Originally published approximately five years ago at http://cannabisassembly.org/myths.html but it seems these facts haven't managed to bore through the skulls of Tory MPs and BBC employees. Either that or MPs and their state funded media are deliberately lying to the public to defend a failed policy, you choose. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
We currently have two complete myths being reported by the media as facts. Firstly, that the strength of cannabis has risen, and, secondly, that cannabis causes serious mental illness. Both invented by the prohibitionists, and both utterly groundless.
Let's start by noting that there are as many strains of cannabis as there are types of roses. When talking about the strength, one cannot say 'cannabis is' anything, just as one cannot describe all roses as being of any one colour. The hemp that is grown in our fields, under license from the Home Office, is less than 1% THC, yet it is no less a cannabis plant than those being grown in closets and lofts throughout the country. It has always been this way, the strength varies from strain to strain, and cannot be given a generalised figure.
The truth behind this myth is that the average strength of herbal cannabis, tested by the police, has risen from 8% THC, roughly a decade ago, to 12% THC more recently. This has happened because the herbal cannabis supplied to street dealers has changed from imported strains, common in Afghanistan, Morocco, or Jamaica, to strains grown here, which originated, mainly, in the Netherlands and USA. Using selective breeding, not genetic engineering as some tabloids might have you believe, modern breeders are producing the strains being demanded by the market, but none are stronger than strains which already existed.
The Cabinet members and various politicians, who admit to breaking the same law they seek to have their constituents prosecuted for, have also been rolling out the 'much stronger than I smoked way back when' routine with hilarious regularity. Ignoring the fact that the majority of the cannabis which would have been available when they were at university wouldn't have been herbal cannabis, but hashish. For those who might not know, hashish is produced by collecting the active natural chemicals on the exterior of the flowered buds and pressing it into solid form. Hashish would usually be found to be over 80% THC, and can be over 90%. This is what our Home Secretary and David Cameron smoked at university. Not the 12% herbal cannabis they allege is far stronger.
Myth: Cannabis is 10-20-30-40 ( 50 ) times stronger.
Fact: The herbal cannabis currently available from street dealers is stronger by about a half than that available a decade ago. So use less and save yourself some money.
Now let's burst the 'cannabis psychosis' bubble. I'd like to drift a little before I begin, if you could excuse an observation for one paragraph, by pointing out that the prohibitionists are using the, unprovable, suggestion, that cannabis may be one of a myriad of things that, might possibly, act as a trigger for a latent mental illness in those already predisposed to that illness, as justification for the prohibition of cannabis. Whilst tobacco and alcohol are still killing over one hundred thousand UK citizens every year.
For some time now, there has been an open purse for those wishing to do any form of 'reputable' medical study that could be used as proof that the use of cannabis can be dangerous. That isn't a conspiracy theory, I have no time for them and prefer to stick to facts. Governments who supported the prohibition of cannabis have been searching, without success, over the last seventy years, for supportable evidence that what they did was right. The field of psychiatry is such that nothing can ever be proven conclusively, and so has become an ideal prohibitionist spawning ground. Add a multi-million dollar, US government funded, advertising campaign, 10 years ago, which attempted to promote the idea that cannabis use was dangerous to mental health, and which flopped most thoroughly might I add, and it starts to sound like conspiracy theory though.
I could quote the authors of some of the reports being used in evidence of these mythical dangers. Such as Dr. Ferguson stating that he would 'have had the same results testing for milk abuse', or Prof. Van Os stating that his findings would 'effect such a small number of cannabis users that they could never be used to determine legislation'. I could even point out that the majority of those behind the studies believe that prohibition can only make this situation worse. But all I really have to refer to, to destroy the cannabis psychosis myth, is the international rate of schizophrenia, and related serious mental illness.
Whilst the use of cannabis has changed dramatically, the international rate of schizophrenia, and related serious mental illness, has remained constant. From the point where records began, when cannabis use would have been minimal in westernised society, through the flower power years, through the late seventies, when 60% of US college students admitted to having tried cannabis, to the current day. The rate has remained exactly the same. Some leading psychiatric scholars even suggest it may be dropping.
If you were to compare countries with minimal use of cannabis against countries with high use, you would find the same rates of schizophrenia, and related serious mental illness. If you compared the legal structures of countries and the severity with which they treat cannabis users, you would find the same rates of schizophrenia, and related mental illness.
For there to be any validity in the claim that cannabis causes serious mental illness there would have to be a rise in the rate of those illnesses when there is a rise in the use of cannabis. It cannot be any other way, it is indisputable. Cannabis does not cause serious mental illness.
Myth: Cannabis can increase your risk of schizophrenia by up to 200%
Fact: The increase in the use of cannabis has not increased the rate of schizophrenia, anywhere in the world, at any time.
Faith and patience.
