Recreation is Medicine with Cannabis

 

"...the very foundation of virtue is the endeavor (conatum) to preserve the individual self, and happiness consists in the human capacity to preserve its self" 

 

- Proposition 18, Part IV, The Ethics, Spinoza
 

 

The preservation of the individual self is not possible without the preservation of other individual selves, since in the web of life all selves are connected. The destruction of any one self, be it animal, plant, fungi, or insect, is a rupture in the web of life that can only lead to the eventual destruction of the entire web.

Recreation is medicine. Inadequate recreation makes you ill. Adequate recreation makes you healthy. Lots of recreation makes you very healthy and happy. To say that one must not be happy, but one can only reduce one's sorrow by a small extent when all else fails, is the recipe that has produced this world of pain and sorrow that we now reside in. The pain and sorrow is not limited to just us humans, but to all life forms on earth. I dare say that if inanimate objects could speak, then the mountains and the rivers would also bemoan the sad state of this world today.

 

This recipe, that says one must not endeavor to find happiness through the preservation of the individual self, is the foundation of the duality of recreational and medical cannabis. That is how we have come to this bizarre situation where the use of cannabis for medical purposes, when all other methods to heal oneself has failed, is considered legal and acceptable, but the use of cannabis for recreation (dictionary meaning: activity done for enjoyment when one is not working) is considered illegal. From all this it appears that the human must be a machine, working for somebody constantly, to further the interests of that somebody, without any thought for one's own enjoyment and happiness. Only when this machine breaks down, can one then look to cannabis. But it must not be for enjoyment or happiness, it must be strictly to put the machine back in order to continue working for the master who pays one's wages. Through the introduction of this duality in cannabis usage, not only has the plant been taken away from the human who used to enjoy it, it has been taken away from all the other animals, birds and insects that have also enjoyed it. So not only has the happiness that would have preserved the individual self been taken away, the happiness that would have preserved other selves has also been taken away.

To try and understand the ridiculousness of this whole exercise of making a widely used, highly enjoyable, and supremely beneficial plant - cannabis - illegal, and then making it partially legal for medical purposes, and finally wondering about making it available to grown adults in general, let us use the much glorified method of a thought experiment, using one of the other activities that bring us happiness - an activity that can be considered recreation according to the dictionary definition, and an activity that most humans will agree is essential for the preservation of the self. Let us take the activity of sex, since the activity of cannabis consumption is so far removed from most people's experiences today that they would find it impossible to relate to it in any way. Sex, on the other hand is something that even the most bigoted and retarded human will have some consciousness of. 

 

Imagine a scenario where the State suddenly decides to make sex illegal, and then makes a rule that says sex will be legal for medical purposes only, i.e. only for procreation. Then based on its findings - that sex for medical purposes is actually beneficial to the individual and society, that when an individual has sex, he or she appears happy - the State debates whether or not to make it legal for recreational purposes. Sounds absurd? That's the kind of absurdity we are talking about here with relation to cannabis.

You might say sex is different, it is a natural human drive, essential for the preservation and continuation of the species. But this aspect of sex, where it is used for procreation, is only a very small percent. Almost all humans use sex for enjoyment, i.e. recreation. It is quite often the case that procreation is an accidental byproduct of recreation. If you say this is not so, that there is no pleasure linked to the sex that you practice, then you may well belong to a non-human species, even possibly a non-mammalian species. Looking at it from a different perspective, sex is a more likely candidate for a ban than cannabis. Look at the crimes happening in the world today that has to do with sex. Consider the population of the world, and the resulting strain on the earth in terms of availability of natural resources. Sex that results in increasing the runaway human population is a more heinous crime than smoking a joint. Now making sex illegal, that would be cruel, wouldn't it? That should give you some sort of an idea of what the ban on cannabis means to a cannabis lover. Ok, back to medical and recreational cannabis.

Many governments have legalized cannabis for medical use, while some governments have legalized cannabis for recreational use. Most governments consider cannabis usage illegal, and a crime worthy of being imprisoned for. All these are examples, of course, of State intrusion into the freedom of the individual, that is comparable to State controls on your sex life. Medical cannabis means that you suffer from a condition that requires you to be prescribed cannabis (in natural or processed or a derivative form) by a certified medical practitioner, as therapy, to alleviate your condition. Recreational cannabis is cannabis available for you to use for pleasure and leisure, usually through retail outlets, social consumption areas, and home delivery. Home growing for recreational use means that you can grow plants at home for your personal consumption, just like all the other garden herbs that you currently grow.

Most governments (that have made cannabis illegal through short sight, ignorance, apathy, greed, political pressure, etc.,) seem to be taking the route of first legalizing cannabis for medical purposes, and then subsequently legalizing it for recreational purposes, if at all, with home growing hardly being considered except in limited cases. Behind the scenes is illegal cannabis, available for all purposes - the prostitution of cannabis - but no more said about that for now. 

 

What is the intention of legalizing for medical purposes only? When legalized, cannabis should be legalized first for recreational purposes, starting with home growing, large scale cultivation, then retail sales and social consumption. When this is done, all the other purposes for which it can be used, such as medical purposes, research, industrial purposes, etc., will subsequently follow as a natural process. Being available to the larger population for recreational use will result in less need for cannabis for medical use. In many states in the US where recreational use of cannabis has been legalized, the medical use industry is seen to be consumed by the recreational market, until it only remains as a small part of its former size, which is one of the key reasons why the medical cannabis industry, once it is in place, opposes the recreational cannabis industry. Anybody heard of the saying - 'Prevention is better than cure'? Being available in the larger population will also enable more individuals to innovate and create better applications for cannabis use in research and industry. 

The approach of legalizing a substance for medical purposes, then slowly expanding its application to the wider population, is an approach that is applicable to the synthetic substances that emerge from the labs of humans. These unknown substances pose great risk and threat to not just humans, but also other life forms, since they have not been tested for safety in nature. This is how it should be. But cannabis is not an invention emerging from the labs of humans. The plant is 28 million years old. It has been used for thousands of years, across diverse populations and all age groups. Cannabis was a completely unregulated, pervasive part of human society, medicine, religion, recreation, economy and industry for a long time before it was banned. There is no need to now treat it like an unknown synthetic substance and re-introduce it gradually to the world out of fear for the safety of society. Despite its prohibition, cannabis remains the most popular illegal drug in the world, with an official estimate of 250+ million users world wide. The actual numbers are likely to be three times as many.

I see the legalization for medical use as an intermediate step taken by governments, pharma and medical industries, so as to continue to retain control over the herb, and also to have as much a slice of the revenue and profit pie, as possible, through the sales of cannabis. When cannabis is legalized for medical purposes, the following classes of users get access:

• Patients who are prescribed medical cannabis for a condition on the recommendation of a medical practitioner. This is the kind of patient who will only consume something if it has the stamp of medical approval
• Patients who have a condition for which they believe cannabis will be beneficial, and hence approach a practitioner who prescribes it once convinced
• Persons who do not have a condition but will pay or bribe a practitioner for a cannabis prescription, which is essentially a scenario for recreational use under the guise of medical use
• Medical practitioners themselves who consume cannabis for recreational purposes
• Researchers using cannabis for research and/or recreational purposes
• Pharma companies for research and manufacture of exorbitantly priced products that take the basic herb and manipulate it in the name of targeted delivery or increasing potency a la Epidiolex of GW Pharmaceuticals.

Most, if not all, the above individuals belong to the ruling and upper classes of society everywhere. They are the very classes that were instrumental in taking cannabis out of the hands of the world's poor and lower classes - who form the world's majority, and who were the main users of cannabis before it was prohibited by these very same ruling and upper classes. The situation will be unchanged for the common individual who will continue to have no access. This is essentially sex available if you can pay for it.  

Legalization directly for recreational use - especially the home growing of the plant by individuals and cultivation by small and marginal farmers - without first going through the medical use route will have the following benefits (to name just a few that come to mind immediately):

• It will enable the plant to reach more people faster, and hence enable more people to enjoy its medicinal benefits
• The people who are the rightful users of cannabis - the world's poor, its working classes, its indigenous communities -  will have access to, and will be able to afford the plant almost immediately. The animals, birds, insects, etc., that use cannabis will also have immediate access.  
  
• It will cut out all the unwanted middlemen - controllers, regulators, moral brigades, criminals, law enforcement, drug enforcement, businessmen, etc.
• Farmers will be able to directly reach the market, and sell at prices beneficial to both them and consumers
• The negative effects of alcohol, tobacco and synthetic drugs and opioids can be countered more quickly
• The medical and pharma industry will get a larger trial base to investigate, and research, the effects of cannabis on the general population
• Other industries, besides pharma and medicine, such as food, organic products, etc., will get to directly enjoy the benefits of the plant and leverage it for business purposes.
  
• Practitioners of traditional medicine, such as ayurveda, will also have access to grow and use the plant, as against the medical use scenario that will most likely be completely controlled and manipulated by pharma, allopathy and biotech companies i.e. the big players.
• Revenues and taxation, for the State, will have a much larger target base than if only restricted to medical users    
• The black market can be reduced much more quickly 
• The cannabis plant, and especially its numerous indigenous varieties that face the threat of extinction, can be revived, and its biodiversity propagated and protected quickly. Medical cannabis will result in a few patented varieties, most likely hybrid, while most natural varieties will be eradicated by law and drug enforcement 
  

Cannabis has always been used for recreation purposes, knowing the medical benefits that come along with it. This applies as much to cannabis as it does to coffee, tea or sex. Make recreational use legal for personal consumption, especially the home growing and its cultivation by small and marginal farmers, because that is how the plant is best enjoyed. There are many people who love the herb just the way it is and don't require a label saying it is medicine to enjoy it. When it comes to cannabis, recreation is medicine. The feeling of happiness is a result of the well being of the body and mind, according to neuroscientists. This is a feeling experienced by humans and human society, and also, I suspect, by a number of other species in nature, possibly by the entire natural world as a whole.The very use of cannabis is an endeavor towards the happiness of the individual self, and in this happiness lies the capacity for preservation of the individual self, and also the preservation of other selves. Thus, the use of cannabis is the very foundation of virtue, not a sin.

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