You wouldn’t expect Mr. Morality to be making this argument. Tea is a drug, coffee is a drug, tobacco is a drug, alcohol is a drug, many say chocolate is a drug. Sex is a drug, for goodness sake. Is cannabis a drug? Some say yes, some say no.It comes down to historical likes and dislikes. In Tom Brown’s schooldays, they served ‘ale and bread and cheese, and a bowl of punch’ to the boys, rather than tea. Queen Victoria used cannabis for her menstrual cramps.
So how did cannabis move from prescribed to proscribed? Why was it criminalized? Now there’s yet another study and this time it shows the following:
Released by the Mental Health Council of Australia, a report highlights a growing body of research linking cannabis use with increased risks of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and psychosis and is associated with "adverse outcomes" such as failure at school and not finding a job.
"You increase that risk further if you have a family history of mental illness," said the council's chief executive John Mendoza. "You increase the risk again a notch further if you begin using at a young age, when brain development is at crucial stages."
Meant to make us mad? We’re already mad, aren’t we?
I'd be interested to know just how increased the risk is, and how that compares with those associated with smoking and drinking.
ReplyDeleteEverything has risks after all. Getting into a car brings risks.
With cannabis, there seem to be two different sets of data - that from long term users and that of the university studies, both drawing opposite conclusions. Hard to know whom to believe.
ReplyDeleteI don't know who to believe either. I do know a lot of people of my own generation [who grew up in the drugs-everywhere sixties] are dropping dead in their fifties, though!
ReplyDeleteDepends what they were on though - just grass or acid as well. Maybe something even heavier.
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