Cannabis: Cutting Through The Haze

There is a concentrated effort around the world to make cannabis use legal. Different types of strategies and themes are used in different countries to justify this. For example, in Canada it was the liberal ideology that was leveraged – that people have the right to make their own choices.

- Dr. Dineth Bandara

In Sri Lanka it is the “desheeya” or local culture that is being used. This is not to say that a handful of those calling themselves “liberals” also want it legalised here. It is hard to see how dependence forming drugs liberate people. Those who are favourable to such ideologies are ruthlessly used as advocates sometimes unwittingly, to achieve this objective.

It is well established that cannabis causes many health harms. These harms have not occurred on a large scale because the number of users in each country during the recent past has been small.

When the of use cannabis and its derivatives become more widespread, we will begin to see harms of these substances occurring in a large scale. These include mental illnesses including depression and schizophrenia, poly-drug use, many types of lung diseases etc. We will even see some effects that are not seen now. For example, we are seeing many cancers caused by alcohol now, which was not on the traditional list of diseases caused by alcohol.

In Sri Lanka, if a larger number of people begin to use cannabis-derived products, the already unacceptable number of road traffic accidents, deaths and injuries will increase, as it has been shown in countries where cannabis use is increasing. We will also see large scale spending on cannabis by the poorer segments (as for alcohol) leading to exacerbation of poverty.

BUT WILL CANNABIS USE BECOME WIDESPREAD IF LEGALISATION OCCURS?

In locations where legalisation has taken place, the current small scale illegal trade of cannabis has become a big business with international connections. There are large cannabis companies operating now in several countries legally.