Thoughts from the void: Cannabis and Egypt

One of Egypt's MPs recently spoke in support of the decriminalization of drugs as a harm reduction measure. Decriminalization of drugs is a progressive step in drug policy but more important is the legalization of cannabis for recreational purposes. Decriminalization does not address the root cause of the problem which is that society the world over needs a recreational drug. If it is not available legally, it will be procured illegally irrespective of the cost to society. Prohibition of legal drugs such as tobacco, alcohol or cannabis sets up the perfect environment for illegal drug businesses. People, given a choice, will choose the safest recreational drug available. Cannabis was one such drug, much safer than alcohol or tobacco, used for tens of thousands of years across the world. When it was removed from society, it created space for much more dangerous drugs to move in to take its place, such as synthetic opioids like heroin, morphine and tramadol, methamphetamine, and amphetamine type substances (ATS) - the recent plague of the Middle East, synthetic cannabinoids, novel psychotropic substances and cathinones.

Being one of the world's ancient civilizations like China and India, Egypt has consumed cannabis for thousands of years and the plant has been an integral part of religious, social, recreational and medical practices. It is only in the recent past, with the years under the UK's colonial rule that cannabis was prohibited in Egypt. The Indian Hemp Commission report of 1894 states that the earliest experiments with cannabis prohibition were carried out by the British in Burma, or today's Myanmar, Greece, India, Trinidad and Egypt. This appears to have been done to promote primarily opium that was vying with cannabis in these countries for the people's choice. In the 20th century, the sustained international pressure of the United States, UK and Europe on countries across the globe ensured that this prohibition has continued for about 150 years now.

During this time, Iran and Afghanistan have emerged as hubs for methamphetamine and heroin. Countries in the Middle East such as Syria have emerged as key sources of amphetamine like substances (ATS) such as Captagon. Countries like Morocco and Afghanistan cannabis have emerged as key sources of cannabis in its illegal state. In addition to this, the increasingly widespread abuse of pharmaceutical drugs has emerged as a major threat to Egyptian society. The opioid drug tramadol is a classic example of this.

To highlight the dangers of depriving the Egyptian people of natural, safe and healthy recreational cannabis, one needs look no further than the 2020 UNODC World Drug Report. It says - "'In North Africa, tramadol is reported as the main opioid used non-medically in Egypt, where scientific literature about tramadol misuse is more available than elsewhere in the subregion. An estimated 3 per cent of the adult population misused tramadol in 2016, the latest year for which data are available, while 2.2 per cent were diagnosed with tramadol dependence. In drug treatment, tramadol was also the main drug, accounting for 68 per cent of all people treated for drug use disorders in 2017. A cross-sectional study conducted over the period 2012–2013 among 1,135 undergraduate college students in Egypt showed that 20.2 per cent of male and 2.4 per cent of female students had misused tramadol at least once during their lifetime, resulting in an overall lifetime prevalence of 12.3 per cent The average age of initiation of non-medical use of tramadol was around 17 years. Polydrug use was also quite common, with the majority of respondents (85 per cent) reporting use of either tobacco, alcohol or cannabis with tramadol. Among those who had misused tramadol, 30 per cent were assessed to be tramadol dependent.

The prohibition of cannabis has not meant that it has been removed from Egyptian society. It has only pushed it to the black market forcing people to interact with unscrupulous elements and towards more dangerous synthetic drugs like methamphetamine and heroin. The money from the black market also often flows to illegal arms dealers, drug traffickers and other criminal undertakings. The UNODC World Drug Report 2020 reports that between the period 2008-2018, Egypt was one of the countries with the largest cannabis seizures.

This need not be the case. The geography and climate of Egypt should make it conducive to grow cannabis even in times of water stress and rising temperatures. Legal cannabis introduced in the Egyptian market should, as in any other country of the world, boost agriculture, foster research, increase jobs, spawn multiple industries, increase tax collection, curb the black market, cut down the harms from more dangerous drugs like heroin and methamphetamine, boost tourism, to name just a few benefits. Careful research and study should yield a list of natural indigenous cannabis varieties endemic to Egypt. These should be preserved, revived and cultivated with Geographical Indicator(GI) tags to make available to the world distinct Egyptian varieties of cannabis. This can serve as a key trade and export commodity to many parts of the world.

Countries like Israel, Lebanon, Morocco and Cyprus have started taking steps to legalize cannabis for industrial, medical and recreational purposes. As the world increasingly becomes more knowledgeable about cannabis, its benefits and the misinformation that has been spread over the last 150 years regarding the plant, more and more countries are starting to recognize their mistake in prohibiting the plant and punishing its users.

For the Middle East in particular, cannabis offers a way out of the addiction to petrochemicals, the escalating arms races, regional conflicts and tensions and a sustainable way forward for agriculture, medicine, recreation and industry. It is for countries like Egypt, the largest Arab country in the region, to take the decisive steps to heal the wounds of the past and move towards a sustainable future for its people. Cannabis introduced in a culture calms and de-stresses the culture, promoting more peaceful and innovative ways to live and to promote a sustainable future for the nation. The same can happen in Egypt as well.

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 for recreational purposes 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.

'The bulk of tramadol seized in the period 2014– 2018 was seized in West and Central Africa (notably in Nigeria, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and the Niger), followed by North Africa (notably Egypt, Morocco and the Sudan) and the Near and Middle East (notably Jordan and the United Arab Emirates). In some instances, countries in Western and Central Europe (notably Malta and Greece) have been used as transit countries for tramadol destined for North Africa (Egypt and Libya), although some of the tramadol seized in Europe (in particular Sweden) was also intended for the local market. For the first time ever, significant seizures of tramadol were reported in South Asia (India) in 2018, accounting for 21 per cent of the global total that year, which reflects the fact tramadol was put under the control of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act of India in April 2018.

As the full-scale scheduling of tramadol in India took place in 2018, and India had been the main source for (illegal) tramadol shipments, the decline in seizures outside India in 2018 may have been the result of a disrupted market. By contrast, and probably as a result of the control in India, seizures of tramadol in that country increased greatly in 2018, and thus in South Asia as a whole (more than 1,000-fold compared with a year earlier).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'In North Africa, tramadol is reported as the main opioid used non-medically in Egypt, where scientific literature about tramadol misuse is more available than elsewhere in the subregion. An estimated 3 per cent of the adult population misused tramadol in 2016, the latest year for which data are available, while 2.2 per cent were diagnosed with tramadol dependence. In drug treatment, tramadol was also the main drug, accounting for 68 per cent of all people treated for drug use disorders in 2017. A cross-sectional study conducted over the period 2012–2013 among 1,135 undergraduate college students in Egypt showed that 20.2 per cent of male and 2.4 per cent of female students had misused tramadol at least once during their lifetime, resulting in an overall lifetime prevalence of 12.3 per cent The average age of initiation of non-medical use of tramadol was around 17 years. Polydrug use was also quite common, with the majority of respondents (85 per cent) reporting use of either tobacco, alcohol or cannabis with tramadol. Among those who had misused tramadol, 30 per cent were assessed to be tramadol dependent.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'With the exception of Nigeria, where 4.6 million people were estimated to have used opioids – mainly tramadol – in 2017, population-level prevalence estimates of the use of opioids are not available for countries in West, Central and North Africa. However, many countries in those subregions report high levels of non-medical use of tramadol. For example, in Egypt, 2.5 per cent of male and 1.4 per cent of female students aged 15–17 had misused tramadol in the past year. Students in that country also reported the use, to a lesser degree, of heroin or opium/morphine in 2016. Furthermore, data on the provision of treatment suggest that the prevalence of the non-medical use of opioids is quite high in Egypt. Tramadol tablets available in some parts of Africa are reportedly intended for the illicit market and may be of a dosage higher than usually prescribed for medical purposes.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf

'In 2018, the largest quantities of cannabis herb seized worldwide continued to be those reported by Paraguay, followed by the United States and India. Cannabis herb produced in Paraguay is reported to have been mainly destined for neighbouring Brazil (77 per cent) and Argentina (20 per cent). Over the period 2008–2018, the largest cannabis herb seizures worldwide took place in the United States, followed by Mexico, Paraguay, Colombia, Nigeria, Morocco, Brazil, India and Egypt' - 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...
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