“Weed is Not a Drug” – A Brief History of the War On Drugs – Breaking cannabis news today

“Weeds are not drugs, they are plants.”

It’s something many of us have heard or even said at some point in our relationship with cannabis. Usually after a revelation that everything politicians and the media have told us about cannabis is wrong. Here are some natural conclusions: If you’ve lied to us about cannabis, what other drugs are you lying about? If illegal drugs are supposed to be dangerous, then cannabis is not a drug.

In a 2017 study of 47 San Francisco Bay Area teenagers, 40 reported using cannabis at least once. The 13 percent who are defined as regular users (use more than once every two weeks) often do not perceive cannabis as a hard drug or not at all. They see it more as a hobby or a medicine. Many thought cannabis was safer than other drugs, including alcohol, which is correct.

The demonization of all illegal drugs as a means of legal and moral destruction is part of the fight against the enduring legacy of drugs. Every chemical that changes the way we feel, think or experience the world is a drug. Cannabis is also a plant, along with other herbal drugs such as opium, valerian, coca, psilocybin, nicotine, caffeine, and many more. Two truths can exist at the same time.

Paradigm shift

The pendulum is slowly – but steadily – swinging away from criminalization and towards a health-oriented drug policy. Trying to escape the war on drugs by arguing that cannabis is not a drug only reinforces the same narrative that drugs as legally classified are inherently dangerous.

Throughout the early 20th century, the White House had two enemies: the black population and the anti-war left. The most dangerous thing about drugs like cannabis was their affinity for political dissent. By discontinuing research into medical safety and drug efficacy in the 1960s, Nixon solidified a way to smash both. “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either anti-war or anti-black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin and then heavily criminalize both of them, we could we disturb these communities. We could arrest their leaders, search their homes, break off their meetings, and denigrate them night after night on the evening news, ”Nixon’s top associate, John Ehrlichman, later admitted. “Did we know we lied about the drugs? Of course we did. “

Photo of Christopher Farrugia, courtesy of Pexels

Imperialism under a different name

The whole world is still feeling the aftershocks of nearly eighty years of war. From contracts to foreign aid, the United States government has used the war on drugs for nearly a century to enforce and directly influence international drug law. But this war is neither won nor lost. No, the war on drugs will end because our drug classification is disappearing – it has already started.

The line between legal performance enhancement and illegal recreational drugs is more blurred than ever. Nevertheless, reactionary traits of the past lurk in political and social law. It looks like the US Anti-Doping Agency and the World Anti-Doping Code – political bodies that campaign for criminalization in sporting fairness. The enemy of this war is no longer as simple as marginalized populations and scorched coca fields according to the Columbia plan. The new enemies are mostly chemists like Patrick Arnold and BALCO. Users are also harder to demonize. They look like Shi’Carri Richardson, like me, and like you.

In the words of Delic CEO Matt Stang: “People are so captivated by these stories” [that are] built around a binary good versus evil instead of understanding that things are simple, and people take these things and use them to make sense of them. “