Cannabis

[blue moon]

I will unpack my Hookah

[eight days a week]

From the snippets I caught there was a very very interesting debate on the Julia George show on Radio Kent about cannabis yesterday morning from 9am. You can catch it on iplayer, but the easiest thing (at least for me) is to go to the Radio Kent homepage and select 'listen again' from there.

There were 'extremes' from both sides but a number of things I heard greatly interested me.

The first was that the genetic changes that have been made to the plant to make it more psychoactive but less 'balanced' (and to my mind much more dangerous to those of us with borderline disorders) was touched upon many times, but even the experts do not seem to be pursuing or publicising this at all. Please research THC and CBD if you're interested.

Secondly, even the proponents of legalisation for personal use (that I heard) said that as a psychoactive substance, it will always have risks for certain people, and that those people should avoid it (which has, actually, made me reconsider the whole question). On the other hand they say they have research comparing it to the harm alcohol does to groups of people, and there is no comparison.

The third thing that came out, and was a shock to me, was that they said you should never, ever take it until your brain has stopped developing. Because, just like traumatic events, your brain is shaped by these things and it means it develops in another way that is not 'ideal' at all. They said that males' brains stop developing later than females, so you are playing with fire really to try it before then. And if you are male then it is until your early twenties (if not mid) that your brain finally settles down into its 'adult' shape.

Wow.

The facts that one medium sized joint does more damage to the lungs than 10 cigarettes puts me off.

Buy accredited, medical-quality cannabis then, and use a vaporiser (like the e-cigs that deliver nicotine and the pleasures of smoking, supposedly, without the tar and other nasty chemicals). Oh wait, we can't, because despite the failure of the multi-billion pound war on drugs, the government are still not prepared to take this bold step and stop inquisitive teens, or younger, going to the local street dealers and being sold - amongst other things - 'cannabis' laced with boot polish, plastic, horse tranquilisers, glass dust (this stuff is very nasty as once it's in your lungs it can never get out I have read, because your body can't expel it or break it down), and also offered other drugs such as heroin, LSD, and goodness knows what else.

The other point that was forcefully made was that this is the reason cannabis is so often called a 'gateway' drug. Because to get it you have to become illegal, and once you have done that why not try other drugs too, after all you're already a criminal, and the police and government have classed you as a 'druggie'?

It seems to me we need proper trials involving 'street' cannabis users (who are often it seems smoking plastic and the other horrendous things I mentioned) versus 'proper' cannabis versus (perhaps) some sort of placebo.

also I worked with long term (20+ years) users and saw what it had done to them - that was enough to put me off the idea.

I would love to hear more about this please