The health risks of legalising cannabis Editorial
One of the daftest pro-drugs proposals ever dreamt up has been the recent call by law-makers in the American state of Minnesota for their government to make financial restitution to dope-addicts allegedly harmed by drug prohibition.
This is intended as "a form of reparation", aimed to benefit those who have "experienced a disproportionately large amount of cannabis enforcement".
You can't make this stuff up. It's akin to the government offering financial restitution to drink-drivers who've been fined and barred from driving.
"This is a form of reparation", pleads Minnesota Democrat state Senator Lindsey Port, who is sponsoring the marijuana bill before the state's upper house. "Direct harm has been done to communities by prohibition and by the state, and it is our responsibility to undo that harm."
Supporting Senator Port's bill is the Minnesota is Ready for Cannabis Legalisation coalition, whose campaign manager, lawyer Ms Leili Fatehi, said recently: "We know that cannabis prohibition disproportionately impacted not just the individuals that are caught up in the criminal justice system themselves … but the entirety of their communities." (Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 2, 2023)
The "direct harm" done to individuals and communities, however, has not been because cannabis has been prohibited, but because it is so readily available around the world.
For far too long the powerful pro-drugs lobby, faithfully backed by a supporting chorus of clapping seals in the mainstream media and academia, has peddled the falsehood that cannabis is a harmless recreational drug.
In reality, the grave health risks associated with long-term cannabis use have long been known to the medical profession.
Scientific evidence for the mental and physical health risks, not only of cannabis but of other illicit drugs, has been copiously documented by Australian author and veteran anti-drugs campaigner, Mrs Elaine Walters OAM, in her important new book, 'Street Drugs': The New Addiction Industry, which will be reviewed in the next issue of the Endeavour Forum Newsletter (book details are below on page 15).
Mrs Walters' book includes a summary of the alarming evidence, presented by three Australian scientists to the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna in March this year, of the toxicity of today's highly engineered cannabis.
Professors Gary Hulse, Stuart Reece and John Toumbourou showed from numerous international studies how legalising cannabis has been linked to poorer educational outcomes in the young, an increased incidence of mental health problems, and the greater likelihood of serious/violent crimes. Long-term cannabis use can also cause chromosomal damage, resulting in accelerated ageing, cancer, birth defects and higher infant mortality.
The legalisation and decriminalisation of cannabis in parts of the U.S. and Canada has also been linked to markedly increased incidences of cannabis poisoning, according to a recent study by four other Australian researchers, Sara Allaf, Jessy S. Lim, Nicholas A. Buckley and Rose Cairns.
Their meta-analysis, the combined results of 30 studies, appeared in the UK-based Society for the Study of Addiction's scientific journal, Addiction (July 26, 2023).
They showed that cannabis use in children (usually inadvertent) can result in severe toxicity, including coma and neurological and cardiovascular disorders.
Senior author Dr Rose Cairns said in a media release accompanying publication of the report: "Increased availability and use of [cannabis-laced] edibles (gummies and chocolates, for example) appears to be an important driver of the increase in poisonings, particularly among children. Edible cannabis has a higher risk of poisoning because people tend to consume larger quantities, and the effects of cannabis take longer to show up when ingested than they do when smoked. This is concerning because edibles are especially attractive to children."
English anti-drugs campaigner Peter Hitchens recently wrote: "Marijuana is the idol and emblem of a movement and a cult. It is not just a drug, and its enthusiasts, though nowadays they have a lot of money, are no mere lobby. Try to fight them, and you will see what I mean. I have been doing so for more than a decade and I have not even scratched their paintwork." (The American Conservative, August 4, 2023)
