Thoughts from the void: Cannabis and Belgium

In my reading on cannabis over the last couple of years, one European country that I came across very little was Belgium. I finally saw an article that said that Brussels now boasts of a few cannabis outlets that sell cannabis products. These outlets have started to become increasingly popular among the residents of Brussels. Some of these outlets have emerged based on certain loopholes in European cannabis laws. Many of the products they sell are very low in delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol(THC )and high in cannabidiol(CBD). THC, considered bizarrely as the villain in the cannabis plant in spite of being its most medicinal, has been the one compound that is at the center of cannabis related misinformation and has come under the intense scrutiny of law enforcement and regulatory bodies. Many of these regulatory bodies have started to take a more relaxed approach to CBD since it received positive coverage by organizations such as the WHO, WADA, US FDA and the European parliament. A recent ruling by the European Union Court of Justice in a case against France said that CBD cannot be considered a narcotic and hence cannot be banned from being used in food.

Belgium, being located in close proximity with the Netherlands and also being a part of Europe with its vibrant cannabis centers in Copenhagen, Barcelona, Paris and Amsterdam, surely has had its own underground cannabis market. Cannabis in Belgium is likely to be a people's movement like in most parts of Europe, in rebellion against a government looking to keep it banned and promote alcohol, pharmaceutical drugs and tobacco. As in all other parts of the world, the government's prohibition of cannabis and support for synthetic pharmaceutical drugs has wreaked havoc on a society that has never existed without recreational drugs. The removal of a safe, medicinal, natural herb like cannabis that mankind has used for tens of thousands of years and the promotion of synthetic pharmaceutical drugs has unleashed a torrent of deadly abuse and addiction to heroin, pharmaceutical drugs, cocaine and amphetamines on society along with its associated trafficking and criminal organizations. The cannabis revival that we are witnessing in the whole of Europe, not just Belgium, is a backlash by society trying to heal itself.

Belgium was the world's third largest consumer of opioid pain relievers in 2017, as per UNODC's 2020 World Drug Report. This indicates that opioids are prescribed liberally by physicians, freely accessible through pharmacies and that the population in general abuses it. What the report mentions is legal opioid usage. The illegal use of opioids including heroin and morphine is likely to be just as large, if not more. The same UNODC World Drug Report 2020 states that 98% of the heroin that is trafficked to Belgium is through maritime shipments from Iran or Turkey. Besides the maritime route, the so-called Southern Route also brings in heroin into Belgium through Africa. Between the period 2014-2018, Belgium was identified as one of the main source countries for amphetamine, produced in labs within the country.

With the loosening of cannabis regulations in more and more European countries like Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, UK, etc., increasing medical and recreational use, information from across the world regarding the medical benefits of cannabis and the harms of legal drugs such as opioids, alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs, it is only quite natural to expect to see the opening of Dutch style coffee shops, cannabis retail, cannabis events, cannabis wellness and cannabis tourism in places like Brussels, in line with the rest of an increasingly cannabis friendly Europe.

In December 2020, the UN voted to remove cannabis from its most restricted Schedule IV category of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. It does however still remain in Schedule I, which is the least restrictive. This one move by the UN itself should be sufficient to bring about the recreational legalization of cannabis in every nation and an overhaul of national drug laws.

It must be noted that in most places where cannabis legalization has happened it took the efforts of the people who mobilized themselves through grassroots level movements to bring about this change. Left to lawmakers legalization would have been impossible, as the main interests of lawmakers concern the protection of the big industries opposed to cannabis such as pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, medical, alcohol and tobacco. For something that truly benefits the people, the people themselves have had to make the change.

Listed below are articles taken from various media related to the above subject. Words in italics are the thoughts of your truly at the time of reading the article.

'At the global level, Germany was the second largest consumer of opioid pain relievers, with an estimated 28,862 S-DDD per million population per day for medical use in 2017, followed by Austria, Belgium and Switzerland. In Germany, the number of pharmaceutical opioids overall and the number of people receiving opioid treatment have increased over the past few decades; in most instances, prescriptions were given for non-chronic cancer pain. A review of scientific literature from Germany published between 1985 and 2016 showed that out of the 12 studies reviewed, 6 studies reported a prevalence for patients with medical use of any opioid for long-term treatment of non-cancer chronic pain ranging from 0.54 to 5.7 per cent, while four studies reported a prevalence for patients with medical use of opioids at 0.057 to 1.39 per cent of the population' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'In contrast to Western and Central Europe as a whole, which continues to be supplied mainly by heroin trafficked along the Balkan route by land, trafficking to Belgium in 2018 to a large extent (98 per cent) took the form of maritime shipments departing from the Islamic Republic of Iran or Turkey. Similarly, trafficking to Italy was characterized by maritime shipments in 2018 (61 per cent of the total quantity seized by customs authorities), with the bulk of seizures in 2018 having departed from the Islamic Republic of Iran in containers, followed by shipments by air (37 per cent), often departing from the Middle East (Qatar) or Africa (South Africa), while heroin shipments destined for France typically transited the Netherlands and Belgium in 2018' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'The main countries identified in which heroin was trafficked along the southern route to Western and Central Europe over the period 2014– 2018 included India, the Gulf countries (notably Qatar and United Arab Emirates) and a number of Southern and East African countries (notably South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Mozambique, the United Republic of Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Madagascar). The European countries reporting most trafficking along the southern route over the period 2014–2018 were Belgium (mostly via Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa, Ethiopia and the United Republic of Tanzania) and Italy (mostly via Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Ethiopia, Madagascar and Oman).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Of the total number of amphetamine laboratories reported dismantled worldwide in the period 2014–2018 (749 laboratories), more than half were dismantled in Europe (417), most notably in Western and Central Europe (316) and, to a lesser degree, in Eastern Europe (100). Overall, 16 European countries reported the dismantling of clandestine amphetamine laboratories over the period 2014– 2018, in particular the Netherlands. The Netherlands, followed by Poland, Lithuania and Belgium, were the most frequently identified source countries of amphetamine in Europe. Amphetamine from South-Eastern Europe was reported as being mainly sourced from Bulgaria and Turkey. However, it is likely that such statistics are heavily skewed as a number of countries, in particular in the Middle East, where large-scale amphetamine manufacture has been reported, have a very limited capacity to dismantle laboratories and thus are not appropriately represented in these statistics' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

Afghanistan and Mexico source the heroin and morphine. Mexico, Thailand, Myanmar and China source the methamphetamine. The Middle East and Eastern Europe sources the amphetamine. The US consumes heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. Europe consumes heroin, morphine, methamphetamine and amphetamine. Asia consumes heroin, morphine and methamphetamine. Australia consumes methamphetamine. The Middle East consumes heroin and amphetamine. West Asia consumes heroin and methamphetamine. All countries grow and consume cannabis. Opioids, methamphetamine and amphetamines kill the most in terms of drug deaths, cannabis kills none. Who are the leading opponents to cannabis legalization and leading enforcers of global anti-cannabis policy? The countries involved the most in heroin, morphine, amphetamines and methamphetamines. They put on a mask of concern about harms from drugs, produce, sell and consume the most dangerous synthetic drugs and vehemently oppose cannabis legalization worldwide while clandestinely feeding their habits and protecting their sources. They use arms and armies to protect and promote their synthetic drug habits, and drug money to fund and wage a war on cannabis everywhere, pushing man and planet ever closer to death on massive scales and away from the safe, healing cannabis herb...

Cannabis and the Medical Industry

https://ravingkoshy.blogspot.com/2020/11/cannabis-and-medical-industry.html

With no scientific basis global drug laws are invalid
https://ravingkoshy.blogspot.com/2020/06/with-no-scientific-basis-global-drug.html

A Look At The NDPS Act 1985 From A Cannabis Perspective
https://ravingkoshy.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-look-at-ndps-act-1985-from-cannabis.html

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Cannabis and Belgium

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