The Global Cannabis Commission Report Part I – Cannabis Use and Preparation

The Beckley Foundation commissioned a group of top experts to write a report on marijuana; the laws, and the health risks. This Commission is called The Global Cannabis Commission and on October 2nd they issued their report. Much like various reports of the past, they urged governments to ease up on marijuana laws and enforce regulations instead of criminal laws, and to tax instead of incarcerate. So who is the Cannabis Commission? Benedikt Fischer from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland, Simon Lenton of the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Peter Reuter from the University of Maryland, Robin Room of the University of Melbourne and Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre, and Amanda Fielding the Convenor from The Beckley Foundation. The Report is massive, but it can be downloaded here for those inclined to read the massive document, ok I am overstating things, it is only a couple hundred pages, but come on its not like you can roll a doobie and have a relaxing read of this thing. That being said I did read it (ok maybe I skipped the dryer parts, but still I read most of it), so rather than making you read the whole thing let me summarize it for you in this series of posts about the report.

For those of you who want just the general gist, they recommend countries ignore or back out of the existing drug treaties and legalize, regulate and tax marijuana. So basically what every cannabis activist has been saying for decades, not to mention what various other reports of the past have said. Hopefully someone will listen to this one. But lets delve into the report in more detail shall we. This first post will focus on the Commissions study of the use of marijuana

The Commission states that their goal was to look deeper into Cannabis since it has been the main focus of the war on drug yet very rarely discussed during international drug policy debates. The Commission wanted to bring cannabis into the limelight for policy makers, make them sit up and take notice of the grand injustice being done with prohibitionist actions. The report was aimed at the UN Commission on Drugs which met in Vienna in March of 2007 and is set to meet again in spring of 2009, the 2009 meeting is the meeting the Commission hopes their report will be heard.

In their preface they suggest, “That future policy should be grounded on a scientifically-based scale of harm for all social drugs, both legal and illegal.” A novel idea, but will any government really agree to base policy on logic rather than political pressure? One would hope so, but I doubt it.

The Commission estimates that 4% of the global adult population used cannabis in 2005, and that this number is a 10% jump in total users since the mid 1990’s. This number is considerably higher than any other illicit drug available. And yet despite this startling number every nation prohibits the use and production of marijuana to one degree or another in compliance with the 1961 Single Convention on Drugs. Would it surprise you to know that Oceania has the highest usage rates per capita when analyzed compared to all other continents? It somewhat surprised me since many of the studies linking Schizophrenia and marijuana came out of Australia. The use per continent is as follows:

• Oceania 16%, way above the global average
• North America 11%, we are no slouches over here either
• Africa 8%, still above the global average
• Western Europe, 7%
• Eastern Europe 4%, not nearly the dope fiends of their western neighbours
• South America 2%, half the global average, come on South America catch up, everyone’s doing it
• South-East Europe 2%, huh look at the rest of Europe guys
• Asia 2%

One thing to note is that according to the Commission “The common patterns across countries with very different policy approaches reinforce the general impression that penalties for personal use have very little impact on the prevalence of cannabis use in a society.”

The Report points out that prohibiting the cannabis plan is not only impossible it has severe sociological effects. Since Cannabis can grow in almost any environment enforcing drug laws is beyond just difficult it is silly to suggest that any government can truly enforce the laws with the goal of eradicating cannabis use.

The Report also discusses the many different ways to prepare cannabis for use. Laying out the differences between Marijuana and Hashish and explaining some of the different strains. But since you are reading a blog about the legalization of marijuana I am going to assume you know this, or if you don’t I could do a post in the future discussing this, for now we will end this post, join me next week when we discuss the health and psychological effects

Dr. Robert L. DuPont Needs to Smoke More Often

Ok, so I know I already discussed this article last week, but I think it deserves more deep delving. Last week I was mainly interested in the thought experiment. This week I am going to focus on the comments of one Dr. Robert L. DuPont chief Moron of the Department of the Anti-Marijuana Propaganda, president of the Institute for Behavior and Health, and former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

I am sure Dr. DuPont is a relatively reasonable and intelligent man on other issues, however he seems to have thrown logic out the window in his statement of support of the prohibition of marijuana. He uses the analogy of speeding, stating that "Legalization of marijuana would solve the marijuana problem the way legalizing speeding would solve the speeding problem: it would remove the legal inhibition of a dangerous behavior, and thereby encourage the behavior." His entire statement is hinged on this analogy, but yet he doesn't once support his claim that marijuana is actually harmful to an individual or to society as a whole. If you are going to claim that something is a danger to society you had better be able to support it, especially if you are going to throw away citizens rights in order to prohibit a substance or activity, Dr. DuPont completely fails to do this, he advocates continuing a failing drug war because pot is "bad" but seems to refuse to state WHY pot is bad.

He then goes on to imply that youth would have more access to marijuana if it were legalized without any thing backing up the claim. He states, "We have not done a good job of keeping alcohol and cigarettes out of the hands of young people." I'd like to pose the question to Dr. DuPont of, what of the 2002 survey by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) stating that teenagers have an easier time getting marijuana then alcohol. If we are doing a worse job now at keeping marijuana out of the hands of youth don't you think that we should maybe regulate marijuana in a more logical way?

New York Times Discussion

A New York Times Opinion column called On the Legalization — or Not — of Marijuana by Stephen J. Dubner examines the issue of legalization starting out with an interesting thought exercise and then posts some great examples of opinions pro and con on the issue of marijuana. I highly recommend reading the article in the entirety.

For those of you too lazy to read the article here is the thought exercise:

Imagine humanity reaching the 21st century without ever discovering Marijuana or Alcohol, how do you think this would affect the laws?

I encourage all my readers to ponder this thought and post your thoughts on this either here or at the comments section of this article.

dNeero Post

This is a paid posting.

Governator Reprises and Old Role

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has returned to his roll as the Terminator in his vetoing of A.B. 2279 the California legislation that would restrict employers from firing or not hiring legal medicinal marijuana users. Critics incorrectly claimed that this bill would allow people to come in to work stoned to jobs where mental alertness was an imperative safety measure. In point of fact the bill specifically specifies that the user cannot use while at work and has provisions for positions where safety would be an issue. So basically the Governator has simply assured that companies can terminate employees for following the law of California.

Shame on you Arnie, why is it you think it is a good idea to add to the economic crisis by increasing the number of unemployed?

Apparently Arnie's reason for vetoing this bill was that he felt that the people of California did not intend to include job security when they voted to allow medicinal marijuana. So by that reasoning Arnold figures the people of California wanted sick people to lose their job for the sole reason that they are sick.

Here is his press release from the vetoing of the bill:

To the Members of the California State Assembly:

I am returning Assembly Bill 2279 without my signature.

This bill attempts to shield qualified medical marijuana patients employed in non safety- sensitive positions from employment discrimination. However, I am concerned with interference in employment decisions as they relate to marijuana use. Employment protection was not a goal of the initiative as passed by voters in 1996.

For these reasons, I am returning this bill without my signature.

Sincerely,



Arnold Schwarzenegger

Debunking Myths: Tobacco, Alocohol, and Taxes

One of the most pervasive myths surrounding the logic behind the reasoning that Marijuana is illegal is the concept that since marijuana is a natural plant it can't be taxed. The argument goes "You can't grow your own cigarettes at home, nor can you distill your own alcohol so the government can tax those things, but marijuana can be easily grown at home and that scares the government." This logic is just plain silly on a number of levels.

Sure, not many people have a distillery in their back yard, nor do they have a tobacco aging and curing house. That being said, both can be done at home and surprisingly enough its not all that difficult. Both require some knowledge and some work, but really so does growing marijuana. Sure marijuana is easier, but in the case of tobacco the real work lies in aging the tobacco, if you don't do that you end up with an inferior product but still smokable.

Growing Tobacco in the Home Garden
HomeDistiller.org