I think a lot of the things being said now stem from the plain fact that the Government at present have abjectly given in to something endemic they feel they can not fight. So they seek to liberalize and soften the impact,
to talk down the effects, and to move the goalposts as they do with anything that is a little too difficult to deal with in a proper manner. Sweep it under the carpet and relabel it as something else.
I speak from having taken cannabis in the seventies, the hippy era of peace Source THC Africa not war, love to all men, much of whose language and terms are now coming back into trendy and cool use. But there are fundamental differences between then and now, which young people should be made aware of.
Then the cannabis was in the form of a leaf, a naturally occurring plant. Now it is synthetic, as in most of the other areas of life where the natural has given way to the unnatural, to our eternal detriment. Coincidentally enough, it is now around forty times stronger, as well as being chemical based.
The Governing people who seek to legalise and feel the danger is slight, are by and large ex users of a much lesser potency of a naturally occurring plant. They feel little danger in occasional recreational use of a drug they feel did little to harm their long term prospects.
This is based on the false assumption that people tend to start smoking it around university stage and peter out of its use in a few years, with no addictive element. Also that they tend, like we did, to only use it occasionally at times when we needed to calm down after a tough project, or relax at a concert, again remembering the product then was one fortieth as potent and much more mellow than it is today.
That is being charitable and assuming they are not in full informed of the dangers. This also begs the question, if not why not, and if so why run and hide.
This creates at least two anomalies. One is that our young people can point the finger at our generation and say, you are being hypocritical, when you took it yourselves. Secondly, we did not start at twelve to thirteen, and use it every day at forty times the strength. The weight of evidence of severe psychiatric damage is I feel too heavy to discount any more, plus although in itself said to be non addictive, the culture that has sprung up around it tends to keep people in a circle of self same users, and a massively significant portion of our youth are taking it. So there is a great peer pressure to take something which the Government at present sends out signals saying, that it is not too bad to use it, just keep it relatively discreet and we will leave you alone.
I fear this is storing up a time bomb of serious psychological problems, and perhaps the strengths and constitution of the substance should be taken into account more. Politicians surely hear the word cannabis and relate to their own youth, where if they did not take it they knew people who did who by and large are still sane. This is not consistent with what is in circulation today, nor indicative of the higher daily use of a drug that formerly was taken recreationally every week or month or concert or so.
It also gives the police an almost impossible job, as there are no guidelines to follow, and also drug pushers can admit to cannabis but be carrying other more harmful drugs as well, with impunity. Surely if you are carrying more on you than enough for your personal use for at the most a weekend say, then you are a dealer. Just set a level that is a definite level and above it is illegal. The experiment in the London boroughs has been truly and demonstrably disastrous, yet it is being cloned to the rest of Britain as if as harmless as sweets.