Cannabis – A Gateway to Hell?

A few days ago Parliament approved legislation regulating the legalisation of cannabis. The protestations of rehabilitation experts, professionals and other concerned bodies – and later their suggestions to mitigate the effects of the proposed measures - were totally ignored. The government which in 2012 had solemnly promised to listen has, nine years later, contracted some severe sort of age-related hearing loss and become stone-deaf. 

Many are asking what will happen now. None of us is endowed with precognitive powers, so what the future really holds is a mystery. However, the highly-educated guess of most of my colleagues, who are more knowledgeable about drug-related matters than I am, is that the doomsday scenarios envisaged by some, featuring thousands of our fellow-countrymen becoming enslaved to the devil weed and streets replete with mindless zombies staggering about (I exaggerate, but you get my drift), are the stuff of comic-books, and not tomorrow’s reality.

So, no end-times panoramas but plenty of negative outcomes not to look forward to: an increase in use, a smallish rise in the number of cannabis dependent-individuals, some further cases of cannabis-related psychosis and quite possibly higher numbers of drug-induced accidents (some of which will result in death) both at the work-place and on the roads. There will be the inevitable irresponsible idiots who will grow/smoke the stuff at home and not exercise due control over their children. Possibly the most underrated effect of all is that recovering addicts will find it harder to resist the lure of relapse with cannabis becoming more easily and widely available. All avoidable problems and heartaches.

There of course will be inevitable positive effects as a result of the new the legislative regime: trafficking will be quite substantially reduced (though it will never die out, in much the same way as the contraband of cigarettes and alcohol persists), a small proportion of police resources can be diverted elsewhere, and the quality of the cannabis sold will improve.

All in all, we would have been considerably better off with a tweaking of the legislative framework to ensure more comprehensive decriminalisation rather than the virtual legalisation and normalisation of cannabis use. Experts have tried to warn the government, but Robert Abela’s outfit apparently does not suffer wise men – or women - gladly.

Doubtlessly within a few months, the hullabaloo surrounding this bill will die down and the process of mainstreaming of the substance will be smoothly completed with the (few) casualties quietly buried and hospitalised with the other victims of life. 

However, on another level after Tuesday’s vote, life may never be the same again. The enactment of this legislation has signalled another psychological milestone - a crossing of a mental Rubicon, as it were. In much the same way as divorce paved the way for the legal sanctioning of behaviour and attitudes deemed to fall within the realm of civil rights, and many people - previously opposed to civil unions, adoption by same-sex couples and same-sex marriages - just accepted their enactment without a murmur, so the legalisation of cannabis may unleash a spate of “reforms’’ previously undreamt of among us, which will also receive Parliamentary approval.

How long will it take for the argument to be brought up that, now that  cannabis is legal, it is discriminatory for users of heroin and cocaine to be prosecuted for carrying small(ish) amounts of their drug of choice and that society would be better off with these substances being brought into the mainstream and regulated, just like dope? If objections to the fact that legalisation will quite likely result in increased use of cannabis had no effect on the executive and our legislators, why should the esteemed ladies and gentlemen (go away, Commissioner Dalli) be swayed by the same argument in relation to coke and smack? Does anyone honestly think that cocaine and heroin will be not liberalised, in more or less the same way cannabis has been, fairly soon?

The government (or at least those elements within it evidently bent on transforming our country into a liberal ‘paradise’ where most things, include some hitherto considered immoral, go) has already chosen to tread the path conveniently paved by the divorce referendum. The gate to this paradise has been pushed open even further by yet another triumph of the liberal lobby – and the dismantling of another set of psychological barriers to changes so far deemed shocking by most of us.

Many are afraid that one of  items on the 'liberal' agenda is something even more sinister than the legalisation of coke and heroin with all their lethal consequences. What was inconceivable even a decade ago is now, if not quite at the door, certainly this side of the horizon. The great fear for those of us who consider human life to be the primary value is that some time with the next few years abortion will, in some shape or form, be introduced.

Of course, just like cannabis, and other ‘reforms’ the killing of human life in the womb will not appear in any electoral manifesto as a clear and solemn promise. Rather, an ambiguous reference to a “discussion’’ will quite likely be made as per the tried and tested blueprint. Proposal 16 of Section 16 of the PL’s 2017 Manifesto stated that “the next step is to start a discussion […] about the use of cannabis for recreational purposes.’’

Any reasonable individual would have interpreted that phrase as meaning that there would be a discussion about WHETHER to introduce legislation legalising pot. Instead, right from the off, we were presented with the intention to introduce the legislation and were most generously offered the possibility to discuss HOW to introduce it. Commissioner Dalli can now smugly enjoy another gloat at our expense.

Robert Abela who had stated he would oppose anybody who sought to introduce abortion, recently made very clear noises about a “discussion’’ about abortion although, in fairness, he also mentioned the need to uphold the rights of unborn human life.

The nightmare scenario: this “discussion’’ will be mentioned in the 2022 Electoral Manifesto in roughly the same terms as the proposal to hold a discussion on cannabis. And do you know what? Voters will not give a blind bit of notice to the implications of that promise. What with the economy still apparently doing well and the Partit Nazzjonalista looking like a badly-rehearsed vaudeville act, the PL will be resoundingly returned. And then the ‘discussion’ will start...

The notion that cannabis is a gateway drug may have been practically debunked in so far as the conceptualisation of the addiction itinerary is concerned, but in the Maltese context the legalisation of the drug may yet prove to be the gateway to a horrendously and hellishly bloody future.

I hope to God I’m wrong.

Sue Arnold's Change of Heart

Sue Arnold is a highly-respected British journalist with liberal views. When I lived in the UK during the early '80s I, along with tens of thousands of others, was a devotee of her weekly column in The Observer. Although almost four decades have gone by, I still remember vividly the Sunday she sprang the news on an unsuspecting readership that she was virtually blind due to a genetic eye condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa.

Occasionally she smoked cannabis. In 1997, she published an article  in the Observer revealing that she had smoked ‘skunk’ at a dinner party. Skunk is the most potent form of cannabis available, and Sue's eyesight had improved dramatically for the short period she was under its influence. Unfortunately for her, the joint also had an inebriating effect, rendering her ‘legless’ and almost unable to speak.          http://cdnedge.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/212301.stm

Not surprisingly, Arnold became a vociferous champion for the use of cannabis for therapeutic purposes, initially campaigning for research to be done to isolate the cannabinoid which gave her back her eyesight for those few precious minutes, from the rest of  tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) which produces the stoning effect. Eventually, she broadened the scope of her articulate support for a change in attitudes to the legalisation of cannabis for both therapeutic and recreational purposes.

As is well known, the British Government was, at the time, planning to downgrade cannabis from a Class B to a Class C drug (on the same level as steroids and sedatives). Initially this would have meant that personal use would no longer make one liable to prosecution. But the medical establishment and drug workers warned that the effect of this move would be an increase in drug use, with all the consequences this would entail. Stung by the strength of the reaction, the British Government had decided to go ahead with the downgrading, but continued to consider possession of cannabis illegal.

All those who had been following the debate about the decriminalisation of cannabis expected Sue Arnold to come out with a partial endorsement of the proposals to liberalise the law. But, on the 18th January 2004, Arnold wrote an article in the Observer announcing that she was no longer in favour of the use of cannabis. What had brought about the astounding change of heart was the damage cannabis had wreaked on something more precious to her than her own eyesight: the well-being of one of her sons.

Some years before, this young man had suffered a psychotic episode precipitated by the use of cannabis. He had spent six months in a psychiatric facility in England, and had been discharged on medication which, the family was told,  he would probably have to remain on for the rest of his life. Sue Arnold had seen for herself that those who warned about the serious ill-effects of cannabis were not simply reactionary killjoys bent on maintaining a repressive legal regime unnecessarily, but had very solid arguments to back up their stance http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/jan/18/drugsandalcohol.society

The belief that besides increasing the chances of contracting lung cancer and emphysema, cannabis use can be responsible for triggering psychosis in susceptible individuals has gained momentum. Researchers at Yale University have concluded that THC can produce a psychotic reaction. years ago, Dr. Robin Murray, a senior psychiatrist at Maudsley Hospital warned that smoking dope can greatly increase one’s chances of becoming mentally ill - and can also aggravate existing psychotic symptoms. The Psychiatric Times has reviewed the evidence and concluded that in regions cannabis becomes more accessible, cases of cannabis-induced psychosis are expected to increase: Cannabis-Induced Psychosis: A Review (psychiatrictimes.com).

How can we ever express our gratitude, Robert Abela? Owen Bonnici deserves a monument. Come next Republic Day, the cannabis lobby should be collectively decorated.

In Malta, the lobby for the relaxation of the laws regulating cannabis possession and use has won the day. Dope’s apparent and relative harmlessness, the difficulty to enforce the law (as evidenced by the widespread use of the drug among the young and not so young), and personal freedom are presented as arguments for its legalisation. But the inevitable rise in consumption of cannabis - when it becomes legal - and the dangers it poses to mental health, for at least a proportion of users, should have made us think twice before we let ourselves be convinced by the glib arguments of the ‘liberal’ lobby and the government's thirst for revenue - and votes.

At the very least, the government should take on the board the 53 NGOs' recommendations.

We do not have to go through Sue Arnold’s heartbreaking experience in order to realise what good sense dictates. Even at one second to midnight.

The British government has since reclassified cannabis as a class B drug.