James Farmer QC
jamesfarmerqc.co.nz
I have consistently believed that cannabis is a harmful substance and that people who use it for “recreational purposes” would be more sensible to choose a healthy form of recreation that doesn’t put them and those dependent on them, i.e. their children and future children, at risk of harm.
A disappointing feature of the forthcoming cannabis reform referendum (apart from the fact that it’s being held at all) is that it is the consequence of a political deal between the Labour and Green Parties. Another feature of dubious morality is that it is being promoted as a measure that will generate tax revenues that can be used, as the proposed Cannabis Legislation and Control Bill says, “to reduce the harms associated with cannabis use experienced by individual, families, whanau, and communities in New Zealand”.
Assuming the Bill is successful in achieving its objectives of eliminating the (non-tax-paying) black market – as to which, see below – and that legal cannabis becomes more readily available, the happy equilibrium will be attained of greater access to cannabis, more people using it, more people affected by its harmful effects and more public money to address those effects.
With the referendum now only weeks away, it is a useful time to collect together the arguments for legalization and test their soundness. The arguments, as they appear to be, are:
(1) Cannabis is no more harmful than alcohol and it is legal to consume alcohol and so it should be too for cannabis.
(2) Medicinal cannabis is now legal and cannabis for recreational use should be also.
(3) The legalisation of cannabis will decrease any harm to users because its production, supply, strength and price will be regulated.
(4) Legalisation of cannabis supply and use will eliminate the black market.
(5) It is wrong that people who use cannabis should be convicted under the criminal law.
My analysis, by reference to research, written expert and professional opinion, and plain logic suggests that there are flaws with each of these propositions. My conclusion is that, properly used, the amendment that was made to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 last year that gives Police discretion not to prosecute where a health-centred or therapeutic approach can be achieved is more likely to achieve the proposed Bill’s objective of reducing harm from cannabis use than wholesale legalisation of the use of the drug.
CANNABIS IS NO MORE HARMFUL THAN ALCOHOL AND IT IS LEGAL TO CONSUME ALCOHOL AND SO IT SHOULD BE TOO FOR CANNABIS
In a recent article (3 August 2020) in The NZ Herald, Professor Mary Cannon, Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology and Youth Mental Health at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, described this proposition as spurious and along the lines of “Would you rather be eaten by a lion or a bear or run over by a truck or a bus?” She went on to make the point that, while there is a rare condition known as alcohol hallucinosis which can cause hallucinations and paranoia in heavy life-time alcohol users suffering an alcohol withdrawal reaction, this is not a psychotic disorder. By contrast, based on extensive medical research, cannabis “is strongly associated with psychotic symptoms and psychotic disorders such schizophrenia”. She continued: “In fact, cannabis use is now the most powerful single environmental risk factor for psychotic disorder.” She has also referred (in a separate Irish Times article cited below) to a statement by Dr Brendan Kelly, Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin, that: “It is now exceedingly rare to meet a man with new-onset schizophrenia or a related disorder who was not smoking cannabis before he experienced symptoms”.
Again based on research, Professor Cannon says that it has been established that young people (teenagers and young adults) are particularly vulnerable because of the effect that cannabis has on the developing brain. Those who start using cannabis before the age of 15 were found to have 4 times the risk of being diagnosed with schizophrenia by the age of 26. There was evidence also of an 8 point drop in IQ that appears to be irreversible and lesser employment achievement. Professor Cannon described the psychosis associated with cannabis as one with “high levels of agitation, aggression and paranoia and can present a risk to family and others”.
Parents who may be indulgent or prepared to condone the use of cannabis by their teenage children should watch the following easy-to-follow account of the effects on teenage brain development:
Professor Cannon is far from being on her own. A joint review of 18 separate research studies by Marconi, Di Forti, Lewis and Murray (Meta-analysis of the Association between the level of Cannabis Use and Risk of Psychosis, (2016) 42 Schizophrenia Bulletin 1262) established that higher levels of cannabis use were associated with increased risk of psychosis including schizophrenia.
In relation to alcohol, Professor Cannon in her Herald article makes the point that the failure of governments worldwide to control alcohol harm “shows that once an addictive substance is legalised and freely available, public health takes a second place to profit”. As she puts it: “Once society normalises the widespread use of a drug, it is almost impossible to undo that and put the genie back in the bottle”.
To be continued…
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