by Doug – the northlondonhippy

Cannabis often hits the headlines, but it’s not the real story. The real story is the failure of prohibition, yet again.

Cannabis has been in the news again recently, but for all the wrong reasons.

The first story I am referring to is the tragic death of a young Nigerian woman after consuming what she thought were cannabis sweets, but you need to go beyond the headlines to get to the truth.

The truth is these sweets contained absolutely no genuine cannabis, but instead a cheaper, very dangerous synthetic cannabinoid, most likely something called JWH-018, known on the street as “Spice”. Its nasty stuff, manufactured in a lab. The effects are nothing like real cannabis, but it binds to the same receptors in the brain. Also, unlike genuine cannabis, JWH-018 is toxic. Natural cannabis isn’t toxic at all, weed is actually safer than aspirin.

The other story that hit the headlines recently, concerned the strip search of a child because the authorities thought she was in possession of a very small amount of cannabis. The details of this story are particularly horrific, due to the intimate nature of the search. I won’t mince words, this was institutionalised child abuse, it should never have been permitted to happen.

As I said, these two stories have two things in common and the first is by far the most ironic. While the headlines screamed “cannabis!”, in fact, no actual cannabis was involved in either incident. The young girl who was searched, was not found to be in possession of anything. And the sweets that poisoned that woman, contained zero natural cannabis.

The other thing that both of these cannabis stories have in common, besides the lack of actual cannabis, is that they were enabled, and driven, by our foolish prohibition of cannabis.

Prohibition is at the root of most of the supposed harms caused by natural cannabis, the most significant of those harms being an encounter with law enforcement. And as the strip search of that young girl demonstrates, you don’t even need to have any cannabis, for our silly cannabis laws, and prohibition to leave their mark on you.

The UK doesn’t have a regulated, or legal market for adult use, we mainly only have the black market, and it mostly doesn’t care about safety, only profit. Actual cannabis edibles are available here, but it is nearly impossible to tell the difference between them, and the dodgy ones made with Spice. Unless you’ve made them yourself, there is no way to be certain, and buying them from the black market, will always be a risk, until we do the right thing.

We could dial that risk down to zero, by legalising cannabis here. The idea is popular with the public, It would be even more popular, if the media told the truth, but cannabis has been the target of what I call the original disinformation campaign, and one-hundred plus years of lies, continue to be reported as fact. Don’t believe me? Then why have so many other places legalised it already? The science is settled, unless you wilfully ignore the truth.

The United Kingdom legalised cannabis for medicinal use via private prescription in 2018. Currently, around 15,000 people are legally accessing cannabis products. A prescription is expensive, the process is complicated, and the products vary in quality, while their availability remains inconsistent. That’s why millions of domestic medicinal users still source their cannabis from the black market, myself included.

Germany recently voted to legalise, they’re doing it to ensure a safe supply for their population after an adulterant scare. And in America, 37 of the 50 states have extensive medicinal programmes, and 18 states have legalised adult use. The United Kingdom is being left behind in one of the fastest growing industries in the world. We could all have safer products, while the Treasury benefitted from VAT on sales. Currently, our extensive illegal cannabis market remains untaxed, and unregulated.

How many more people have to be mistreated by the police, or die from dangerous imitation products, before our leaders act? Prohibition is a failure, they all know it, yet they continue on the same path. Change here is long overdue.

I have used cannabis daily, and medicinally, for over 40 years, I have benefitted from it enormously throughout my adult life. I’m willing to go anywhere, speak to anyone, to help make this change happen. Will you join me? We need all the help we can get.

Doug – the northlondonhippy is a writer, and journalist (lapsed), who has been writing about drugs, and drug use, specifically his own, for nearly 20 years. He is a self-described “cannabis evangelist”. During his 30+ years in the media, Doug has worked for BBC News, Reuters, AP, and MTV Music Television. Doug is a full time hippy now. He tweets as @nthlondonhippy