why is cannabis illegal yet alcohol is freely available??

Question

i want to know why a harmless herb like Cannabis is portrayed as the most evil thing in the world in the UK right now while we continute to promote and sell alchohol, which kills tens of thousands of people each year? when did we take away the human right of choice? isnt it up to us what we put in our bodies?? why do they think it will ruin the country while places like Amsterdam are totally fine?

i understand that there is some link to cannabis and mental issues, but this is a small percentage of users... you could apply the same logic to alcohol, as it can ruin your life just as easily....

cannabis is not however the gateway drug. i have been a cannabis smoker for many years now and have never had the urge to try other things. you could easily argue that the gateway drug is Alcohol or Caffeine.... the reason you dont argue that is because these substances are highly accepted in society and pass your judgement.

why is it so hard to believe that i never tried anything else aside smoking cannabis?!? i take it your assosiating cannabis being illegal, therefore me mixing with people who are dealing, therefore i MUST have tried something else?? this just shows IGNORANCE.... does that mean becuase youve drunk Alcohol your destined to be a heroin user?? i have the choice what i put into my body, and i take it very seriously.... any other drug (aside magic fungi) have all been man made, and the only thing man has done since the world began is create its own downfall.

Answer 1

Historically it's because the US administration in the early 20th century pressed for other governments to outlaw cannabis and the UK government agreed in 1925. It is alleged that the DuPont corporation led the way in pressurising the US government to take this position as they had taken out patents on synthetic fibres and were worried about the effects that competition from hemp fibres would have on their commercial success.

As for the position today, it's probably best that it remains a class C drug, as legalisation would transfer supply into the hands of large corporations and would inevitably attract prohibitive levels of taxation. As it stands, anyone who wants cannabis can get hold of it, they face very little real risk from legal sanctions, and the price has remained remarkably resistant to inflation in the 25+ years that I've been the occasional consumer, during which time fags have risen from 70p for a pack of 20 to over £5. If cannabis prices had risen at the same level, it would be around £100 per 1/8 ounce now.


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Just have to respond to this rubbish that another user has posted :
"Canabis usually leads to heavier drugs thats why i think it should be banned, very few just smoke canabis and leave it at that, majority go onto harder drugs."
"Alcohol can be addictive but very very few people try harder drugs as a result of alcohol."

This is such nonsense. Yes, lots of people who take hard drugs started on cannabis, but I bet an even high proportion had started on alcohol before that. 100% of heroin users also wore socks at some point prior to getting addicted, but it's absurd to suggest there's a direct causal link between the two. Some people like to get out of it, for whatever reason, and they'll try whatever is available until they find their level or get addicted, but to suggest that one leads on to the another is sloppy thinking.

Answer 2

Alcohol has a much longer tradition of use in Europe and therefore has cultural hsitory in most European countries. Cannabis use, however, has only really become widespread in Europe in the last couple of hundred years or so. As a result, the social consequences are more obvious. If alcohol were a new fad, with no history, there is no way it would be legalised. Interestingly enough, in countries in central Asia and the Middle East where cannabis' use is much older it is legal, and alcohol is not!

Answer 3

Firstly, alcohol is taxed, cannabis is not. If no one had heard of alcohol and it was introduced via the black market, I am convinced it would be a class A.

Secondly, and I have 25 years experience on this one, cannabis is not a harmless herb. For a start, the stuff being produced these days, particularly skunk, is up to 25 times stronger than the stuff people smoked in the sixties and seventies. Most of the poeple I know who smoked in the 60's, 70's and 80's are having so many problems because of their addiction to this harmless weed.

It is not physically addictive, but psychologically so. Psychological addictions are every bit as harmful and serious as physical ones, and mostly more so. If you kick a substance like heroin or alcohol which is physically addictive, with careful management, and much willpower, you can stay in recovery. To kick a substance that has a psychological addiction, like cannabis or cocaine is going to take a lot of willpower, mental struggles that will leave you reeling and a great deal of therapy and support. However, it can be done.

Many of the people I mentioned, myself included, were heavy users since their early teens. Many of them are now virtually unemployable, either through serious, incurable respiratory diseases, or because the addiction affected them so deeply that smoking and being stoned was all they could think about and bit by bit, jobs and families, things which should have been their priorities, fell by the wayside, leaving them spent, in their 40s sitting exactly where they were when they were 14.

It is a proven fact that people who use cannabis, particularly heavily, are much much more likely to experiment with other drugs, which may be more dangerous and addictive.

It also lowers your IQ by a considerable amount (they do call it dope, after all), it does affect you psychologically, long term and can alter the chemical balance in your brain for life, making things like depression, anxiety, psychosis and bi-polar disorders, not to mention physical ailments a probability rather than a possibility.

I was brought up with the belief that this was a "soft" drug, and in a sense I still feel that, and also, I know that me and my friends would have continued to puff if we had known (or even believed) the stuff I am saying.

Remember, I am not being judgemental at all (I'd be ahypocrite), taking drugs, any drugs, is a matter of personal choice, but the more informed you are, the better you can make that choice for yourself. I don't think it should be decriminalised, because I think that puts the wrong "spin" on it, but I do think that this promotion of alcohol should be treated with the severity people treat illegal drugs with. I have run two pubs, and seen the devastation alcohol addiction causes.

Its only now that the studies and research into the long term effects of cannabis are coming to light, if these are the problems older users are faced with now, the people who grow up in today's society, with killer-weed so much stronger are going to be worse off by far.

I thought I'd never stopped smoking, I really didn't see the point, but I have to say I don't miss it. And literally one or two tokes on a zoot and I'm in the clouds for hours! But after much therapy from the after effects and chemical and psychological alterations from smoking so much all those years, and three years on, I am a happier calmer person, my life is more sorted.

I just wanted you to be fully informed, I'm not judging you in any way.

Answer 4

Weed is not harmless. It is a gateway drug. Everyone I know who agrees with you has tried other drugs after using Pot. I bet even you have at least tried other more harmful drugs at least once. Don't lie. If weed is legalized than whats next, cocaine, acid, PCP, meth...... I am not against smoking weed. But I do support it being against the law. Alchohol is legal but the laws are getting tougher. I live in the US in Michigan. One law that just came about is that if a drunk driver hits a pregnant woman and the baby dies, involuntary-manslaughter. Alchohol is the most widely used drug too.

Answer 5

Because they can tax you on alcohol but how are they going to tax you on cannabis, basically it's all about money for the politicians- in South Africa in 1969 the then minister of finance Mr. Connie Mulder said in Parliament if we can't TAX it we will ban it, up to then there was no law against the use of cannabis in my country until a stupid politician decided to ban it due to the fact that their was no revenue for the country,there were also other factors involved why they banned it but that was one of them, its hard to believe but true(mind gestapo).I AGREE 100 PERCENT WITH YOU.

Answer 6

TAX!!

Anything that the Gov can't or find it too difficult to put there tax on they make it illegal! alcohol and cigarettes are legal and they are the biggest killer in the UK but still we can go to most shops get stock up have a beer and drive home!

Answer 7

The only reason is because alcohol is taxable and the government hasn't figured out how they could tax cannabis.

Answer 8

Totally stupid if you ask me. When have you ever heard a driver high on marijuana going the wrong way down the freeway & killing 5 people? You don't. The people that are SO against it have never tried it and just listen to what everybody says about it. I say, tax it, sell it, and get on with our lives...

Answer 9

Can't we tell your a smoker! Alcohol is not freely available there is an age limit and cannabis is not harmless ask any psychiatric nurse.

Answer 10

You do want to get a answer. And here is your answer #1. the government's of the UK & US get tons of money from Alchohol Mfg. in tax's. #2. the government's of the UK & US can't trust the their own people like the people can't trust them.