Choose Your Poison
It is obvious to me that, if we were proposing to legalise tobacco now (probably on the basis of its de facto widespread use), there would be an outcry from the medical profession, because of tobacco’s terrible health effects. I have noticed in various blogs, including my own, that people use the strange argument that cannabis is safer than tobacco therefore it should be legal. This is despite the extremely likelihood that tobacco would never be legalised with todays health data on the hazards of smoking. As I have commented in a recent post:
“I find it worrying that those keen on legalising cannabis perpetuate the myth that it is “safer than tobacco”, whereas “less studied than tobacco” would be more accurate. It seems to me that the health problems we face with tobacco are entirely due to the fact that we did not know it’s harmful effects until its use was widespread. I would like to avoid the same mistake with cannabis.”
And to emphasise this point recent Australian reports indicate a new toxic effect of cannabis known as cannabinoid hyperemesis. It’s like severe morning sickness without the pregnancy.
Okay, its rare and only a few cases have been reported in the medical literature. The problem is that we have no idea why it occurs. This should be enough to give anyone pause in their quest to have the drug legalised. Unexplained side effects would certainly stop a drug going to market or, like thalidomide, get it pulled off the market far too late. It is absurd to even consider allowing widespread recreational use of a substance when we have no idea of the long term effects of its consumption.
I do not want my children and grandchildren paying for a potentially huge health bill that we could have avoided.
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Mar 24 09 1:08 pm
We might listen to the medical profession and refuse to legalise tobacco, but after a few years of prohibition in which the prisons filled up with tobacco addicts costing taxpayers billions while tobacco farmers and smugglers built gigantic criminal organizations that corrupted the justice system and threatened to topple governments we might decide that prohibition is not a very effective way to meet the public health challenges presented by tobacco.
There are huge problems around legalising marijuana (do we really want PR firms lobbying Parliament on behalf of the marijuana industry?) but at this point it looks like the least worst option.
Mar 24 09 1:09 pm
One of the big idiocys of the whole thing is that the Green party for example, will tell you one is wrong to suck into your lungs, the other is ok. But both go into the lungs where they’re going to cause damage – that’s common sense.
The nonsense really is though, is that they justify the difference with “oh, when it’s legal we’ll make it into a tea”.
Well, there are places where it’s legal now. Show me one place where they take it as tea and don’t smoke it.
Mar 24 09 1:30 pm
One could fill the universe with the things we don’t know. What we do know is that cannabis has been used for tens of thousands of years without a single recorded fatality from overdose. How much more long term testing does one need?
Once again, it is not a matter of whether cannabis use is harmless, but whether the real and imagined harms of the substance are greater than the harms of prohibiting something that literally grows on trees.
Legalisation would lower the stigma of problem users in seeking help by alleviating the threat of arrest. It would also provide revenue to pay for these services, instead of the tens of millions we currently spend policing a market worth hundreds of millions each year.
As long as the law encourages this black market, your children and grandchildren will continue to pick up the tab for health as well as police, customs, prisons and courts.
Mar 24 09 1:43 pm
Danyl:
I believe you are confusing “not legalise” (a banned substance) with “prohibit” (a legal substance). These are not the same argument. Putting the genie back in the bottle is much harder than not letting it out in the first place.
Your argument about filling up prisons is spurious. I could use the same argument for legalising assault or paedophila. And legalising cannabis will certainly not remove the criminal gangs, they will simply move their activities to some other illegal venture, probably a more harmful one.
Scrubone: Show me one place where they take it as tea and don’t smoke it.
I believe cannabis can be made into quite tasty muffins.
Mar 24 09 2:00 pm
Will: Overdose toxicity is the least of my concerns. There is evidence that cannabis smoking in the young (the ones most likely to increase their consumption if legalised), causes poor school performance, serious demotivation to succeed, depression and psychosis. There is also a considerable body of evidence that indicates that cannabis smoking causes exactly the same lung and throat damage as tobacco. This evidence is often discounted because it is hard to extract from smoking data (cannabis smokers often smoke tobacco as well)
…whether the real and imagined harms of the substance are greater than the harms of prohibiting something that literally grows on trees.
Something we cannot ascertain without proper, non-partisan long term data. Data which, despite thousands of years of use, no-one has bothered to collect.
Mar 24 09 2:22 pm
MacDoc – the most recent NZ study puts the legal enforce costs at a higher monetary value than the health and “social” costs. So your children and grandchildren would in fact save money if cannabis were legalised.
The fact is that there’s already widespread use of cannabis in NZ (you need to get out more) – despite the best (some would say wasted) efforts of our police. Surely you know that it’s piss-easy to get your hands on already?
As such I would prefer that the police spend more of their time and resources protecting the innocent victims of violent criminals Wouldn’t you? – at the very least it would thin out the right-wing smacking lobby a bit..
Mar 24 09 6:10 pm
If people feel the need to pickle their brains or stuff their livers with this or that substance good luck to them,
I just wish we were smart enough as a society to let them pay the full cost of their own choices.
Mar 24 09 8:20 pm
OK, let’s put aside toxicity
I agree that the young shouldn’t smoke cannabis and NORML has always pursued an Adults Only policy. Prohibition has completely failed to prevent underage usage, as many rural schools would attest. It is worth noting that under 18 cannabis use in the Netherlands is a quarter our rate.
As for cannabis causing as much harm on lungs and throats, some form of seesha or vaporiser might be a way of minimising the toxins. Pipes and bongs are better than joints at filtering out that tar and burnt plant material, but they were made illegal some years ago.
Baking with marijuana is actually the preferred method of ingestion for many medpot users, as the resulting body stone keeps the head clear whilst anesthetising chronic pain, for example, or regaining appetite from chemotherapy. The quantities of weed required at black market prices makes this impractical.
Which is kind of ironic, considering the cost per unit price of a tinny is around 5 cents, before black market superprofits are added (It’s called weed for a reason. The stuff grows wild in South Africa).
Mar 24 09 11:34 pm
Roger: the most recent NZ study puts the legal enforce costs at a higher monetary value than the health and “social” costs.
I would be interested in a link to the study if you have one.
Andrew W: I just wish we were smart enough as a society to let them pay the full cost of their own choices.
You could say that about most things…
Will: Although the jury is still out on whether cannabis has medical utility, I think there is probably enough positive evidence to allow supervised medical use. This would stop sick people having to risk tinny houses to get medication.
Mar 25 09 10:42 am
The MoH admits medicinal use for THC at least. Sativex applications are finally being accepted.
Mar 25 09 12:14 pm
Will de Cleene makes the excellent point about vaporisors. Nearly zero evaporation of tar and other non-active plant materials, and nearly maximum evaporation of THC – if these were made redily available for sale, many of the negative health effects of smoking could be eliminated (though you’d probably still have depression and schizophrenia – which is why young people, and people with fragile brain chemistry should stay the hell away from pot).
Mac Doc – can’t find the study on-line. It was delivered at a public debate involving Government officials, pro-legalisation groups and prohibitionist groups.
It costs nearly $100,000 per year to keep each pot smoker/dealer in jail, then you’ve got the helicopters, the endless front line police hours, etc – yet it’s still child’s-play to get your hands on, no matter where you live in NZ. There has to be a cheaper, smarter way to deal with the issue. I agree, marajuana is generally a blight on society – especially when you consider what it does to the brains of our youths, but the status quo is ridiculous.
Mar 25 09 4:58 pm
Roger nome, are you referring to BERL’s NZ Drug Harm Index, which Russell Brown described as spectacular but useless? Even such a biased report concluded the tangible social costs of cannabis for 2005/6 as:
Illicit drug production (read police costs) $243.2m
Crime (read premium of super-inflated drug price) $140.6m
Labour costs (lost production) $33.6m
Health care $7.5m
Road accidents $0.9m (bugger all compared to alcohol)
Harm worked out at $1694 a year per user, about double what I paid in tobacco tax last year. Take away the prohibitive police costs, use just health costs, it works out at around $2 a week per user.
Sources:
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.berl.co.nz%2Fcontent%2Faboutberl%2Fprojects%2F2008%2FBERL%2520(2008)%2520New%2520Zealand%2520Drug%2520Harm%2520Index%2520(web%2520version).pdf.support.aspx&ei=PqjJSdmGOoKOsQPjppzsBw&usg=AFQjCNHR34OJZYCWxTnvfyiZade6Mtx_Ng&sig2=_m4Xu-I1orlx0p0pz0gg5Q
http://publicaddress.net/default,5103.sm#post5103
Mar 25 09 5:10 pm
Will de cleene – it was a 2008 study produced at the debate by Jim Anderton. He was trying to convince people of the merits of having pot criminalised by rattling of meaningless numbers about how much enforcement of prohibition had saved New Zealand (how you quantify “social costs” i have no idea).
The problem was that the prison bill for keeping pot heads in jail was, by itself astronomically higher. There is no rational argument for criminalising stoners. It’s just stupid.
Mar 25 09 8:23 pm
Yep, sounds like the same info. It’s the same argument that allows cops to say they prevented $x of harm from uncovering y amount of plants. Self-fulfilling horse puckey.