Cannabis and Latvia

Recently a piece of disturbing news appeared in the Indian press about a woman from Latvia who had come on holiday to the southern state of Kerala in India. She had been looking to access some cannabis locally. A couple of people promising her the cannabis took her to a secluded spot, sexually assaulted her and then killed her. This sort of thing might be happening much more than is reported. Shockingly and predictably, the Indian media labelled the woman as mentally unstable. The root causes center around the illegal status of cannabis, a highly medicinal recreational plant that has been banned world wide, purely through the selfish motives of big businesses that call the shots when it comes to deciding world wide policies. This particular incident highlighted the need for every single nation to legalize adult recreational cannabis. If cannabis was legally available in Latvia, the chances of an incident such as this occurring would have been limited since tourists wouldn't have to venture out into distant lands to access the medicinal herb. If cannabis was legal in India, tourists wouldn't be at such a high risk of interacting with dangerous criminals to access the medicinal herb.

Latvia, one of the beautiful Baltic nations, possibly had a healthy legal cannabis culture and tradition in the past. This tradition has most likely been pushed underground and the recreational drug market has been taken over by dangerous synthetic drugs including heroin, methamphetamine, opioids and synthetic cannabinoids. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime World Drug Report 2020 - 'In Latvia, the use of synthetic opioids in prisons has also been linked to an increase in overdose cases and in injecting drugs and sharing needles among prisoners who use drugs.' According to a report, cannabis, amphetamines and opioids are commonly used by the younger generation with heroin substitutes rapidly growing in usage.  

In 2016, an attempt to legalize cannabis was blocked by health officials who appear to still believe all the false propaganda perpetuated against over the last 100 years or so. Ill informed officials still equate the herb cannabis with the highly dangerous heroin, synthetic cannabinoids and amphetamines. This may be a result of the incredibly naive UN classification of cannabis under Schedule IV along with heroin as a part of the 1961 Single Convention Treaty. The UN has ratified this error in December 2020, taking cannabis out of the most restrictive Schedule IV but still retaining it under other schedules. 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 is important for Latvia to legalize adult recreational use of cannabis as well as the growing and revival of local natural varieties if they do exist. Cannabis will bring in sustainability in business and industry,  boost the economy, provide people with a safe recreational drug option and potentially boost tourism.

It is also important for the Latvian government to be aware of the rapid changes happening in the world of cannabis, especially as news of the progress of cannabis legalization emerges from the US, Uruguay and Canada. Europe itself is making giant strides with Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and France being major markets for recreational and medical cannabis. Other nations moving towards legalization include Switzerland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Greece, Georgia, Romania, Lithuania, Ukraine, etc. Latvia must change its cannabis laws. Every nation has a responsibility to act correctly for the safety and good of people and the protection of the natural world everywhere.

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.     

'Where data are available, they show a steady decline in the use of NPS in Europe, but such substances have established themselves in some marginalized groups in society, such as the homeless or people in prison, among whom the smoking of synthetic cannabinoids has been identified as a problem. In Europe, the use of NPS in prisons was reported by 22 countries, with synthetic cannabinoids identified as posing the main challenge and health risks (16 countries), whereas the use of synthetic cathinones in prisons was reported by 10 countries, NPS with opioid effects by six, and new benzodiazepines by four countries. In Latvia, the use of synthetic opioids in prisons has also been linked to an increase in overdose cases and in injecting drugs and sharing needles among prisoners who use drugs.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

Legalize recreational marijuana, decriminalize other drugs

'According to the Interior Ministry, every fourth student in Latvia has tried drugs. Marijuana, amphetamine and opioids remain the most popular varieties of getting high, with ministry rep Agnese Zile Veisberga saying that the number of people using highly deadly heroin substitutes has been increasing.

Out of all social groups, drug use is the most prevalent among young men.

In 2015 health officials quickly killed a public initiative to decriminalize growing, storing and using marijuana. '
https://eng.lsm.lv/article/society/health/proposal-for-decriminalizing-drugs-could-be-tabled-for-debate-in-saeima.a315851/


'The European woman had been in the capital for Ayurveda treatment. She had a history of clinical depression. Early on March 14, she arrived at Grove Beach in Kovalam and aimlessly wandered off to the wooded estuary area frequented by the accused.

The accused plied her with marijuana at the remote locality before they raped and strangulated her to death. Then they strung her up with a creeper’s vine to masquerade the murder as a suicide.'
https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Thiruvananthapuram/latvians-murder-twoyouths-chargesheeted/article24813973.ece


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