Why China will never legalize cannabis

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In fact, in China, netizens are not even allowed to type “1984” on social media, and copies of Orwell’s dystopian novels are banned. The novel takes place under a fictional regime of constant state surveillance and censorship. Citizens in the book are carefully monitored by “Big Brother” and coerced into practicing “doublethinking” and speaking only in a government-controlled language known as “Newspeak.” Talk about double standards.

A Brookings article discusses how visualization and police informatization drive Chinese surveillance systems. The communist government has numerous methods at its disposal to collect massive amounts of data about its 1.4 billion+ citizens: from surveillance cameras in the streets to medical histories, e-commerce, travel, WeChat and more – the repressive nature of their surveillance tactics is palpable like a big step backwards.

In addition, they place a strict focus on “focus personnel”, i.e. citizens who the government believes are undermining social stability, or people making petitions to the government.

Of course, the communists have a firm stance against drugs – and all kinds of them. According to the Chinese government, all kinds of drugs pose a serious danger, which is why they take drug control seriously. While Chinese society, like many other countries, has also suffered from the diseases brought on by deadly street drugs like methamphetamine – as well as heroin and fentanyl.

But will the world’s global superpower ever legalize marijuana? It seems unlikely that this is not the case, although it is utterly ironic that some of the oldest evidence of marijuana use was found in China. Researchers discovered that around 2,500 years ago, marijuana was burned on a high plateau in central Asia for its intoxicating vapors. They also found further evidence of the Sogdian culture, an ancient people of western China and Tajikistan who followed Zoroastrianism, a religion that valued the benefits of cannabis according to their sacred texts.

Additionally, both cannabis and hemp were used in China’s early history to make traditional Chinese medicines, fibers, textiles, and more.

No matter how you phrase it, marijuana is an entheogen, a plant-based chemical that induces an unusual state of consciousness. These plant species have been used for spiritual and religious purposes since ancient times, as many cultures believed that these hallucinations and experiences allowed them to converse with the gods, among other things.

For example, peyote was consumed in Mesoamerica for around 2,000 years and is still commonly used by the Huichol tribes of Mexico. “For the Huichol, peyote serves as a central sacrament of their rituals,” explains anthropologist Paul Liffman, who has studied the tribe for many years. “It’s used to illuminate the user to illuminate them from within,” he adds.

Meanwhile, magic mushrooms and ayahuasca have long been considered “plant teachers” in Latin American countries. Indigenous tribes, particularly those living in the upper Amazon, have a long history of using ayahuasca, which they consider a sacred brew used for ritual (known as shipibo) and healing purposes.

Today, cannabis is the most widespread and used entheogen. While it was also used for spiritual and religious reasons in the past, people still do so in modern times. In a study published in the Journal of Cannabis Research, a survey was sent online via private messaging and asked 319 participants from various online communities about their experiences with psychedelics and cannabis, and their connection to religious traditions, spiritual practices, and motivations for cannabis and psychedelic use .

The results showed that 69% of the participants used psychedelics and cannabis for spiritual purposes, and 25% of them had a spiritual motivation for using the drug.

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Marijuana will “wake up” the Chinese — and that’s why it’s never going to be legalized

Given the effectiveness of entheogenic drugs to “wake up the mind”, start discussions about one’s freedom and true feelings, getting in touch with one’s ego, causes of mental health problems and the like, it is not surprising why the Chinese communist government this does never allow its citizens to legally consume it.

Human rights are a serious problem in China: people simply don’t have freedom of expression or access to other basic human rights. They are harassed and tortured by the government if they even speak up. While lobbies for legalizing marijuana are common on the streets of North America, parents speak out when they can’t get access to this life-saving drug for their ailing children, and we’re talking about how marijuana is making us feel — on the internet, all those Time. The fact that we can even write and publish these articles – it would be a stretch that this would ever happen in China.

Citizens are in dire need of psychiatric and psychological help after being subjected to all this mental and physical oppression in their own homes. The government even goes so far as to use mental illness to discredit dissidents, and in some cases forces its own people to be committed to psychiatric hospitals for speaking ill of the regime.

Unless people in China have freedom of speech and expression, they will never experience the therapeutic benefits of marijuana, which is extremely disheartening. China will perpetually remain in the shadows unless a progressive government takes over.

This article originally appeared on Cannabis.net and has been republished with permission.