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here's a little something something i wrote for a psych course recently. i did a fair bit or reading and because i was limited in words, i was unfortunately unable to go into neccessary detail. not to mention i researched and wrote it in the 7 consecutive hours before it's due date. maybe i'll go into further detail and review with it later. here's what it was though:
In 1908, William Lyon MacKenzie King introduced Canada’s first legislation to suppress the use of opiates: the Opium Narcotic Act. To this day, this legislation has served as the framework for the rest of Canada’s drug prohibition legislation. However, King’s Act was at the time “created solely to eliminate an undesirable element from the labour pool, and gave no regard to medical, social, or any other scientific research to back up its necessity or wisdom.� Historically, the reasons for prohibition of marijuana have had less to do with the effects of the actual drug and more to do with extenuating circumstances. Now nearly one hundred years later, new psychological and scientific research is examined to attempt justify the necessity of this archaic legislation. The accumulated scientific evidence of the last century shows that the prohibition of marijuana is unnecessary and counterproductive.
Though there are 460 known chemical constituents found in marijuana, the primary active ingredient is ∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol, commonly referred to as THC. Of these chemical constituents, over 60 over them are classified as cannabinoids . Cannabinoids bind to cannabinoid receptors in the brain and affect the impulses between synapses. Cannabinoid receptors are hosted in numerous areas of the brain including: the cerebellum which controls movement, the hippocampus which affects memory and the cereberal cortex which controls most of the body’s functions. These cannabiniod receptors are linked to experiences of pleasure as can be explained by experiments with anadamide, alias bliss. Somatic effects of the consumption of marijuana include an increase of heart rate, cerebral blood flow, and stimulation of appetite due to a drop in blood sugar levels.
While there is little dispute over the physical alterations THC causes to the brain, the repercussions of such are subject to more debate. Many of the contentions used to justify marijuana prohibition include marijuana’s contended detrimental effects to cognitive functions and marijuana’s portent effect as a “gateway drug� which supposedly stimulates violent behavior and crime. These are the two key components which those of conservative ideology preach in support of the prohibition of marijuana. Unfortunately for the conservatives, modern science has shown all of these conclusions to be fallacious.
The nature of THC binding with synaptic receptors intuitively suggests alteration of the brain’s function. It is the highly propagandized impression that this alteration for the worse. In recent tests of cognitive function with marijuana users, it was concluded that “acute marijuana smoking produced minimal effects on complex cognitive task performance� and that “we cannot really establish that cannabis use has negative consequences for brain functions, even in chronic users.� Though it has been shown that THC negatively affects memory and cognition, these detriments have been shown to be recoverable and reversible with the removal of THC.
The Canadian Senate Committee found in 2003 that “cannabis is not a cause of violence or crime� and furthermore that marijuana “does not lead to a trajectory of delinquency.� This is counterintuitive to the popularly believed rational that it stimulates criminal activity. However, the Senate Committee that because of marijuana’s “relaxing and euphoristic psychoactive effects and it’s effect of relaxing muscle tone� that such belief was widely false.
The accumulated knowledge of the last century has invalidated the prohibition of marijuana. The illegitimacy of marijuana prohibition has been recognized as early as in 1944 in New York La Guardia whose findings have been time and again mirrored in other reports such as the Baroness Wootton report (1968, United Kingdom), the Le Dain Commission (1972, Canada) and the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs (2003, Canada). These reports found that prohibition merely “created a sub-culture with little respect for the law and law enforcement� and whose recommendations ranged from full legalization to minute decriminalization. The impairment of cognition is also mentioned in these reports, yet the impairment is generally recognized as being minute and irrelevant. The pharmaceutical and economic stimulus that marijuana could provide far outweighs the potential negative impact of the substance. The misspent funds on policing and the thousands of citizens with unnecessary criminal records should also be considered in this case. The prohibition of marijuana is the result of misdirected legislation one hundred years ago. In light of recent psychological, medical, and social discoveries since the prohibition of marijuana, new legislation should be introduced to incorporate marijuana as a functional tool of society.
1 Larsen, Dana and Emery, Marc “Cannadabis – A History Of Cannabis Prohibition In Canada.� Consent #23. Vancouver: Freedom Party, 1995. 3.
2 Nolin, Pierre Claude “Cannabis – From Plant to Joint.� Cannabis – Report of the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs – Abrdiged Version. Toronto: University of Toronto Incorporated, 2003. 38.
3 Carl L Hart Ph.D, Wilfred van Gorp Ph.D, Margaret Haney Ph.D, Richard W Foltin Ph.D and Marian W Fishman Ph.D “Effects of Acute Smoked Marijuana on Complex Cognitive Performance.� New York: Division on Substance Abuse, New York State Psychiatric Institue and Department of Psychiatry, 2001. Abstract
4 Nolin, Pierre Claude. 76
5 Nolin, Pierre Claude. 65
6 Larsen, Dana and Emery, Marc “Cannadabis – A History Of Cannabis Prohibition In Canada.� Consent #23. Vancouver: Freedom Party, 1995. 4.
