From the Archives: The Cannabis Debate

While I was an editor with The Economic Times, I conducted a debate on cannabis legalisation in which I pitted the Narcotics Bureau chief against a professor of psychiatry (who was also an expert on de-addiction). Today, I am re-publishing that debate, dated 5 May, 1998. First, the professor of psychiatry:

Professor Davinder Mohan,

Head of the Department of Psychiatry,

All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.

From a drug which was distributed by the government, to one that can now invite a death sentence, cannabis – marijuana or charas – has come a long way. Even today, it remains caught in a controversy as the government decides whether it will ever attain the status of an over-the-counter drug.

While the arbitrary imposition and lifting of prohibition of alcohol sends the media and politicians into self-congratulatory trips,  the prohibition of cannabis, which was and is the poor man’s intoxicant hardly causes a ripple. Cannabis and its products, including bhang, charas and ganja, have been traditionally used all over south Asia and especially in India from time immemorial.

The question whether marijuana should be legalized in India actually arises in the context of the Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substances Act (1985), which introduced stringent penalties for its possession and sale and prohibited personal use (except in “small quantities”) for currently addicted individuals.

In fact up to 1959 not only was it legal, but its sale was regulated by the Narcotics Commissioner, ministry of finance, through excise vends. In 1965, after the ratification of the Single Geneva Convention (1961), the government of India formally closed legal collaboration and the sale of marijuana through excise vends. However, in the subsequent period (till 1985) nothing really happened, as neither the government at the Centre nor the states were really bothered about its use/abuse.

Whether marijuana or cannabis products are harmful to individual health, or even in the public health perspective, is an issue which has been the subject of debate and research since 1895, when the Royal Hemp Commission report was first submitted. After extensive field visits and whatever laboratory tests could be done with the technology then available, it concluded that the drug was a mild euphoriant, had no addictive properties and posed no public health damage.

The British government then undertook its cultivation and sale through the same excise vends through which opium was sold to the registered addicts – a practice which India discontinued in 1959.

It is relevant to mention that cannabis intoxication or consumption never leads to adverse social consequences. From the health angle, there is not even a single case of cannabis overdose death. Also, it does not cause any irreversible organ damage.

After consuming cannabis, the individual experiences a mild sense of relaxation and euphoria, and if intoxicated, time and space distortions. The difference between cannabis and other addictive drugs is that apart from being in the bloodstream, the excess is also absorbed and stored in body fat. Hence if consumed in excess, it is excreted slowly from the fatty tissues into the blood and out of the body. 

No plant product has been researched so thoroughly for its adverse impact than cannabis, with disappointing results. In the US, cannabis derivatives are prescribed in tablet form for terminal cancer patients.

Why then should India legalise cannabis? Firstly, it grows wild. While that maybe good news for the flourishing market, a lot of manpower and funds are spent in burning the crop every year.

Secondly, it is a poor man’s intoxicant and by prohibiting it, we are inviting him to shift to alcohol or get imprisoned or hanged. This has happened in Punjab and Haryana, where even before the NDPS Act of 1985, with economic prosperity, the population shifted from cannabis to alcohol.

Thirdly, it was a potent source of revenue in pre-Independent India, like alcohol is today in the states. After Independence, we decided to forego this source of revenue which accrued to the central exchequer.

Fourthly, it is not a problem in India, but of the developed world, especially the Americas. India can honour its treaty obligations by keeping a cheque on export to other countries.

Then, it diverts the energy of enforcement agencies from combating heroin trafficking to destroying a worthless weed. Further, it prevents research into its therapeutic applications as the existing international treaties will not let any new drug development from cannabis take place.

It is not generally known, but there is a group now in existence which is reviewing the single Geneva Convention and other treaties. The war on drugs has been going on since 1925 and every battle has been won by the opponents. It would be worth pondering if the traditional thandai [a cannabis drink] should not be patented by Indian herbal manufacturers and marketed as an alternative to alcohol.

And now, the narco cop:

C. Chakrabarty,

Former Director-General,

Narcotics Control Bureau,

Government of India.

Cannabis is the most prevalent drug of abuse the world over, both in quantity consumed and in the number of illicit consumers. Apart from larger dose-size, easier availability, lower price and safer mode of intake, a significant contributory factor behind this development has been the attitude of leniency, if not respectability, extended to cannabis use by some elite groups in different world communities.

A current myth favouring leniency is cannabis use being a part of Indian culture. Illustrations are galore, and these are culled and conveniently used without objective analysis and test of validity in the appropriate context. The instances cited are those of isolated rituals of insignificant sects, occasional ceremonial or social consumption under community discipline, indulgence allowed to peripheral elements, and proven medical usage in the indigenous system. The tolerance is misinterpreted as cultural acceptance, and the strength and efficacy of the social defence mechanism, that had remained intact till the middle of the century, is overlooked. That the community had effectively restricted, marginalized and discouraged cannabis use can be convincingly established by a single illustration: in every Indian language, there are derisive and crisp idiomatic expressions about cannabis users, attributing all sorts of absurdities to the effects of cannabis, the consumption of which makes one unreliable and untrustworthy.

Drugs are regulated, controlled or prohibited on the advice of healthcare experts, that is, the medical fraternity. The experts do often hold different views, and hence the legislators can only go on the predominant view, if an expert consensus is not available. The predominant medical opinion has not changed in the 37 years since the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was adopted. The World Health Organisation and most of the national expert groups including those in India, continue to hold forth to the view that cannabis consumption is harmful. Some top experts of India, however, are of the view that cannabis consumption does not cause permanent and irreversible brain damage. But it is harmful nonetheless. In a seminar at the AIIMS in August 1996, these experts, while recommending intensive research in the medical potential of the different cannabinoids, suggested only regulated availability for non-medical, that is, recreational, personal consumption. But this is not as easy now, as it was till the early ‘60s.

Funding and encouragement of research is certainly advisable, and this is also permissible under the Indian as well as international law, but till fresh research findings alter the current state of knowledge, cannabis has to be considered as harmful, with its non-medical consumption banned for some years to come. It cannot be ruled out either that further research may bring out hitherto unknown harmful properties in cannabis.

One should also not miss the grave danger signals emanating from the other direction. While there is sustained pressure for relaxation from some elite groups, the underworld in the developed countries, notably in the US and the Netherlands, have been scientifically developing far more potent types of cannabis plants, often with more than 20 times the THC content than the traditional Indian hemp plant. The leaves (and seeds) of the cannabis plant, which are still outside the purview of the 1961 Convention or of most national legislation including Indian law, are now found to be having much more THC than the “flowering and fruiting” tops, that is, the traditionally controlled ganja or cannabis. With these developments, can there be any standardization for regulated non-medical use, as it has been possible for alcohol.

Any talk of relaxation or legislation would only boost the aforesaid pernicious developments. Prohibition of cannabis would hence be more necessary now than it was in 1961. And it has to be effective, and not as haphazard and half-hearted as it has been during the last 37 years. No additional resources would either be necessary singly for cannabis, if there I a common, adequately strong and integrated infrastructure for the various other harmful drugs under the international control system.

However, informed debate may continue among experts who have different points of view. It should not be allowed to degenerate to populist political or ill-informed generalistic levels.

My question to the cop: Are our cops reliable and trustworthy?


And, are the worshippers of Shiva an "isolated sect"?


BOOM SHANKAR!


Legalise it! I'll advertise it!


My detailed take on this debate is posted here.