CHARBONNEAU – Cannabis is not harmless. We never said it was

WHEN WE FORMED the Calgary chapter of the Alberta Legalization of Cannabis Committee (ALCC) in 1977, we made sure that we didn’t claim it was harmless.

It would be foolish to claim otherwise. Inhaling smoke can’t be good for you.

But our lobby group argued that the risks of cannabis use were less than the risks of arrest and incarceration for its possession.

The irony of tobacco being legal while cannabis, being apparently less harmful yet criminal, was not lost on us. We joked: “They’re waiting to show that cannabis causes cancer before it’s legalized.”

As a side effect of the eradication of cannabis crops in Mexico, pot was made harmful. The Department for Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the U.S. sprayed cannabis fields in with the dangerous herbicide paraquat.

We decided to make kits to test for paraquat. A chemist told me of chemicals that could be used for the test.

I was surprised how easy it was to buy sodium dithionite and sodium bicarbonate.  We met at my house and made the test kits. The small plastic stir spoons from McDonald’s were perfect for measuring the chemicals. Kits were sold in local retail outlets for $1.50 – each good for two tests.

Politicians of the day were in a quandary. They understood how unfair criminalization was but their hands were tied by public opinion. In response to our letter sent in 1978, Prime Minister P.E. Trudeau said, in part:

“At present three departments, Justice, the Solicitor General, and National Health and Welfare, are reviewing the provisions of Bill S-19. They’re working to make certain the legislation we introduce strikes a proper balance between concerns over the potential health risks associated with cannabis and concerns over the personal and social effects of penal laws aimed at discouraging its use.”

In the minds of politicians, the political risks were greater than the arrests and incarceration for users. Any support of legalization was lip service — cannabis users were unfortunate collateral damage.

One risk we didn’t have to deal with back then was the potency of the pot available. B.C. Bud was legendary but nothing I used was close to the potency of today. The “ditch weed” that I grew in my closet under fluorescent lights was absurdly low in THC.

Now, commercial cannabis has THC levels over 20 per cent.

Researcher Dr, Daniel Myron from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute has found that the effects of cannabis use, especially young men, is greater than we could have anticipated back then:

“My research team recently conducted two large Canadian studies examining the relationship between cannabis use and mental health. Our findings are that cannabis use may be implicated in the development of certain types of mental illness. In the first study, we found that 26 per cent of individuals visiting the emergency department (ED) for an episode of cannabis-induced psychosis developed schizophrenia within three years – a rate 242 times higher than the general population (Globe and Mail, Feb 22, 2024).”

I regret that anyone thinks cannabis is innocuous. Like any drug, including alcohol and tobacco, there are risks. As in the case of tobacco use, education is the key to awareness of those risks; not criminalization.

You can find  the archives ALLC at alccblog.wordpress.com.

David Charbonneau is a retired TRU electronics instructor who hosts a blog at http://www.eyeviewkamloops.wordpress.com.