Talking (bollocks) About Cannabis

Cannabis campaigners are furious after being snubbed by the current Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) review into cannabis classification.

The Legalise Cannabis Alliance (LCA) have been denied a speaker and been informed they may only take part in the 45 minute long open forum.

A press release from the LCA states:

“How can this review reflect the “wide range of evidence” that the ACMD seems to be looking for, when not one cannabis users is being given an equal opportunity to those who seek upgrading.”

Prohibitionists SANE as well as the far from sane Debra Bell have all been allotted 20 minute speaking slots.

Debra Bell runs the Talking About Cannabis website, a shambolic and self-indulgent tableau of lies which shrieks it’s hysterical distortions with the righteous indigination only the truly middle-class can muster.

In fact, in Debra’s evidence to the ACMD she is very clear:

“In the past drug abuse was often seen by the middle classes as something that happens on inner-city sink estates but now drug abuse is affecting everyone; cannabis addiction is spanning the classes. The middle classes have never known such an epidemic, leaving families in their thousands bewildered, afraid, alone and ashamed.”

((((the bewildered, afraid, alone and ashamed middle classes)))

Debra got her knickers in a twist because her son ‘went off the rails’ using cannabis, although from her recent utterances you might ask can you blame him?

Whilst we have every sympathy with parents who’s children have developed mental health problems, (whether or not caused by cannabis and this is still far from conclusive) it seems obvious that cannabis is a useful scapegoat.

Any parent who’s child who develops problems, is bound to feel an inner sense of guilt, in most cases probably completely undeserved but also completely understandable.

In our experience guilt is one of the prevailing emotions of parenting … and no-one tells you that when you start out.

Cannabis is a convenient way to emeliorate that guilt and it is no surprise that the voices shouting loudest in this debate are those whose children’s lives have not panned out the way they would have liked.

In Hall’s case she is particularly appalled that after sending her son to a £15,000 a year private school he still succumbed to the evil weed. Hall wrote a diary of her son’s troubles and he indeed seems a troubled young man.

You have to then wonder whether having highly personal details published across the internet and splashed across the pages of the Daily Express is likely to be helpful to a vulnerable, young person?

Hall’s son does give his side of the story, parts of which are revealing:

“Frequently my parents will sit me down and tell me what they think is wrong with me, which is usually considerable. Add to this that my mum is the kind that thinks MSN messenger is ‘disgusting and pornographic’ and when I arrived on my book return day at school wearing irregular trousers, as I had somehow lost my others in a friend’s bedroom she screamed at me in front all my friends.

Looking for ways to help your wayward youth? Don’t alienate them and push them away, but if you refuse to make any kind of compromise you are always going to lose.”

Hall has no qualifications or experience in the drugs field yet her website still contains a page called Cannabis – the facts written by the ever-unbiased Mary Brett who is the UK spokesman for EURAD (Europe against Drugs).

Reading it is like stepping back 50 years.

A string of unreferenced claims begins with the statement that cannabis is a hallucinogen and a depressent … neither of which is true.

It then makes the claim that because THC works on neurotransmitters therefore:

“new nerve connections cannot be made properly. Concentration, learning and memory are all badly affected.”

She then falsely claims that physical addiction will occur, cannabis users will become violent, impotence and infertility will occur, the immune system will be damaged, you’ll go mad and that babies born to cannabis using mothers are smaller, hyperactive, have behaviour and learning problems.

Rubbishing medical cannabis she claims that:

“It all started in 1979 when an American pot smoking lawyer said, ‘We will use the medical marijuana argument as a red herring on the road to full legalisation’.”

Which is curious given that ayurvedic texts trace medical cannabis back over 3000 years and that any Victorian reference book will recommend cannabis for a wide range of ailments.

Finally this diatribe of ignorance makes the astounding claim that:

“Few children, using cannabis even occasionally, will achieve their full potential.”

Which may come as a surprise to the last two presidents of the USA.

If Hall and her mates think that unsourced bullshit like that appearing on her website in any way strengthens her argument then it is perhaps her is is away with the fairies.

Let’s hope that the ACMD, which has some real scientists, will see this puritanical propaganda for what it is.

Finally a reminder that tonight Horizon on the beeb is looking into drugs classification. The programme will focus on research by Professor Nutt, which shows a refreshing new direction but his methodology is a crock of shit … as we kindly pointed out last year.