The evidence cannabis legalisers choose to ignore

It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the possible link between cannabis consumption and violence.

‘I back an evidence-based policy,’ supporters of recreational cannabis legalisation like to boast, as though those of us against legalisation are ignorant cronies arguing on an ill-informed instinct. On the contrary, those who hail the supposed advantages of this irrevocable move are incredibly selective of the evidence they heed.

For example, three MPs – claiming our own drug laws are ‘a disaster’ and have failed – recently visited Canada to examine the effects cannabis legalisation has had in the country. This alone displays an extraordinary level of ignorance on the topic. Our laws have not failed. They simply have not been implemented. Between 2010 and 2016 the number of cautions given for cannabis possession fell by 48 per cent and the number of people charged fell by 33 per cent, according to police data released under the Freedom of Information Act. This fall will only have continued in the three years since.

Indeed, whilst in theory, one could receive a prison sentence for possession of cannabis, in practice, this almost never happens (unless linked to another crime). The most common form of punishment given, by the police, to those caught in possession of cannabis is a ‘Cannabis Warning’. This ‘Warning’ came into practice in the early 2000s, without parliamentary approval, after being agreed on by the then Association of Chief Police Officers (now the National Police Chiefs’ Council). The ‘Warning’ issued does not result in a fine, need not be declared to employers, indeed is not even centrally recorded by the police. It is, in sum, a waste of time. The handing out of this ‘Warning’ (more rare now, as the police have themselves realised how pointless it is) is hardly war like, yet we are constantly told our country is engaged in a vicious, cruel and pointless ‘War on Drugs’. Nonsense.

It is clear that the three MPs mentioned above (Labour’s David Lammy, Conservative Jonathan Djanogly and Liberal Democrat Sir Norman Lamb) are unaware of all this, or else they might have chosen to look into the effects properly enforcing drug laws might have, before choosing to abandon them altogether.

These figures would have learnt a great deal had they visited, for example, Japan or South Korea. These countries are – unlike us – very serious about their drug laws. People are aware that if they are found in possession of cannabis, they WILL be punished. As a result, far fewer people take the risk.

But supporters of cannabis legalisation do not care about such examples. Perhaps this has something to do with the large amount of money propping up the cannabis lobby. It is interesting, for example, that this trip to Canada was funded by the campaign group Volte Face which is part sponsered by the North American cannabis company MPX. The CEO of this company has declared that he hopes to move cannabis ‘away from organised crime to a legitimate commercial industry’. There is a middle ground, as indicated above (that is, properly enforcing cannabis laws which, if used, deter people from consuming the drug in the first place), but this doesn’t make such figures half as much money!

Of course, such people also ignore some of the important lessons from those countries or states which have legalised cannabis for recreational use. The strength of cannabis in US states which have legalised the drug has, in many cases, increased. In Colorado, there has been a fivefold increase in the number of ‘mental health diagnoses in cannabis-associated Emergency Department (E.D.) visits’, as well as a fourfold increase in the number of ‘psychiatric complaints in cannabis attributed E.D. visits’, according to an academic report released last year. In Canada, the price gap between legal and illegal cannabis is as wide as $4.72 a gram, on average, meaning many are still opting to buy through dealers. Also, rather worryingly, the number of pregnant women smoking cannabis in Northern California, where the drug is legal, has doubled in recent years. This doubles the risk of the unborn child being birthed prematurely.

All this evidence is ignored.

‘Cannabis isn’t too dangerous anyway,’ we are often told. ‘It just makes you hungry!’

Also not true. Cannabis consumption is increasingly linked to severe, irrevocable mental illness. This effects not just the user but their family, friends, loved ones, who are, thereafter, forced to spend their lives looking after and worrying about this individual. More serious cases are sent to locked wards.

If you doubt this, read Journalist Patrick Cockburn and his son’s book Henry’s Demons. This offers a moving insight into the struggle and pain suffered by the Cockburn family after Henry was diagnosed with schizophrenia due to having smoked cannabis for most of his teenage life. In the book, Patrick notes that Henry’s ‘school friends and fellow students fell in love, had girlfriends and boyfriends, got married, and had children, while [Henry] sat on his blanket on the squalid floor of a mental hospital.’ Indeed, the fact he often ‘felt [and often heard] brambles, trees, and wild animals all urging’ him to carry out incredibly dangerous and life-threatening acts meant living freely and unsupervised had become an impossibility.

Those who consume cannabis and do not have their lives reversed by severe mental illness are still at risk of being deeply affected by (not as easily recognisable and not as easy to record or study, yet still horrendously damaging) educational shortcomings; the link between cannabis smoking by teenagers (and, increasingly, younger children) and ‘concurrent and lasting effects […] on important cognitive functions’ has been widely studied.

It is also becoming increasingly impossible to ignore the possible link between cannabis consumption and violence.

It is completely irresponsible for MPs, and other figures of power, to claim they back ‘evidence-based’ policy whilst ignoring all that which is written above. The facts are readily available for all to see. People just choose not to find them.

Unless we act soon, our high streets will be full not only of large, golden M’s but also large, fluorescent green-leaf signs, and while some wealthy businessmen will happily line their pockets, countless families up and down the country will suffer the consequences.