Business

 Communication    

Marijuana  
The  Cause  for  Legalization  and  Decriminalization.  
Aniket  Sengar,  PGDM(A)  –  47.  
 

 
  
 
Green Lesson1:
• The History of Marijuana

Grass. Weed. Ganja. Reefer. Pot. Cannabis. Hashish. Herb. Dope. Mary Jane. Bhang.
The Human Race has a collective idiosyncrasy of giving numerous nicknames and
epithets to all psychotropic substances with which it shares a long and a passionate
past. Of these, the Big three ~ Alcohol, Tobacco and Marijuana ~ occupy the lion’s
share of all the love and hate that humanity has reserved for its 4th Drive of
exploring Mind-Altering substances on this planet, apart from the 3 drives of
hunger, thirst and, the need for shelter. Marijuana, however, occupies a special
place in world history as it has seen the conflicting ends of treatment by humans;
where it has been revered as the ‘Drink of the Gods’ in the ancient Indian
Mythology and has been condemned as the ‘Insanity Drug’ in the modern Western
World.

Humans have consumed Marijuana since their civilized awakening. In

fact, the Earliest Instance of consumption of Marijuana dates back to
3000 BC substantiated by the discovery of charred seeds of the Cannabis
plant (from which Marijuana is obtained) in an ancient burial site in
present-day Romania.

Apart from direct consumption, the Cannabis plant (also referred to as Hemp) has
almost 50, 000 registered industrial uses, including:

• Hemp fabric for clothing. (Has twice the productivity of Cotton)

• Hemp oil for lighting lamps.
• Paper. (Recyclable up to 8 times, 4 times more than pulp paper)
• Natural Hemp fuel for automobiles.
• Replacement of steel in almost all structural building materials.
• Environment Cleanser. (1 acre of hemp releases more Oxygen than a 30 acre
forest. Hemp also absorbs radioactive radiation)
The Hemp plant was one of the first crops cultivated by humans; the hemp industry
is the oldest industry operating on human-civilized earth; the hemp plant can
single-handedly sustain the human populace by providing it food, clothing, fuel and
paper; and the hemp plant and its different strains can be and are grown almost
everywhere on the earth, decidedly making Cannabis the crop of the future.

The Print Media was born from Hemp Fibers.

The first paper in the world was produced in 200 AD by the Chinese
using Hemp fibers. Muslims learned the art, and built the first paper mill
in 800 AD.
Also, the American Declaration of Independence was written and drafted
on hemp paper.
  
Green Lesson 2:
• Marijuana in Mythology and Culture
Cannabis Indica. Desired in the three worlds. God’s food. Shiva’s Plant.
Like all progressive societies given to active experimentation and continuous
economic and social evolution, ancient India was vulnerable to occupation from
aggressive warmongers. After centuries of attacks and infiltrations by Persians,
Macedonians, Greeks, Scythians, and later Mughals in the medieval era, India’s
radical but favorable attitudes towards Marijuana subsequently turned conservative
as the Upanishads were written, the rigid Caste System was engineered in place, and
Hinduism became heavily organized and forced itself out of experimentations.
This phenomenon is evident while comparing the treatment of Marijuana in various
Holy Scriptures written at different timelines in ancient India.
Cannabis was referred to as the ‘Sacred Grass’ in Artharva Ved, having medicinal
and magical properties, to be worshipped as a boon from the Gods themselves.
Then, the Shastras came and forbade the worship of Cannabis but venerated it by
offering it as a sacrifice to deities.
Upanishads completely lambasted the Cannabis plant as the first sin of human kind
and the necessity to gain control over it by banishing it from our lives.
This gradual transformation of attitudes towards Marijuana can be equated with
occurrences in the relatively modern history of the USA. In 1492, Christopher
Columbus introduced Cannabis to America where it immediately became popular
with Farmers due to its umpteen uses in the daily life. In 1776, with America
attaining independence, the Cannabis plant found support in the founding fathers
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who publicly endorsed the production
and consumption of Marijuana.

By 1915, Cannabis prohibition began in the United States to control its

usage as a recreational substance and the anti-drug sentiment escalated
thereon with the coming of Propaganda movies such as ‘Reefer Madness’
(Now a cult, comedy classic for its ludicrously inaccurate depiction of
Minorities committing crimes on White males and females) and anti-
drug lobbyists such as Harry J. Anslinger and Richard Nixon, who
recklessly fought against marijuana and sought to criminalize it.
 
Even after worldwide notoriety of Marijuana, it is preserved in traditions and
knowledge in the modern Indian culture.

• Sadhus and Fakirs across the country regularly consume Marijuana to

achieve transcendental mental states and augment their meditational
capabilities.
• The Sufis, regarded as the most technically and creatively gifted house of
Music in India, create spiritually ecstatic music after consumption of
Marijuana as a consciousness enhancer.
• Hinduism is the only major religion in the world that expressly dedicates a
god to the consumption and appreciation of Marijuana ~ Shiva. Shiva’s
devotees, around the world, honor the god by drinking the indigenous
Marijuana concoction - Bhang.
• Every year on Holi, the Indian festival of colors, consumption of Bhang (in
the form of nutritious Thandai) is socially sanctioned and becomes a healthy
alternative to alcohol in the celebrations.
  
Green Lesson 3:
• Myths about Smoking Marijuana
The anti-marijuana propaganda has spread many myths and half-truths about the
effects of smoking marijuana that include psychosis, brain damage, severe
personality alternation, permanent insanity, impotence, and severe addiction-
withdrawal symptoms. And since the propagandists have worked towards building
a hardcore street drug image for marijuana, the uninformed society at large is
afraid to explore the truth about Cannabis smoking and chooses to believe what
authorities in their countries tell them to.
Myths about Marijuana, in order of asininity:

• Marijuana causes Brain Damage.

This legend was born out of a US government sponsored study conducted by
Dr. Robert Heath, wherein he supplied a near lethal dose of Marijuana to 4
monkeys and erroneously interpreted a healthy monkey brain structure as
Damaged. The results of the study were thoroughly disproved by two
separate studies carried out in 1977, by the AMA and the JAMA, who proved
that there is no link between prolonged use of marijuana and brain damage.

• Marijuana causes impotence

Dr. Gabriel Nahas induced near lethal amounts of cannabinoids (the set
chemicals found in the Cannabis plant) to animal tissue cells in Petri dishes,
observed reduced reproductive capacity in them, and falsely extended the
logic to animals. The scientific community has rejected this half-baked study
on the basis of experiments where animals were exposed to extremely high
levels of marijuana smoke for 30 days in a row and did not display any
reduction in sexual potency and libido.

Marijuana is addictive.
Smoking marijuana has absolutely no withdrawal symptoms. Users can
quit whenever they want to. In fact, studies have proved that marijuana is
90% less addictive than caffeine/coffee. The excessive use of marijuana
forms a habit, as would excessive consumption of caffeine, alcohol, or
tobacco. Human irresponsibility does not translate to substance
addictiveness.

• Marijuana is a gateway drug to harder Drugs

The last argument that anti-marijuana lobbyists fall back upon, after loss of
anti-drug rationale is this one ~ Marijuana exposes and encourages casual
drug users to experiment with Harder street drugs such as Crack Cocaine
and Heroine.

Well, this has been conclusively debunked and instead a negative

gateway effect has been observed in Countries where Marijuana has been
partially or completely legalized. In Holland (1977) and in Portugal
recently, Marijuana usage was decriminalized and gradually, harder
street drugs and even alcohol were substituted by Marijuana. This effect
has also been observed in he USA, in small pockets (in California, where
Medical marijuana is now available over-the-counter.  

In Holland, Marijuana has been given its rightful stature as a substance available
in coffee shops, where anyone can buy up to 5 grams of Marijuana.
  
 
Green Lesson 4:
• The case for Legalization
Portugal has completely decriminalized and legalized the use, possession and
acquisition of Marijuana. Spain, Belgium, and Italy allow a personal possession of
marijuana up to 5 ounces. And in South London the police do not prosecute a
marijuana user, they just confiscate the contrabands the user has on person.
Most of Western Europe, Canada, and pockets of the US (esp. California) follow the
instinctive logic of leaving drug users alone because they harm no one but
themselves.

The Mexican Drug War  

On the other side of the spectrum, the Mexican government has been
fighting drug cartels for the control of Drug trade across the Mexican
border. The war has lasted for almost 4 years, has employed 70,000 police
personnel, billions of dollars, and has resulted in 28,000 casualties. What
makes this war even more wasteful is that the government could have
shifted the drug control in their hands by legalizing the drug trade and
regulating it by taxation.
   

The NDPA Drug Law Depravity in India:

• In India, the drug laws are archaic and tyrannical. For possessing a few
grams of Marijuana, an offender attracts a penalty of 10 years and on the
second conviction, the death penalty can be levied. In contrast, abhorrent
crimes such as robbery, kidnapping or maiming a child, command a
maximum punishment of only 7 years.

• Most of the drug offenders in India are low-earning farmers; autowallahs,

coolies, and people with other menial jobs who attempt to steal a temporary
stupor from their forlorn lives. The police threaten such people with
conviction for possessing even small amounts of marijuana/ganja. It makes
little sense to squeeze money from a section of people that earn very little of
it. The country’s Drug arrests equaled 24,000 in 1999, and 25,000 in 2000,
and the figure keeps increasing by a healthy fraction each year, putting
excessive pressure on Indian Jails for maintaining and holding offenders
charged with trivial drug possession crimes.

• The Economic and Goodwill losses to India are immeasurably immense as

drug tourism is discouraged due oppressive policing policies. India earns
millions of Tourist Dollars from backpackers who come to India in search of
cheap and high-quality marijuana (India is one of the cheapest marijuana
destinations in the world). They use hotels, transport, phones, cable and
Internet services and in the process, create jobs in remote, marijuana
producing areas that are otherwise ignored by the economy. The police
blackmail tourists possessing marijuana with a 10-year jail sentence and
wring money from them, warding them off to greener marijuana pastures
such as Thailand or Laos.

• The Colossal irony with the NDPA (Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances)
law is that it mandates the free sale and personal possession of Bhang, but
criminalizes possession of any other form of Bhang by a 1 lakh fine or a 10-
year prison sentence.
  

• Smoking Marijuana has been a part of the rural culture of India for
centuries. It is self-injury to criminalize such a substance. The NDPA act
shows the Legislature’s ignorance and indifference in crafting Drug laws
that understand and combat the plight of Rural India.

 
Green Lesson 5:
• Alcohol vs. Tobacco vs. Weed

Alcohol Tobacco   Weed  

•  Causes a wide variety •  Tobacco is the leading •  In recorded Human
of health problems causeof deaths in the History, nobody has
including Gastritis, world, causing 5 ever died of Cannabis
Cirrhosis, Pancreaitis, million deaths each smoking.
Liver Cancer, ulcers, year. •  Marijuana is not
and other liver •  Nicotine is one of the physically addictive.
diseases, also increase most addictive •  When ingested with a
cancer risk. substances known to solvent, no
•  Alcohol prohibition in man. And it's carcinogens enter the
America had available without body.
miserably failed in the prescription. •  One cannot overdose
early 1900's. Gujarat •  Lung Cancer, on Marijuana.
follows the same road. Emphysema, •  Marijuana is used in
•  Number of Alcohol pulmonary diseases, the treatment of
deaths in 2010: heart attacks, various Diseases such
14,19,722 and still pancreatic cancer, as Galucoma,
counting. oral cancer, you name Sclerosis, ADD,
•  Normal Quantity it. Arthritis, even AIDS
ingested: Lethal •  Normal Quantity and Cancer.
Quantity = 1: 10 inhaled: Lethal •  Normal Quantity
Quantity = 1: 4 inhaled: Lethal
Quantity = 1: 1000

Liberate  Marijuana