GOD MADE GRASS, MAN MADE BOOZE -- WHO DO YOU TRUST?

"GOD makes the earth yield healing herbs, which the prudent man should
not neglect"(Sirach:38:4). Well, quite -- or as the legendary
vernacular would have it, God made grass, man made booze -- who do you
trust?

Cannabis sativa, that hardy adaptable plant that grows everywhere from
your window box to the mountains of Asia, Africa and America, has been
cultivated by ourselves for over 10,000 years. You would, however, be
(almost) forgiven for thinking that it is a highly addictive, dangerous
drug, so draconian and misleading is our current legislation, which
classifies a gram of cannabis resin to be more harmful and potentially
lethal than, say, a crate of whiskey.

Yet the only recorded case of a person dying as a direct result of the
cannabis sativa plant was when the unfortunate person was flattened by
a bale of it falling on his head; this is in glaring contrast to the
tens of thousands of poor saps who perish from alcohol related
disasters each year, in stupid everyday tragedies involving everything
from exploding livers to pranged cars, to murdered spouses and friends.
And we pride ourselves on being a higher intelligence?

Why are the derivatives of the cannabis sativa plant now illegal? Its
uses -- medicinal, therapeutic, ceremonial, recreational -- have been
documented in most important civilisations throughout history, with the
first recorded medicinal usage showing up about 5,000 years ago in the
court of the Chinese Emperor Chen Nung. His physicians found it helpful
in treating a plethora of nasties from dysentery to malaria. It also
has ancient connections with many world religions -- Shintoism,
Hinduism, Buddhism, the Zoroastrians, the Sufis of Islam, the early
Jews, Coptic Christians, and of course the much loved Jah worshipping
Rastafarians; in fact almost everyone except mainstream Christians, who
have always preferred a drop of the hard stuff.

The cannabis plant, apart from being able to grow almost anywhere in
all kinds of soil (although, like the rest of us, prefers warmer
climates) has had many uses over the millennia: the fibre has long been
used to make clothing, paper and rope; the seeds used as food for
humans, birds and animals; and the oil, in pre synthetic days, was
ideal for lighting, soap, varnish, linoleum and artists' paints. What
other plant is so diversely useful that it is technically possible to
paint a picture using hemp oil paint on hemp paper, while wearing a
frock spun from hemp, in a room illuminated by a hemp oil lamp, having
just washed with some hemp oil soap, while nibbling on some hemp seeds,
having just had some tincture of hemp to alleviate any variety of aches
and pains? That's without ever smoking the stuff.

It has been cultivated in India, the Middle East, South East Asia,
America, and China since the year dot, yet many people in the West
assume that dope smoking is a 1960's hippie phenomenon. This might be
due to the wilful disinformation trotted out by successive Western
governments, led by the United States, for reasons that can only be
guessed at (although the notion of drinkers being easier to control
does cross one's mind -- smokers are not as frequently insensible).

There may have been more sinister reasons; in 1971, a chemist at the
Arthur D Little company exposed the US government as having paid
millions of dollars to his erstwhile employers to try and find military
uses for the plant, a year after the same government had classified
marijuana as Schedule 1 (that's Class A, the same as heroin). None
could be found -- the only uses the chemists discovered for the plant
were completely benign. Any self respecting pothead could have told
them that and saved them a fortune.

Yet, despite enormous evidence that the cannabis plant benefits a
startlingly wide variety of medical conditions, it is still illegal in
44 North American states (but not in Arizona, California, Oregon,
Alaska, and the Washington State and DC -- so plan that trip
accordingly) and most of Europe.

British police are practically begging the government to look towards
our grown up Dutch cousins and decriminalise it, but as yet the
Blairites are terrified for alienating Mr and Ms Daily Mail, and in
Ireland we seem to be too busy in the pub to care one way or another.

Current official attitudes appear to stem from the time of the
Marijuana Tax Act (1937) in the States, when the US government --
despite a steady stream of doctors and medical professionals singing
the plant's praises and discovering more and more medical uses for it --
began taxing its medical use, refused to fund medical research into
its healing properties, and penalised its recreational use. The head of
the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger, was responsible for
release of the preposterous film Reefer Madness, an outrageously funny
piece of black and white nonsense that depicted all American teenagers
turning into psychopathic, thieving, sex crazed loonies after a lungful
of cannabis smoke.

The film was about marijuana, not crack, PCP, ice, heroin, or Alien
acid blood, but, sadly, millions of non dope smoking citizens took this
piece of blatant falsehood as truth.

The human brain has its own unique receptors for THC (the psychoactive
ingredient in cannabis), which would suggest that smoking or other
methods of consuming the plant has been intrinsic in our development
over vast tracts of evolutionary time. These neurone receptors are
found in the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus, whose functions
respectively relate to higher thinking and memory -- which is why dope
smokers are often deep in thought and have appalling short term
memories.

Short term memory, however, is the extent of harmful side affects,
unless you smoke haystacks of the stuff mixed with harmful tobacco.
Otherwise your average dope smoker is generally mellow, given to
giggling, introspection, profound thought (well, sometimes) and
guzzling pies at 2am. There is no vomiting, no blackouts, no psychosis,
no collapsing internal organs, no need to worry -- the worst thing that
can befall a serious dopehead is lethargy, amiable vagueness, perhaps
mild paranoia and possible weight gain from all the midnight pies. And
that's worst case scenario.

Cannabis based medicines have been proved effective in the easing of
symptoms of multiple sclerosis and other spasticity disorders,
arthritis, spinal cord injuries, epilepsy, glaucoma, nausea (including
the side affects of chemotherapy), insomnia, anorexia (think about it),
and depression.

All of these serious unrelated conditions can be eased by the magic
cannabis plant -- so why in the name of common-sense are tetraplegics
criminalised for buying dope, cancer patients denied access to it, and
multiple sclerosis sufferers prescribed valium (highly addictive, and
turns you into a robot) as an anti spasmodic instead of cannabinoid
preparations?

Why are doctors not routinely prescribing derivatives of this gentle,
healing plant as a complementary medicine, instead of stuffing their
patients full of harsh non holistic chemicals?

In fact, why are millions of ordinary people who recreationally choose
a joint in preference to a pint classified as law breakers? Why is it
all right, socially and legally, to get completely rat arsed in public,
yet it is not all right to smoke a joint after a meal? Or smoke a joint
anywhere, for that matter? We are allegedly civilised people, yet we
persist with embracing a government endorsed, government taxed drug
that -- after the first one or two units -- dulls our cerebral
function, makes us raucously boring, and will eventually make us slur,
fight, throw up and pass out.

Yet Mr Plod will arrest the person walking innocently past the bar room
brawl for having a gram of hash in their pocket.