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The Truth About Cannabis

Cannabis is the most widely used illegal drug in Britain, and in America it is more popular than surfing the internet. It is a mild sedative and causes a chilled out feeling or sleepiness. It is also a mild hallucinogen, though it is often more likely to lead to a slight distortion of reality than actual hallucinations.

So why the big deal? Weed appears to be a fairly safe and gentle drug, yet recent government activity seems to indicate it will be reclassified as class B sooner rather than later. It was only a few years ago that it was downgraded to class C, which many saw as the first step towards legalisation. Why the turnaround?

Firstly, cannabis is getting much stronger. The Streets’ Mike Skinner released The Irony of It All in 2002, a song featuring a happy stoner called Tim and a law-abiding yet mindless drinker. Tim’s cogent argument for the legalisation of cannabis painted a picture of peaceful hippies doing no harm to anyone, and was in sharp contrast to the wild and violent drunk. It fitted perfectly with the downgrade of the drug which came two years later:

“You know I don’t see why I should be the criminal
How can something with no recorded fatalities be illegal?
And how many deaths are there per year from alcohol?”

But it ignored the fact that more potent strains of cannabis were becoming available in the UK, and that the drug is far more addictive than experts previously thought. Government website Frank says that one in ten users are addicts, and with weed being increasingly cut with tobacco, nicotine addiction can lead smokers to use more and more often.

“Recent research indicates that in common with other addictive drugs such as heroin, nicotine and amphetamines, cannabis activates the release of dopamine in the brain,” says Action on Addiction.

”Dopamine release forms part of the brain's reward mechanism, which is involved in dependence. Some regular cannabis users become psychologically dependent and can experience a variety of withdrawal symptoms when they stop using.”

Cannabis is an addictive substance, with heavy users likely to experience schizophrenia, paranoia and other mental problems. Those in favour of upgrading its status feel it must be policed more rigidly because it is too dangerous to be used casually. It is certainly too dangerous to be used heavily, and the myth of the happy, non-addicted stoner must be exposed as exactly that – a myth.