Should Cannabis be legalised in Britain?

[Conscious]

Mod note: Due to peoples ever changing views on certain subjects, and the current state of our economic crisis, I would like to put a new thread out there.

 

I am including a poll to show the raw statistics & hopefully we can have a good debate on the pro's and cons of relaxed laws on cannabis.

 

Introduction to Cannabis:

 

According to the United Nations, cannabis "is the most widely used illicit substance in the world."

 

Cannabis use has been found to have occurred as long ago as the 3rd millennium BC. In modern times, the drug has been used for recreational, religious or spiritual, and medicinal purposes. The UN estimated that in 2004 about 4% of the world's adult population (162 million people) use cannabis annually, and about 0.6% (22.5 million) use it on a daily basis. The possession, use, or sale of cannabis preparations containing psychoactive cannabinoids became illegal in most parts of the world in the early 20th century.

 

After revisions to cannabis rescheduling in the UK, the government moved cannabis back from a class C to a class B drug. A purported reason was the appearance of high potency cannabis. They believe skunk accounts for between 70 and 80% of samples seized by police.

 

While commentators have warned that greater cannabis "strength" could represent a health risk, others have noted that users readily learn to compensate by reducing their dosage, thus benefiting from reductions in smoking side-hazards such as heat shock or carbon monoxide.

 

Cannabis is consumed in many different ways, most of which involve inhaling smoke from small pipes, bongs (portable version of hookah with water chamber), paper-wrapped joints or tobacco-leaf-wrapped blunts.

Cannabis has also been used as an active ingredient in tablets, extracts, tinctures and compound medicines that were professionally formulated, manufactured, and sold to physicians and hospitals.

 

Effects:

 

Main short-term physical effects of cannabis

 

• Eyes: Reddening, decreased intra-ocular pressure.
  

 

• Mouth: Dryness.
  

 

• Skin: Sensation of heat or cold.
  

 

• Heart: Increased heart rate.
  

 

• Muscles: Relaxation.
  

 

Cannabis has psychoactive and physiological effects when consumed. Aside from a subjective change in perception and, most notably, mood, the most common short-term physical and neurological effects include increased heart rate, lowered blood pressure, impairment of short-term and working memory, psychomotor coordination, and concentration. Long-term effects are less clear.

 

Medical use:

 

Cannabis used medically does have several well-documented beneficial effects. Among these are: the amelioration of nausea and vomiting, stimulation of hunger in chemotherapy and AIDS patients, lowered intraocular eye pressure (shown to be effective for treating glaucoma), as well as general analgesic effects (pain reliever).

 

Less confirmed individual studies also have been conducted indicating cannabis to be beneficial to a gamut of conditions running from multiple sclerosis to depression.

 

In the US, fourteen states have legalized cannabis for medical use. Canada, Spain, The Netherlands and Austria have also legalized cannabis for medicinal use.

 

Long-term effects:

 

The smoking of cannabis is the most harmful method of consumption, as the inhalation of smoke from organic materials can cause various health problems.

 

By comparison, studies on the vaporization of cannabis found that subjects were "only 40% as likely to report respiratory symptoms as users who do not vaporize, even when age, sex, cigarette use, and amount of cannabis consumed are controlled."

 

Another study found vaporizers to be "a safe and effective cannabinoid delivery system."

 

Systematic reviews of medical literature have found no evidence of a relationship between cannabis use and cancer. While a study in New Zealand of 79 lung-cancer patients suggested daily cannabis smokers have a 5.7 times higher risk of lung cancer than non-users, another study of 2252 people in Los Angeles failed to find a correlation between the smoking of cannabis and lung, head or neck cancers. Some studies have also found that moderate cannabis use may protect against head and neck cancers, as well as lung cancer. Some studies have shown that cannabidiol may also be useful in treating breast cancer. These effects have been attributed to the well documented anti-tumoral properties of cannabinoids, specifically tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol.

 

Cannabis use has been assessed by several studies to be correlated with the development of anxiety, psychosis, and depression. A 2007 meta-analysis estimated that cannabis use is statistically associated, in a dose-dependent manner, to an increased risk in the development of psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia. No causal mechanism has been proven, however, and the meaning of the correlation and its direction is a subject of debate that has not been resolved in the scientific community. Some studies assess that the causality is more likely to involve a path from cannabis use to psychotic symptoms rather than a path from psychotic symptoms to cannabis use, while other studies assess the opposite direction of the causality, or hold cannabis to only form parts of a "causal constellation", while not inflicting mental health problems that would not have occurred in the absence of the cannabis use.

 

Though some MRI studies have shown changes in neurological function in long term heavy cannabis users, no long term behavioral effects after abstinence have been linked to these changes.

 

Gateway drug theory:

 

Some claim that trying cannabis increases the probability that users will eventually use "harder" drugs. This hypothesis has been one of the central pillars of anti-cannabis drug policy in the United States, though the validity and implications of these hypotheses are hotly debated. Studies have shown that tobacco smoking is a better predictor of concurrent illicit hard drug use than smoking cannabis.

No widely accepted study has ever demonstrated a cause-and-effect relationship between the use of cannabis and the later use of harder drugs like heroin and cocaine. However, the prevalence of tobacco cigarette advertising and the practice of mixing tobacco and cannabis together in a single large joint, common in Europe, are believed to be cofactors in promoting nicotine dependency among young persons trying cannabis.

A 2005 comprehensive review of the literature on the cannabis gateway hypothesis found that pre-existing traits may predispose users to addiction in general, the availability of multiple drugs in a given setting confounds predictive patterns in their usage, and drug sub-cultures are more influential than cannabis itself. The study called for further research on "social context, individual characteristics, and drug effects" to discover the actual relationships between cannabis and the use of other drugs.

A new user of cannabis who feels there is a difference between anti-drug information and their own experiences will apply this distrust to public information about other, more powerful drugs. Some studies state that while there is no proof for this gateway hypothesis, young cannabis users should still be considered as a risk group for intervention programs. Other findings indicate that hard drug users are likely to be "poly-drug" users, and that interventions must address the use of multiple drugs instead of a single hard drug.

Another gateway hypothesis is that while cannabis is not as harmful or addictive as other drugs, a gateway effect may be detected as a result of the "common factors" involved with using any illegal drug. Because of its illegal status, cannabis users are more likely to be in situations which allow them to become acquainted with people who use and sell other illegal drugs. By this argument, some studies have shown that alcohol and tobacco may be regarded as gateway drugs. However, a more parsimonious explanation could be that cannabis is simply more readily available (and at an earlier age) than illegal hard drugs, and alcohol/tobacco are in turn easier to obtain earlier than cannabis (though the reverse may be true in some areas), thus leading to the "gateway sequence" in those people who are most likely to experiment with any drug offered.

A 2010 study published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior found that the main factors in users moving on to other drugs were age, wealth, unemployment status, and psychological stress. The study found there is no "gateway theory" and that drug use is more closely tied to a person's life situation, although marijuana users are more likely to use other drugs.

 

 

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My Views:

 

I am 27 years old, I smoked weed from being 17 to 24 on a fairly regular basis.

 

I am now in my third year without smoking it, I stopped for several reasons:

 

• Change of social circumstances.
  

 

• Financial commitments.
  

 

• As I've got older, generally, I don't want to be working hard for my money and lining the pockets of drug dealers. Knowing my money is being wasted by them really puts me off parting with my cash, or worse, my money is being used to fund harder drugs circulation, which I am strongly against. I know these drugs such as cocaine, or heroin can really destroy user's, families and communities either directly, or indirectly.
  

 

• Growing my own is too risky, with it being a class B substance.
  

 

I find that branding the drug illegal is where the real problem lies, this has created a sub culture that is problematic, the dealers, young users who cause trouble anyway all give the drug a bad name.

 

In comparison to cigarettes alcohol I find Cannabis to be very harmless.

 

Just look at A&E on a weekend, it is mostly drunks who are draining resources, you don't see pot heads taking up all the seats, or crowding around the vending machines emptying them of snacks

 

I for one would love to live in a society where we could go to a cannabis cafe/bar to relax and have a joint and a coffee.

It would create jobs and a variation of the usual establishments available.

These revenues would keep money in the community, not in the pockets of dealers, not to mention the benefits of taxation of the drug, look at the extra money it would generate.

 

I would really like to see others views on the subject, with explanations of why you feel the way you do. Thanks for reading.

 

source's: Wikipedia.

[*_ash_*]

Was the first vote for 'strongly agree' yours?

[megalithic]

I strongly disagree, with copy and paste.

[Conscious]

Was the first vote for 'strongly agree' yours?

 

Yes I voted strongly agree. Oh, and votes are confidential.

[Conscious]

I strongly disagree, with copy and paste.

 

lol well there is some good info on wiki, I have edited it to only include key points and not the babble. It still took some time.

 

I welcome people copying and pasting info if it is useful and the source is cited btw.

[*_ash_*]

Yes I voted strongly agree. Oh, and votes are confidential.

I know, so you had no obligation to answer that - I was just interested, as it perhaps influences the debate and poll since the opening post is written as a subjectively influenced point of view.

 

I would have voted the same, but considering how much cigs have gone up in the last two days, my opinion may have changed to 'agree', rather than 'strongly agree'. I'm going to buy illegal cigs from now on if I can find someone to supply me. The price increase is just taking the p***.

 

lol well there is some good info on wiki, I have edited it to only include key points and not the babble. It still took some time.

 

I welcome people copying and pasting info if it is useful and the source is cited btw.

 

I was going to point that out, but I thought it was taking things off topic too early!

[johncocker]

I've smoked it in the past and it can be a fun social drug among reasonabley inteligent people and maybe even for pig thick violent people ,instead of getting on the drink and beating people up, they might get stoned and at least think for a change, maybe even get creative,.on the the other hand you've got another drug to deal with in society and its quite hard to police,, especialy in work place situations where it can be quite a danger .

[Conscious]

I know, so you had no obligation to answer that - I was just interested, as it perhaps influences the debate and poll since the opening post is written as a subjectively influenced point of view.

 

I would have voted the same, but considering how much cigs have gone up in the last two days, my opinion may have changed to 'agree', rather than 'strongly agree'. I'm going to buy illegal cigs from now on if I can find someone to supply me. The price increase is just taking the p***.

 

 

 

I was going to point that out, but I thought it was taking things off topic too early!

 

It would appear that way at first glance, but I am not trying to influence any votes. I just went straight to wiki as it is a source people are familiar with, and seems unbiased on the subject in question.

 

I totally agree with you in regards to prices of cigs, I am a smoker too and its getting too expensive. Maybe they would take advantage with weed smokers as well.. But saying that there has only been 2 deaths ever recorded that were directly linked to cannabis, look how many smokers die or need NHS resources to care for them.

 

I think there is an extremely strong argument against high taxation of cannabis, maybe this is is a contribution as to why it remains illegal, who knows?

 

As for buying cheap fags, they are OK if you can get imports, but the copied ones are not worth paying half price for imo, Id sooner buy proper ones from the shop.

[Conscious]

I've smoked it in the past and it can be a fun social drug among reasonabley inteligent people and maybe even for pig thick violent people ,instead of getting on the drink and beating people up, they might get stoned and at least think for a change, maybe even get creative,.on the the other hand you've got another drug to deal with in society and its quite hard to police,, especialy in work place situations where it can be quite a danger .

 

Very good point.

[Conscious]

Come on guys please vote, and a few opinions would be nice to hear!