cannabis in its culture is a major contributor to that. Posted by: Michael at November 5, 2003 07:29 AMMichael - Perhaps we should send Blunkett on a junket to the Caribbean so he can see for himself how cannabis has affected to substance of that society? Posted by: Frisbee at November 5, 2003 11:49 PMFrisbee - to be cruelly frank, sadly Mr Blunkett can't see anything; perhaps if he could, his policies would relate to the real world, rather than the one he has to conjour up in his imagination - with the help of those whom, I suspect, just might succumb to the temptation of depicting the world to him refracted through their own distorted prisms. I have every sympathy with his physical plight, but I have nothing but disdain for a Prime Minister that appointed an unsighted man to oversee the internal security and policing of our country. I am sure that Mr Blunkett is very intelligent and is probably very kind, but the post he holds has, throughout my lifetime, proved too much for all his predecessors. And they were all possessed of five senses in full working order. So what chance does he stand of getting to grips with a country that is beseiged by its home grown criminal fraternity, plus the scum, strategically released and deported to this country, from prisons of many other countries whose dictators have been toppled. Arriving here under the subterfuge of asylum seeking, of course; those that even bother to announce their arrival at all. Posted by: Frank Pulley at November 6, 2003 01:41 AMBlind or not, David Blunkett, like so many of his colleagues is on a personal odyssey trying to live down his own past.......plus royaliste que le roi ! Posted by: Peter Williamson at November 6, 2003 05:52 AMAnyone got any munchies? Posted by: Steven at November 8, 2003 01:23 PMI pity the narrow mindedness of those that imply because something has been termed 'illegal' it is necessarily wrong. "Habitual users often become passive, inflexible and rigid in their thinking; since they never question their actions, they are incapable of change." That may be true, but it is still time the Daily Mail was decriminalised. Posted by: Ian Rawes at November 10, 2003 02:50 PMThe comments about Tell that to the Yardies.. Actually my own experiences in my mispelt yoof showed that not all people are affected the same, I found "Speed" would actually unwind and relax me, whereas cannabis would get me jittery, on edge and yes, aggressive. I'm currently in the process of trying to quit smoking, sadly plain tobacco has all the predicted effects on me.. including withdrawal. Posted by: Alan Carr at November 11, 2003 07:59 PMDebunking Gutter Science More rehashed Nahas hogwash. Murder. But whats that to a DEAth merchant? Same as the MTV quack shrink babbling until science cancelled his show as too far out. His cohort went on to bigger and better gigs, the man show. Drewpy is lost in his reefermadness pimping his gossipol on the more naive networks occassionally. Like Czarberry McCafferty whoring to the newz that'll have him. This rumor surfaces every few years when ever legislation threatens the profits. The same robots pull out the threats to scare soccer mommies and give politicops ammo. Murdering kids in the process. Straight kids that see life as too much to handle. Nerds in the wrong neighborhood. Gay kids in redneck homes. Kids that show signs no one sees and on occassion they stumble onto Ganja and find a temperary hiding place. Away from the threats of reality that is out of porportion to them. They realize they don't have to be what they're told to be. They might even go so far as to step on the shadow of a white man, or talk back to a parent. Grow they're hair or get nipple rings. And they are really not what matters, its how it looks that matter. But to these lying dungeaters spreading these fears and falsehoods its mostly profit. Ganja takes the edge off in spite of the prohibition caused paranoia. Until the kid is caught and forced into "treatment" asylums that profit as much as the prison complexes. They feed us fascist Hitlers until we get fed up and settle for Mussolini's. Then back to the Bushitters. Now the kid is clean, sober and dead. That is a problem. Can't earn $50,000.00 a head in "Prison" or Asylums or even to sell them white powders and theory-py. Again neglegent in their pshchic ability when non industrial countries haven't the same figures. Or the morgues having the actual bodies. ABC bumped the news about ganja shrinking brain tumors thought to be discovered in Spain. But only to find it was actually re discovered, since the US buried the inforomation in 1974. They broadcast the Nahaish neck cancer nonsense in stead. They also bumped the news about Ganja and MS for Ganja "causes" heart attacks. Same nonsense. This was debunked on 02/11/2003? UK and Worldwide Cannabis News Naha's Prescription for Bloated Police Budges excerpts Gabriel Nahas, in 1998, is living in Paris and goes around Europe teaching as gospel the same old lies to less informed Europeans. When asked to debate us (H.E.M.P.) on cannabis before the world press on June 18, 1993 in Paris, he first enthusiastically accepted until he found out that we would be speaking on all aspects of the hemp plant (e.g. paper, fiber, fuel, medicine). Then he declined, even though we met all of his requirements. Incredibly, a famous study which found that cannabis reduces tumors (see Chapter 7), was originally ordered by the Federal Government on the premise that pot would hurt the immune system. This was based on the "Reefer Madness" studies done by the disreputable Dr. Gabriel Nahas of Columbia University in 1972. Cannabis Shrinks Tumors: Government Knew in 74 Old, discredited Nahas studies are still trotted out by the Drug Enforcement Administration today, and deliberately given to unknowledgeable parents' groups, churches, and PTAs as valid research regarding the evils of pot. * Nahas, in December 1983, under ridicule from his peers and a funding cut-off from NIDA renounced all his old THC metabolite build-up and unique chromosome petri dish tissue damage studies, conclusions, and extrapolations. Yet the DEA, NIDA, VISTA, the "War on Drugs," and now-deceased writer Peggy Mann (in Reader's Digest articles and her book Marijuana Alert, wilth foreward by Nancy Reagan) have used these discredited studies on parents' groups such as Parents for a Drug Free Youth, etc., often with Nahas as a highly paid guest lecturer, without a word of how his studies are really considered by this peers. The DEA, after Nahas' 1983 waffling renouncement, consciously and criminally continues to use his studies to polarize ignorant judges, politicians, press, and parent groups, who are unaware of Nahas' denouncement. These groups trust the government to tell them the truth their tax dollars paid for. Most of the media, press, and television commentators still use Nahas' 1970s, unreplicated studies as gospel, and much of the frightening folklore and street myths taht are whispered around school yards spring from the deceitful "scientist's" work. Le Coronor??? Hamish Turner will retire on 31 October A new Coroner has been appointed for South Devon, following the announcement of the retirement of Hamish Turner. "Hamish Turner has allowed us to identify ways of realising our business opportunities." "Their recommendations and help made it possible for us to push forward quicker and with greater confidence than on our own." From telecommunications suppliers through to the garment industry, engineering components manufacturing, plastic moulding and the packaging industry, we provide the same high levels of service and personal attention. Ganja/hemp lnfolinx: lots of plastic alternatives and packaging alternatives and garments... Drugczar Carlton Turner: One Man & His Drug Scams Dr. Heath/Tulane Study, 1974 Naha's Prescription for Bloated Police Budges Jack Herer Chapter 15 Debunking Gutter Science Text version down: http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch15.html Jack Herer: The Emperor Of Hemp More reactionary conservative nonsense . Still call yourself a liberal or progressive ? Come on - accept that you are a conservative, and maybe you would be respected rather more than you are. Posted by: Mike H at November 26, 2003 12:38 AMJust because there's a pattern doesn't mean there's a purpose. Posted by: Colangelo Josh at December 21, 2003 12:47 AMReading through a number of these articles, I couldn't help but notice that while Melanie has no time for some minorities (e.g. politically active homosexuals, who apparently "play the victim" and deserve no consideration other than contempt), she's enormously concerned for other minorities, such as those who react very badly to cannabis, and whose interests she must "protect"... "Militant" minorities, which don't require her moral leadership and can speak for themselves, are to be scorned, pilloried or viewed with distrust. Apparently, Melanie only likes silent minorities, on whose behalf she can presume to speak. Which is no doubt convenient. Posted by: David Thompson at December 25, 2003 09:10 PMOnly when we have nothing to say do we say anything at all. Posted by: Lashutka Michael at January 9, 2004 02:29 PMHi, you can now downward an mp3 version of a BBC radio program featuring Melanie Phillips debating current cannabis law with ex drug smuggler Howard "MR NiCE" Marks. HERE: http://www.ukcia.org/mp3s/moral_maze_cannabis_28_01-04.mp3 |
