Let Them Eat Flax: 70 All-New Commentaries on the Science of Everyday Food & Life by Dr. Joe Schwarcz

Author:Dr. Joe Schwarcz [Schwarcz, Joe]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2010-08-19T10:37:00+00:00

The anti-marijuana movement had strong racial overtones. Mexican and black workers in the southern us often took solace in marijuana smoking, and suffered severely at the hands of the white narcotics police. Even the medical establishment supported the racism. A 1931 issue of the New Orleans Medical and Surgical journal stated that "The dominant race (meaning whites) and most enlightened countries are alcoholic, whilst the races and nations addicted to hemp and opium, some of which once attained great heights of culture and civilization, have deteriorated both mentally and physically." Such absurd statements totally ignored the scientific evidence that was already available at the time.

Thirty years earlier, the British government had established the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission to answer questions about the use of marijuana in India, then under British rule. The expert committee interviewed almost 2,000 witnesses, made field trips to thirty cities, and published a thorough seven-volume report. It concluded that small doses of hemp were beneficial, and that moderate use of cannabis had no significant injurious mental, physical, or moral effect. Furthermore, even abuse of cannabis was less harmful than the abuse of alcohol. The commission recommended a system of licensing and revenue taxation for the sale of cannabis and suggested that overly restrictive marijuana laws would drive people to more dangerous drugs like alcohol and opium.

The Indian Hemp Commission report was a thoroughly researched, levelheaded account of marijuana use. It was totally ignored in the us because it did not fit the political ideology of the times. It was far more suitable for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to paint a picture of marijuana as a ghastly and dangerous substance in order to push for the establishment of "narcotics farms for the confinement and treatment of persons addicted to Indian Hemp."

The vestiges of that era are still with us. Some right-wing fringe groups attribute the moral decay of our society to marijuana use. Smoking pot damages the brain, they argue. It leads to harder drugs. Pro-marijuana groups have fought back, starting with the beatniks of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. Smoking pot is not only pleasurable and innocuous, they claim, but it also has decided health benefits. It should be legalized.

What do the scientific facts say? Marijuana does not destroy the brain, but heavy, daily use may lead to slight memory impairment. A well-controlled study carried out at Harvard University examined sixty-five heavy users and found that, when compared to light users, they had a slightly harder time with some card-sorting experiments. Marijuana does impair dexterity and visual skills and therefore affects driving, but does not make people drive recklessly, as alcohol does. Nor is there evidence that it leads to the use of harder drugs. In fact, in Holland, where it has been legal to purchase marijuana in coffee shops since 1976, there is an amazingly low rate of heroin addiction. While more Dutch teenagers try marijuana, fewer go on to be regular users than in the us.

Obviously, marijuana smoking is not good for the lungs.

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