June 10, 2014

Dear Sir,

The following is offered as a response to the Editorial on Bermuda’s Bout of Reefer Madness published last Friday.

It is extremely disappointing that someone clearly eloquent and able to articulate a position on this dynamic topic, chose to limit his opinion to a scathing attack on extreme positions on cannabis. Although he is absolutely correct that these zealots have done a disservice to the cause for reform, his counterattack merely highlights the polarity of opinions on this subject, adding to the noise but offering very little if anything to move the discussion forward.

He may rightly choose to criticise those who extol the universal and “supposedly miraculous properties” of medical cannabis, but to simplistically lump all proponents of reform into a single wacky group is hardly an elevated intellectual position to take.

The single acknowledgment in the entire piece of the “absurdly disproportionate” ramifications of personal possession is left sterile, with no real opinion offered on how this might be addressed in the context of reasonable reform.

That decriminalisation leaves the supply in the hands of the unscrupulous and often violent black market seems beyond the margins of his periphery.

In an ironic fulfillment of the referenced quote that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’, the writer’s suggestion that the perverse recent history of cannabis is some sort of false “subverted history”, which he relegates to a fantasy of false “sinister crackdowns” is alarmingly naive at best.

The history of the current legal status of cannabis and its elevation to the notorious Schedule 1 status is well published. As noted in an article from Princeton edu., (hardly an “anti-intellectual” institution),

“the American Medical Association objected to the Act [the Marijuana Stamp Tax Act of 1937] on the grounds that Cannabis was a valuable portion of the pharmacopoeia and would represent a substantial loss. Their position was that because of the use of the word Marijuana, the medical profession did not realise they would be losing Cannabis”

Thus, against the recommendation of the American Medical Association (AMA), and in favour of the economic interests of vested parties, a single decision led to the profound and expanding global ramifications surrounding the cannabis story of today, and the failed war on drugs.

Similarly, if the writer is dismissing the overwhelming power of large Pharmaceutical companies in today’s markets, their clutch on the FDA approval system, and their enormously profitable interests in controlling the ebb and flow of legal drugs, then perhaps we are dwelling in the science fiction of parallel universes of his beloved Asimov.

And so, instead of focusing on the real issues, more energy must be wasted on dispersing these damaging half truths, which contribute to the overall noise surrounding this topic, when instead the discussion could be about the failed war on drugs; our failure to address addiction as a health issue; honest dialogue with our youth and, God forbid, the right of autonomy over one’s own body, in the face of the absurd notion that the law should have sovereignty over our bodies, and moreover its misplaced entitlement to consign someone to criminal status based on their choice of what to ingest.

Perhaps self determination is too scary a prospect, perhaps instead it is too cozy to continue to live in a world where Big Brother is our guardian.

DISAPPOINTED IN THE LEVEL OF DISCOURSE