[Stu]

Originally Posted by Sticks

These compounds are banned for good medical reasons

No, they are not. They were banned for poor medical reasoning and out of a knee jerk reaction to fresh experiences of the mind that were misunderstood or wrongly perceived to be horrifying. They continue to remain illegal because it has built up in to a sturdy zeitgeist that no politician want to step out from the shadows to break. Politicians are typically weak people.

If medical reasoning mattered at all then the American government would have listened to Judge Francis Young - a DEA man - in 1988 when he declared Cannabis to be one of the safest therapeutic substances known to man.

If medical reasoning mattered the British government would have listened to Professor David Nutt - the then chair of the governments own Advisory Committee on Misuse of Drugs - when he declared Ecstasy to be safer than hose riding and when he repeatedly called for a relaxing of soft drug laws. Cannabis is currently ranked to be of equal danger to base amphetamines in British drug legislation. That is not scientific. That's science and policy on it's knees in the mud.

If medical reasoning mattered Professor Nutt would not have been unceremoniously sacked from his position. Governments would take their scientific advice first hand from unbiased scientific bodies when dictating drug laws and not from pressure groups with vested interests because the woman outside with the placard had a son who knocked back too many pills on top of a crate of alcohol and went sick then dead.

Medical reasoning does not matter.

Originally Posted by Sticks

even cannabis will cause long term health problems to users

Why are you using the word 'will'? Chances are Cannabis won't cause you long term health problems at all. Are you being facetious for the sake of it because you personally don't like an altered mind and prefer to stay in and check out a good old execution instead?

I have talked at length on this forum for a number of years now about the emerging trend of demonizing the mental state of Cannabis intoxication and it's purported effects on mental health. I was engaged in debate on topics like the ratio of cannabinoids in the make up of the plant years before the papers caught up with it [some still haven't].

The practical invention and mystical attributes given to "skunk weed" have created this weird sort of fantasy land for journalists who now have carte blanche to hanker back to the days of Reefer Madness and talk about smoking pot as if it's a trip down the rabbit hole with undertones of demonic possession.

Some are only coming around to and respecting the fact now that these mental health effects are not only blown out of proportion but are symptoms of the illegal environment the plant inhabits. It's not the strength per say of Cannabis that is sometimes dangerous but the exact chemical make up of the plant. It's easier to just say it's stronger and scarier than ever, I know.

The trend towards indoor grows where Cannabis is cultivated guerrilla style hard and fast in an ultra artificial environment by crime gangs who don't respect the product has resulted in THC enriched Cannabis that has all but had the CBD bred out of it. CBD is Cannabidiol. It's the true magic of Cannabis that is only coming to light in recent times.

Cannabidiol and other Cannabinoids like it in the Cannabis plant [if you ever want to flex your keyboard fingers in a improvisational groove band feel free to use that as a name, man] play a huge, very important role in mediating the effects of THC [tetrahydrocannabinol, the stuff that gets you groovy]. They round out the intoxication of Cannabis, infuse it with it's medical properties and protect against THC giving the brain too much of a kicking.

Cannabidiol is an anti psychotic, anti anxiety agent. It has all but been bred out of most commercial strains of the ganj because of the illegal marketplace it exists in. Because of the zeitgeist of cowardice and anti science that you support.

So it's not just a question of strength. I'm regularly getting great hash that is far stronger than most of the mass market variations of haze and cheese that are smoking up the marketplace on this side of the pond but it's infinitely relaxing.

So in essence this mental health scare is an overreaction to a market trend created and preserved by Cannabis's illegality in the first place. And that is without me even going into sprayed and contaminated Cannabis.

Originally Posted by Sticks

As to your question, which is a few pages back, which one took as rhetorical, that is not an option while we remain a member of the European Union, so would be pointless to consider that measure to deter and make an example of those who persist in this evil trade.

Of course it wasn't rhetorical. I was pretty passionate in my insistence that you grace me with an answer regardless of the hypothetical nature of it. You could be brave and just do that.

One would assume you would support a similar system of judicial catastrophe on British shores. I would like to know as an honest, up front recreational drug user who has had drugs in his back pocket before where I would stand and what punishment would befit me had I ever been caught.

Heck I grew three plants on my windowsill once. Surely I should be eligible for a Sunday matinee execution to brighten your day up?