CANNABIS: A BURNING ISSUE

Cannabis, like any psychoactive drug (alcohol included) is harmful to
physical and mental health, and no responsible person would encourage
its recreational use. However, most cannabis users are not habitual
and they spread across age and social class boundaries. Apart from
those with a disposition toward psychotic illness, it is the habitual
use of any narcotic that leads to problems. Criminalising the
individual user is unjust and ineffective.

As for the BMA and its talk of tar and carcinogen levels, perhaps it
needs a lesson in experimental method and perspective. Herbal cannabis
does indeed contain more tar than tobacco when burned. But users of
hash and strong herbal cannabis tend to mix 5-10% of the drug with
tobacco. The irony is that it is the tobacco that is harming them more
than the cannabis. Better that they bake hash into cakes or smoke it
neat in a vapourising pipe. Better still that fill their lives with
more active, healthy pastimes.

Dr Francis Sedgemore

London