The Great Cannabis Swindle (continued)

I was in the UK in March of 2007 when Theodore Leggett, the expert behind the 2006 UNODC report (or, at least the cannabis aspects of the report – Chapter 2), sent me some excerpts from various British media surrounding an apology by the ‘Independent on Sunday’ (IoS) Newspaper for its past stance on cannabis Law reform.

Leggett and I had been trading notes for some time. He was perplexed by why THC levels had doubled in under a decade and I was perplexed by whether this was actually the case. Was there a “new” cannabis or was this a “new” approach to an old debate (the second coming of Reefer Madness)?

The Independent had made calls in the late nineties for the legalization of cannabis. Their campaign had culminated with a 16,000 person strong march by advocates for cannabis legalization/reform through London’s Hyde Park and undoubtedly played a role in the Blair government’s decision to downgrade cannabis to a Class C drug. Now the Independent, ten years on, was backtracking with a public apology, saying they had got it wrong – new information had come to light which had seriously undermined their earlier assertions that cannabis was a relatively harmless drug and should be legalised.

The situation was turning surreal – Reefer Madness had found me in Britain. I flew out two days later. Once bitten…..

Leggett’s email was headed “Interesting Development.”

“Paper 'sorry' for cannabis stance

The Independent on Sunday has carried a front-page apology for its 10-year campaign to legalise cannabis.The newspaper says it has changed its stance in the face of growing fears over addiction to the drug.There are now more than 22,000 people a year, almost half under the age of 18, being treated for cannabis addiction.And the paper says mental health problems and psychosis affect thousands of teenagers who use high-strength cannabis, known as "skunk".When the Independent on Sunday's then editor Rosie Boycott launched a campaign to decriminalise cannabis in 1997, 16,000 people marched through central London to support it.Then, the paper says, it was "leading a consensus", but now its editorial says that "the growing evidence of the risk of psychological harm" has forced it to do a U-turn.

The Police Federation's Jan Berry told BBC One's Sunday AM program she welcomed the apology.

"Many people only read one newspaper or maybe a couple of newspapers and their views of the world are formed by what you put in those papers," she said. "So 10 years ago, the Independent on Sunday said that cannabis should be legalised, should be decriminalised. And today they're putting in an apology and I think that's great if they acknowledge they've done wrong."

'Schizophrenia link'
The paper says that in 1997 there were just 1,600 people in the UK being treated for cannabis addiction compared to many times that now.
It quotes several senior scientists, including the head of the Medical
Research Council, Professor Colin Blakemore, who backed the campaign, but has now changed his mind.
Professor Robin Murray, from the London Institute of Psychiatry, also tells the paper that at least 25,000 of the UK's 250,000 schizophrenics could have been spared the illness if they had not used cannabis.
And the paper points to research to be published in this week's Lancet
which says cannabis is more dangerous than LSD and ecstasy.

The fact that the possession of cannabis - and other drugs - is illegal
acts as an important social restraint.

Independent on Sunday

In 2004, the government downgraded cannabis from a class B to a class C
drug.The Independent on Sunday says it believes the current classification and level of police enforcement is "about right".

"The fact that the possession of cannabis - and other drugs - is illegal acts as an important social restraint," it adds.

The paper says skunk smoked today contains 25 times more of the active
ingredient than was typically found in cannabis during the 1980s. It also says cannabis is more easily available, having fallen in price from about £120 an ounce in 1994 to £43 today.”

The Independent’s apology would prove to be big. Several of the large UK daily’s would pick up on the Independent's lead, each building on the momentum the Independent had set. Each creating more and more sensationalist dribble – largely devoid of facts; impressive nevertheless.

The Daily Mail followed the lead of the Independent with this:

Daily Mail, Monday, March 19, 2007

Cannabis addiction soars as drug gets stronger By Liz Hull

Record numbers of teenagers are having treatment for addiction to super-strength cannabis.
The number of under 18s treated for smoking skunk – a potent strain of the drug – has doubled in 12 months to nearly 10,000 last year, according to research.
This is a tenfold increase on a decade ago.
Experts warned yesterday that the emergence of skunk, the extra strong variety of the drug which is 25 times stronger than cannabis resin was a ‘mental health timebomb’.
Robin Murray, a professor at the Institute of Psychiatry in London said: “The people we are seeing who are now in their twenties started using cannabis eight to ten years ago. ‘But the people starting now are starting on skunk. The number of people taking cannabis may not be rising but what people are taking is much more powerful.
‘The question is: Will we see more people getting ill as a consequence? We’ll just have to wait and see.’
Cannabis has already been linked to schizophrenia and psychosis. Research published this week in the Lancet will show skunk is more addictive - and socially dangerous – than Class A drugs such as LSD and ecstacy….. Professor Neil McKeganey, of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research of Glasgow University, said: ‘Society has seriously underestimated how dangerous cannabis really is. I think we are faced by a generation blighted by the effects of cannabis use.’
According to the statistics provided by the Health Service, around 22,000 cannabis smokers are currently undergoing drug treatment for their addiction. Nearly half of them -9600- are under 18.
This is a tenfold increase on a decade ago, when just 1,660 users were treated by the NHS….Experts say the skunk smoked by youngsters today is very different to the cannabis resin of ten years ago. It has 25 times the level of the main psychoactive ingredient, tetrahydrocannabidinol and is sold at a third of the price….. In the face of such damning evidence, the Independent on Sunday - which campaigned vociferously for the decriminalization of the drug under the editorship of Rosie Boycott – yesterday performed a spectacular U-turn.
The newspaper published an apology and claimed the campaign, which culminated in a protest march through London’s Hyde Park, was flawed.
It said that since January 2004 when the home secretary David Blunkett downgraded cannabis from Class B to Class C serious concerns have arisen about its effects.
Superintendent Leroy Logan, who is in charge of policing in the North Hackney district of London, said last month that Labour’s decision to relax cannabis laws had led to ‘extensive and expansive’ use among youngsters and had triggered a ‘paranoid mistrust’ of the police and anyone in authority.”

This of course misses the point: “youngsters” have long held a “paranoid mistrust of the police and anyone in authority.” Perhaps what the sixties (“ban the bomb” and “free the weed”) were all about.

And of course there is this:

“Cannabis has already been linked to schizophrenia and psychosis. Research published this week in the Lancet will show skunk is more addictive - and socially dangerous – than Class A drugs such as LSD and ecstacy”

However, what they fail to mention is that cannabis is ranked as less harmful than the legal drugs alcohol and tobacco in the same study. Hmmmm….

The Independent (IoS) then published this on March 25, 2007.

“UN warns of cannabis dangers as it backs 'IoS' drugs 'apology'
By Jonathan Owen
The United Nations has issued an unprecedented warning to Britain about the growing threat to public health from potent new forms of cannabis, saying there is mounting evidence of "just how dangerous" the drug has become.
Writing in today's Independent on Sunday, Antonio Costa, the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, says each country has the " drug problem it deserves", and warns that the British government must " avoid being swayed by misguided notions of tolerance".
Mr Costa's comments follow disclosures in last week's IoS that a record 22,000 people needed National Health Service treatment last year for drug rehabilitation, together with doctors' warnings that skunk cannabis is creating a generation with mental health problems.
He says: "Many [people] subscribe to the vague, laissez-faire tolerance of cannabis which is increasingly prevalent among educated people in Western countries. That consensus needs to be challenged. Evidence of the damage to mental health caused by cannabis use is mounting and cannot be ignored."
The intervention, which will be seen as an attack on the Government's liberal stance on cannabis use, follows the decision by the IoS to reverse its support for the drug to be decriminalised, 10 years after launching a high-profile campaign for legalisation.
Mr Costa proposes that young people found in possession of the drug should be penalised in the same way as people caught drink driving, adding that the cannabis "now in circulation is many times more powerful than the weed that today's baby-boomers smoked in college. Cannabis is a dangerous drug."
After a week of debate in newspapers, television and radio as well as outrage on pro-cannabis websites and blogs the UN's unprecedented foray into the debate about drugs policy coincided with a new study proving links between mental health problems and smoking skunk. Research published yesterday predicts that cannabis may account for a quarter of all new cases of schizophrenia in three years' time….”

“If the hideous monster Frankenstein came face to face with the monster marihuana he would drop dead of fright. This is not an overstatement. Users of the marihuana weed are committing a large percentage of the atrocious crimes blotting the daily picture of American life. It is reducing thousands of boys to criminal insanity and only two states have effective laws to protect their people against it. The marihuana weed, according to Mr. Anslinger, is grown, sold and used in every State in the Union. He charges, and rightly, that this is not a responsibility of one State, but OF ALL — and of the Federal Government.”

It struck me as odd that so much of the media was parroting the same highly misleading claims of increases of 25 times or more in THC levels since the 1980’s. Where were they getting their information from? If cannabis conservatively contained, on average, 4% THC in the 1980’s this would make cannabis !00% THC today (an impossible figure) when, in fact, the average based on the figures in the UNODC 2006 report were 18% today against 9% six years before and an estimated 8% - 8.5% during the nineties. Or, at least this is what the UNODC had presented.

The argued to be “new” mythological “skunk” that was now being demonised by media was, in fact, bred in the 1960’s by US breeders before finding its way to European seed banks sometime in the 1970’s. The “new” cannabis had been around for more than forty years.

“Skunk” is classed as a mostly sativa strain (approximately 75% sativa/25% indica) and consists of Acapulco Gold (sativa), Columbian Gold (sativa) and Afghani (indica).

Afghani is, in itself, a more potent strain than Skunk with THC levels of approximately 18 per cent (although claims of 20 per cent or more are made by breeders). Afghani has existed for many thousands of years. This very potent strain is by no means a “new” cannabis; it is an ancient breed with origins that can be traced back to pre-biblical times. Super Skunk – a more potent, high yielding genetic derivative of Skunk – was bred sometime in the eighties by crossing Afghani back into Skunk, thus introducing further Afghani indica genetics and further potency to Skunk. I.e. ‘Super’ Skunk (Is it a bird? Is it a plane?)

The “new” G-13 strain that featured in the film ‘American Beauty’ when genetically tested turned out to be Afghani indica. In the film, a young dealer named Ricky Fitts hands a bag of what looks to be an eighth (1/8th of an ounce/ 3.5 grams) to Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) and says, “This shit is top of the line. It’s called G-13. It’s genetically engineered by the US government. It’s extremely potent, but a completely mellow high. No paranoia.” He then charges him $2000 US for the product. This line is responsible for a boost in the strains popularity.

The UNODC figures in themselves were open to serious interpretation. It looked possible they had built their case against cannabis – as an overseer to the Single Narcotics Convention – on politically motivated facts and figures. I’ll come to this shortly.

Other than this, I had been living in England for four months when the story broke and the price for an ounce of cannabis was £120, not the £43 the media were reporting. Twenty to 30 times the potency (take your pick) and half the price; upon analysis many of the claims simply didn’t add up. It was Reefer Madness all over again. Pulp fiction…. shrill yellow journalism…. the unnecessary genocide of perfectly good trees… hysteria thinly disguised as breaking news….. print media not fit for toilet paper…. and so on.

I went off in search for answers.

Leggett had responded with this when I had posed the question: “Why is the UNODC meddling in international drug politics (pertaining to Antonio Costa’s “foray” into journalism) and have they had any other influence in that countries press, pertaining to cannabis, prior to this?

Leggett’s response was concise and I haven’t heard from him since.

May 9th 2007

“We don't set international policy - the member states do that. We just help them get where they want to go, as best we can.”

Presumably by the “member states” Leggett was referring to the US.

NEXT....... (Read More)

Read about the author's run in with Reefer Madness (Hydromania in the valley of swine)

Read about the History of Reefer Madness - Harry Anslinger and his crusade against hemp

Foolitzer Prize for Excrement in Journalism

The winner: Raanan Ben-Zur of Israel

"The drug’s effects are lethal. All we need now is that the youth will get a hold of it.”

 "Dubbed by police as “death grass,” Hydro goes for about NIS 500 (USD 110) per 10 grams (0.35 ounces), compared with regular marijuana which is sold for NIS 600 (USD 133) per kilo."

.“The drug may cause a rise in violence among users and among its distributors. If the youth will start using Hydro we will see a rise in violence and in criminal activity"

Read full story........