In September 2021, I came across a news report that said, 'On Sunday, the second day of a virtual party conference, the Greens approved various initiatives, including one calling on the government to declare a climate emergency. Another – potentially more controversial – one called for the legalisation of cannabis in Finland. This would mean that the use, possession, manufacture and sale of the cannabis plant would be decriminalised, explained party secretary Veli Liikanen. The initiative was approved by the narrowest possible majority, 183-181.' The link between the climate emergency and the prohibition of cannabis is something that has still not registered with most people. The prohibition of cannabis is one of the prime factors that has led to the world being in a state of climate emergency. The industries that lobbied to get cannabis prohibited, the leading industries in the world today, who still oppose all possible steps to legalize cannabis, are the primary contributors to the global climate emergency. They include: the fossil fuel industry; the synthetic pharmaceutical industry; the medical industry that uses petrochemical-based products and serves as propagandists through physicians for the ban on cannabis; the petrochemical-based non-biodegradable plastics industry; the fossil-fuel-based construction industry; the petrochemical-based synthetic fabrics industry and the unsustainable cotton industry; the chemical pesticides and fertilizer industries; the opioid industry; the black market for cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, fentanyl, amphetamine type substances (ATS), synthetic cannabinoids, cathinones, etc.; the timber-based paper industry; the alcohol industry; the tobacco industry; etc. The legalization of cannabis is not just about getting high, which is an excellent pursuit in itself as one can see larger pictures from higher up, it is also about returning the earth back to sustainable stable equilibrium. The propaganda that has been unleashed by the above mentioned industries over the last 150 years, creating various myths like: cannabis causes insanity; cannabis has no medicinal value; cannabis causes crime and is used by criminals; only the lowest classes and castes use cannabis; women who use cannabis have loose morals; children and youth will be destroyed by cannabis; cannabis is more harmful than opium, tobacco or alcohol; cannabis increases traffic fatalities; cannabis is against religion; and so on, have led most upper class and caste elites in the world to believe their own lies besides fooling the majority of the people of the world who serve them. In this brainwashing of the human race - so that it has forgotten what cannabis and the natural world is all about - the industries opposed to cannabis are ably aided by the power structure of the elite ruling upper classes and castes of every country: the politicians; the media; law enforcement and judiciary; drug enforcement; physicians; anti-cannabis propagandists; the religious orthodoxy; etc. So, it is no wonder that cannabis legalization for use, possession, manufacture and sale should be considered a controversial issue in Finland, one of the Scandinavian societies that have lost connection with the roots and followed a largely synthetic existence in the firm belief over man's supremacy over nature and one man's supremacy over another. It is so controversial that it will upend the entire power structure and current industry, overturn the class and caste hierarchy in society, and bring back into human memory a time when the gods walked the earth. Yes, it will also address the root causes of the global climate emergency today.
Finland has taken steps to decriminalize drugs. Talking Drugs reported, some time back regarding decriminalizing drugs in Finland, that '“There should be an extensive public debate about the necessity of punishment for drug use [...] Criminal sanctions work poorly in the prevention of drug use and related harms, [and are] also ill-suited to the values of today's society, and to public health thinking,” they argue in the article. “In a situation where a drug user does not have to fear punishment or criminal imprisonment, it is much easier to offer [support]. Also, the discussion of drug use in various services - such as healthcare - would become more natural for both parties if drug use were no longer labelled as criminal behaviour”.' In proposals to decriminalize drugs, Finland is part of the Scandinavian thought process that is seeing similar steps being taken by countries such as Norway, Sweden and Iceland. Decriminalization is a change of drug policy, where a person does not get jailed for drug use or possession of small amounts of drugs but is, instead, usually asked to pay a fine or to undergo drug rehabilitation treatment. This is a policy that was hugely successful in Portugal where it is said to have brought down the incidence of dangerous drugs like heroin and methamphetamine significantly and also brought down drastically drug related crime and imprisonment for drug use.
The decriminalization policy, however, has many drawbacks. Firstly, it treats all drugs as equal, be it the deadliest heroin or the safe natural plant cannabis. Secondly, the policy leaves the door open for law enforcement to still confront drug users and impose fines on them. Thirdly, many persons who cannot afford to pay for their drug habit or food - having sold everything that they possess and ended up on the streets - will struggle to pay the fine. For some, the imposition of the fine will make them more determined to make a statement of their freedom by going back to the drug as soon as they get the first chance. For others, the intrusion into their private lives, in terms of demanding fines or threatening drug rehabilitation for a personal choice, will force them to take their drug usage under cover, preventing them from contacting caregivers to find a solution to their problem. Decriminalizing drugs is okay with the synthetic drugs - cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, fentanyl, synthetic cannabinoids, synthetic prescription drugs, etc. - where the addiction of the user is a health issue and not a criminal issue, brought about mainly by the ruling elites taking away natural non-addictive safe drugs like cannabis. With cannabis, it is the complete legalization that is required, since it is not a health issue in the first place. Also, complete legalization of cannabis will reduce the demand for and addiction to the synthetic drugs that cause so much harm, harm which is falsely attributed to the natural herb cannabis by the very mischief-mongers who lobbied to include cannabis in the 1961 Single Convention Treaty on Narcotic Drugs and all drug laws. This half-baked approach to public health by focusing on decriminalization, instead of complete legalization of cannabis, appears to be a phenomenon common to all Scandinavian countries and is evidenced by their similar approaches to drug policy. Looking to address decriminalization of all drugs, instead of taking the measure that will address the root of the problem, society's need for wholesome recreational drugs that the legalization of cannabis will ensure, fails as a drug policy even before implementation.
Finland has a relatively small population, and most people are sufficiently financially secure. The country has an excellent educational system, touted as one of the best in the world. It also measures as the happiest country in some happiness indices. Being one of the world's developed countries most people have the means to live comfortable lives through employment and steady incomes. This high-income society is likely one of the reasons why there is a preference for synthetic drugs which are more expensive than natural drugs. Both the legal and illegal synthetic drug sellers are likely to find countries like Finland highly lucrative. It is likely that there are people in the older generations, mainly among indigenous communities, who consume cannabis in an unbroken tradition from the past. Finland is said to be one of Europe's largest importers of cannabis along with Germany and Italy. But with the younger generations - with cannabis being difficult to access - the recreational drugs of choice have probably become alcohol (Finnish vodka is famous) and more deadly synthetic drugs such as cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, fentanyl, synthetic cannabinoids and the abuse of synthetic prescription drugs,. Younger and younger persons are starting to consume these synthetic drugs, besides alcohol, opium and tobacco, that are much deadlier than cannabis. William O'Shaughnessy, the 19th century British physician, in his introduction to certain experiments with hemp drugs remarks: "As to the evil sequelæ so unanimously dwelt on by all writers, these did not appear to us so numerous, so immediate, or so formidable as many which may be clearly traced to over-indulgence in other powerful stimulants or narcotics, viz., alcohol, opium, or tobacco." But this traditional wisdom has long been buried in the pursuit of wealth and control by the ruling elites of the world, and the very drugs that O'Shaughnessy warned about are the legal drugs of the world today, with cannabis prohibited and projected as greatly harmful despite all the scientific evidence.
As even Portugal has started to acknowledge, the way forward is not decriminalization with fines, but full legalization of adult recreational use of cannabis, including the home growing of the plant. When cannabis is added back into the mix of available recreational drugs, it will provide a safe and natural alternative, one that has existed since as far back as humans can remember. Many European nations are quietly moving in the direction of cannabis including Germany, Spain, France, Denmark, Luxembourg, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Germany legalized cannabis for recreational use in April 2024, allowing an individual to grow three plants and groups of up to hundred persons to form cannabis clubs that collectively grow cannabis for their common recreational cannabis needs. The primary reasons cited by Germany for legalization were reducing crime and protecting the youth. In the recent past, Germany has been Europe's biggest importer of medical cannabis, primarily from countries like Canada, Denmark, Israel and the Netherlands. The medical benefits of cannabis as compared to the harms of synthetic pharmaceutical drugs has obviously percolated down from the elite classes in Germany to the lower classes resulting in a surge in demand for cannabis and a shortage of supply. This, I believe, is one more reason that has led Germany to legalize cannabis. Malta and Luxembourg had legalized cannabis earlier. Denmark has a thriving recreational cannabis culture comparable to Amsterdam's coffee shops, besides being one of the leading exporters of medical cannabis in Europe, despite not being able to cultivate the crop locally. It is important for Finland to absorb the research findings on the medicinal properties of cannabis, its suitability as an ideal recreational drug as compared to even the most commonly available and harmful drugs such as tobacco and alcohol, and the potent weapon that cannabis can be in industry in the battle against climate change.
The climate in Finland, much like the other Scandinavian countries, is not conducive for the cultivation of high-quality cannabis grown outdoors in the sunshine. For this, the traditional cannabis growing nations in Asia, Africa and South America must be allowed to freely cultivate cannabis, so that there is sufficient crop for the local needs as well as export to countries in Europe, North America and Oceania. Otherwise, the only way that good quality cannabis can reach Finland is through the black market from countries like Morocco, Lebanon, Afghanistan and India, which is probably how Finland gets most of its cannabis these days. It is ironic that the nations that most opposed cannabis and ensures its prohibition today are now the very nations whose people demand cannabis and that suffer the most due to cannabis shortages globally. Decriminalizing cannabis is just a cosmetic step that addresses the end point of the cannabis supply chain - the consumer. The whole supply chain must be completely legalized, from the cultivators in Asia, Africa and South America to the traders who bring the crop to the European nations, to the retailers who sell the produce to the consumers, and finally, for the free use of cannabis like tea or coffee so that it benefits all levels of society and parts of the world. Through revenues realized through its trade, the cannabis cultivating nations who have suffered the most due to cannabis prohibition and who form the poorest nations of the world today, can get some compensation from the nations that prohibited it and who form the richest nations in the world today. The poorest sections of society, to whom cannabis originally belonged before it was taken away by the elites, can benefit from its cultivation and sale in a fully legalized environment unlike in a controlled environment, such as medical cannabis, where only pharma companies and large cultivators benefit.
When I read about the steps to decriminalize cannabis in Finland in 2021, I had hoped that decriminalization was an intermediate step that would very soon lead to full legalization thus providing the Finnish people with better and healthier choices. But it appears that, three years down the line, not much progress has been made with regard to Finland's cannabis legalization initiatives. This, I attribute, mainly to the fact that Finland is a nation where the upper-class ruling elites dominate public policy. These ruling elites benefit the most from cannabis prohibition which enables them to keep a tight control over the lower classes of society - the indigenous communities, minorities, the poor, the working classes, women, the youth and the sick. As B. R. Ambedkar said, a notional change is required to establish equality in society. He was referring to the use of the shastras and the Vedic religions to uphold the pernicious caste system in India which the upper castes believed and propagated as divine sanction. Similarly, the upper classes in Finland possibly believe that theirs is a position that is god-given. The prohibition of cannabis in India was strongly supported by the Indian upper castes because cannabis is a powerful entheogen that made the lower castes believe in their own divinity as against the authority of the Brahmins. Similarly, the prohibition of cannabis in Finland appears to be an attempt by the ruling upper classes to ensure that their synthetic way of life is protected from destruction. The projection of the country as a prosperous nation while also opposing the complete legalization of cannabis shows that Finnish society still has some distance to evolve in the concepts of equality and the better understanding of nature. 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.
Related articles
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.
'On Sunday, the second day of a virtual party conference, the Greens approved various initiatives, including one calling on the government to declare a climate emergency. Another – potentially more controversial – one called for the legalisation of cannabis in Finland.
This would mean that the use, possession, manufacture and sale of the cannabis plant would be decriminalised, explained party secretary Veli Liikanen.
The initiative was approved by the narrowest possible majority, 183-181.'
Legalize marijuana, decriminalize other drugs.
'“There should be an extensive public debate about the necessity of punishment for drug use [...] Criminal sanctions work poorly in the prevention of drug use and related harms, [and are] also ill-suited to the values of today's society, and to public health thinking,” they argue in the article. “In a situation where a drug user does not have to fear punishment or criminal imprisonment, it is much easier to offer [support]. Also, the discussion of drug use in various services - such as healthcare - would become more natural for both parties if drug use were no longer labelled as criminal behaviour”.'
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