UK - More Political Cannabis spin from The Telegraph (UK)

[Lunar Loops]

Now, this could have gone into the Cannabis section or indeed the general news section, but I thought it relevant here as it pertains to the ongoing discussion on the reclassification of cannabis in the UK.

This truly is the lowest of the low from the Torygraph. You could tear this apart on so many levels it is unbelievable. Gateway theory, couple of drags and tripping like LSD, addiction, the fact that alcohol and cocaine addiction were involved is almost glossed over. It's all about the evils of cannabis and as if it weren't enough The Torygraph accompanied this piece by the photagraph of a silhouetted individual smoking a spliff; underneath was the caption "Cannabis: 'a gateway to harder drugs'".

Now whilst this article seems ridiculous to many of us, the problem lies in the fact that many, many people out there swallow this hook, line and sinker (believe me I've had the arguments with otherwise intelligent and free-thinking individuals). This is a media war and they are winning. The problem lies in the fact that this is splashed all over a prominent UK broadsheet and any reasoned rebuttals only ever appear in small (and very sparsely read) publications or websites (preaching to the converted).

Apologies people, maybe it's just me feeling somewhat deflated with all of this propoganda at the moment, but it seems like a war where one side are using pea-shooters and the other nuclear weapons.

Anyway, here's the article:
'I was tripping as if I'd taken LSD'


Last Updated: 12:01am BST 23/07/2007





As eight Cabinet members confess to having used cannabis and its status is under review, Carl Edwards recalls how the drug nearly destroyed him
Within three months of smoking my first joint, I was obsessed with cannabis. I was 16 and had never taken any drugs before.
It was 1977, the year I left school in Liverpool. I joined the Merchant Navy, working as a catering boy on the QE2. As we made our way around the world I tried every strength and strain of cannabis there was.
After taking redundancy in 1982, I went to live in California where some friends from the navy had settled. I started regularly using Californian grass, which grew naturally but was as strong as the hydroponically cultivated skunk we see in this country today.
The difference between Californian grass and the hash that was common in Britain then was shocking.
The first time I took it I just had a few little puffs but I was tripping so much it was as if I had taken LSD.
It had the same effect as the skunk so many teenagers are smoking in Britain now.
At first it gives you such a heightened sense of your own creativity - an exaggerated sense of power - that I started to believe strange things about myself.
I was convinced I could single-handedly come up with a blueprint for a better world. Smoking made me become a megalomaniac; I dreamt up all these grandiose schemes, completely ignoring my own limitations as a moderately educated 22-year-old.
I had no sense of what was happening to me, but I believe now that I was experiencing some of the psychotic problems such as delusions and hallucinations that doctors have since observed in cannabis users.
By my early twenties I was trapped; if I was awake I was smoking dope.
Everyday, in my stoned state, I'd be planning all the things I was going to do the following morning.
Get an education, learn to play an instrument, get a job, change my life.
But then I'd just wake up the next day, have a joint and the whole thing would begin again. I found it impossible to motivate myself. The cannabis sapped all my vitality and made me lethargic. It has the nickname dope for good reason.
It was a terrible time for my family. Of two sisters and a brother I was the only one who had any problem with addiction.
We were close, and they all worried so much about me. They became as obsessed with the drug as I was. They tried to help me and talk to me but it just felt like a huge pressure.
By the time I was 22 years old I was an alcoholic and was taking cocaine, too. I would definitely call cannabis a gateway drug - it so often leads to harder kinds.
It wasn't until I was 32 that I managed to act on my desire to get out of it. I spent three days in bed withdrawing from all drugs and alcohol, then I joined AA and NA. Slowly, I built a life again.
By 2003 I was clean and had some qualifications but was still out of work. I began to notice how many young people were hanging round on Liverpool's street corners smoking weed and decided to try to help them.
There was no residential rehab centre in Liverpool so, with council backing, I set up the Park View Project, a 12-bed rehab facility.
My life is back on track and the unit is doing well, offering 42 beds for addicts wanting to get clean.
When I started using cannabis, probably at around the time some of the Cabinet were, it was seen as a sociable drug. It got you high and made you feel good. But even with the milder stuff around at the time the good feelings were so short-lived.
Within a few months you develop a tolerance and from then on you just feel stoned. I spent the whole of the rest of the time I was using it trying to recapture that initial feeling.
The problem with cannabis is that it doesn't drag you straight to rock bottom, like cocaine or heroin addiction does. It's insidious.
It can take decades before you reach that critical point where you have to get help. Re-classifying cannabis as a class B drug might be difficult to manage, but that is the message we have got to send our children: cannabis can destroy your life.