Bengaluru: It is important to decriminalise marijuana (a derivative of cannabis plant), but lifting the ban (as is being promoted by the Great Indian Legalisation Movement) on the drug may be “dangerous.”
In an exclusive interview with Deccan Chronicle, Professor of Psychiatry, Centre for De-addiction, National Institute of Mental Health & Neuro Sciences (Nimhans), Dr Vivek Benegal, said that he does not advocate open sale of cannabis as just another commodity because of its harmful effects but it should be decriminalised so that there can be research on the medicinal uses of the drug and to prevent the youth, who are caught smoking pot from being incarcerated under the draconian narcotic laws.
“There is a long standing demand to decriminalise cannabis use. This is not to plead for legalisation of cannabis or to allow drug traders free reign. While we should push for greater research into the medicinal properties of cannabis, we should think twice before we go around selling it from retail stores. In the USA, where cannabis has been legalised there is a sharp increase in incidence of cannabis-related traffic accidents, deaths and injuries. But to be honest, a lot more is known about the harmful effects of alcohol and yet it is sold as open and a highly profitable commodity,” he said. Drug prohibition, he argued, is not the answer because it has only “pushed the use of restricted substances underground, and has created underground economies and criminal mafias to run them as well as increased social spending to police them”.
Unfortunately, public views on cannabis sway from one pole to another; from the demand for legalising it because it is ‘perfectly safe’ and even ‘beneficial’ to the other extreme of ‘ban it out of sight’ and ‘lock up everyone who uses it.’ “There must be a middle ground in the public discourse on cannabis. It is a plant with many active ingredients. Some are definitely harmful and can cause severe mental disorder to a vulnerable group of people. But there are a few compounds, which might have therapeutic benefit or medicinal properties. We do not have a way of reliably separating the helpful molecules from the harmful ones because of lack of research and having cannabis as a highly restricted substance comes in the way of such research,” said Dr Benegal.
He highlighted the discrepancy in law on drug use in India and said that on one hand casual users smoking ganja or charas (derivatives of cannabis), containing the banned substance Tetra Hydro Cannabinol or THC (which gives a high) often get caught and are imprisoned without bail for years. On the other hand are people, who use the same THC in the form of bhang because it is legal, he said.
