Thoughts from the void: Cannabis and Liberia

African nations surely are home to some of the most natural indigenous varieties of cannabis in the world due to their relative underdevelopment in a Western sense and their long histories and culture of association with the cannabis plant. What needs to be examined is the current ground situation in terms of what varieties now survive, document these varieties, create seed banks and nurseries to protect these varieties, research their applications in various contexts such as medical, industrial, agricultural and recreational and to propagate the indigenous varieties among the farming communities of every single country including Liberia. The exposure to long periods of war and indiscriminate destruction of the cannabis plants by armed troops is likely to have caused untold damage in the past. This sort of damage needs to be stopped and reversed.

The people and government of Liberia need to be aware of the changes happening in the Western world these days. The countries in both North America and Europe that imposed worldwide prohibition on the cannabis plant are undergoing a seismic change in terms of now rapidly re-embracing the cannabis plant for medicinal, recreational and industrial use. Uruguay and Canada have legalized cannabis for recreational purposes. Fifteen US states have legalized cannabis for recreational purposed and more than 30 US states have legalized cannabis for medical purposes. The federal US, Mexico, South Africa, Luxembourg, Israel and a number of Caribbean countries stand at the doorstep of legalization.

Liberia needs to be aware of the risk of large global multinational companies patenting local varieties of cannabis and setting up large scale cultivation of limited varieties of cannabis, resulting in the loss of indigenous varieties. This sort of industrial cannabis growth is likely to cater to the needs of largely European and North American markets leaving the people of Liberia with nothing but expensive pharmaceutical drugs and dangerous synthetic drugs as options. The small scale farm, individual home growing and the support for sustainable small scale industries around the cannabis plant and local communities needs to be focused on as a way to provide the people with options for affordable universal health, recreation and industry. It is vital for the Liberian people and government to recognize the value of the plant and do what is necessary to bring it back to the levels of usage of pre-prohibition times and to innovate using the plant to bring sustainable economic development to a country and world rapidly facing global warming based runaway destruction of the environment. Other African nations such as Uganda, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Egypt, etc. have started taking steps to lift prohibition in incremental fashion.

While methamphetamine appears to have not made a significant appearance yet on the African continent, the 2020 World Drug Report by UNODC highlighted the threat of opioids to African nations. With the west now vary of opioids due to the avalanche of overdose related deaths in the recent past, Africa has become the dumping ground of pharmaceutical opioids especially tramadol. It is primarily as a painkiller that opioids enter the market, but their highly addictive nature means that once within the population, they spread rapidly hooking millions and taking a huge toll.

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.

Please first legalize recreational home growing and use of marijuana for the people of Liberia, so that the poorest of the poor can access it for its benefits. Only then open up markets for pharma companies otherwise your supply of cannabis is likely to end up in Europe and North America along with the pharma companies fattening themselves while the people of Liberia sit and watch their cannabis going up in smoke.

'Scientific studies show that chemical cannabinoids could help treat a range of diseases and symptoms, which has attracted several biopharmaceutical companies, globally, over the past two decades. The market is expected to witness significant growth, owing to legalization in several countries and high demand for both medical and recreational purposes" the report concluded.

It is against this backdrop that pharmaceutical companies are expressing interest in securing new markets and sources of supply. Liberia, according to observers with plentiful sunshine and adequate rainfall is ideal for the cultivation and processing of the marijuana plant into medical products, the economist concluded.'
https://allafrica.com/stories/201903260134.html

'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 2018,218 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

'The trafficking and availability of tramadol for its non-medical use is a public health concern, but limited distribution of tramadol for medical use would also pose a public health concern, in particular in Africa, where there is a chronic shortage of pain medications. There are no data on the availability and use of tramadol for medical purposes, but data on internationally controlled substances clearly highlight the gaps in the accessibility of pain medications. The general lack of access to opioid-related pain medications under international control is a specific problem for developing countries, which is even more pronounced in countries in West and Central Africa than in other parts of the world.

Against this background of a de facto non-availability of internationally controlled opioids for pain medication for large sections of the population in West and Central Africa, tramadol – even though it is under national control in some West African countries – is in fact a widely available opioid in those countries, used for both medical purposes (including outside prescription) and for non-medical purposes' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'From what is known, it is possible to identify common threats and different dynamics in the two opioid crises, in Africa and in North America: • The ease of manufacturing, easy accessibility and low-cost production make the illicit markets for tramadol and fentanyls substantially more profitable for traffickers than are other opioids such as heroin. • The large-scale manufacture of tramadol and fentanyls for the illicit market started in a context of an absence of international regulations on tramadol and many fentanyl analogues or their precursors. • The interchangeability (or substitution) of fentanyl and tramadol within the pharmaceutical and illicit drug markets makes it more difficult to address their misuse. Their non-medical use is also seen in the context of self-medication, and thus carries less stigma or is countered by lesser legal sanctions than is the case with other controlled drugs.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'In West, Central and North Africa and the Middle East, tramadol – a pharmaceutical opioid not under international control – has emerged as a major opioid of concern. The drug, in addition to being diverted from the legal market, is mainly trafficked into those subregions in dosages higher than what is prescribed for pain management, with an increasing number of people with tramadol use disorder entering treatment.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The non-medical use of pharmaceutical opioids is not a new phenomenon. It has been observed for decades as part of the polydrug use pattern among high-risk or regular opioid users. What characterizes the most recent opioid crisis is the emergence of non-medical use of pharmaceutical opioids as the main phenomenon, leading to alarming rates of dependence and overdose deaths at the national level. The subregions most affected by this crisis are North America and West, Central and North Africa, where different opioids and different dynamics are driving the threat. In North America, the introduction of fentanyl and its analogues (fentanyls) in the drug market has resulted in a syndemic of use of opioids characterized by an unprecedented increase in opioid overdose deaths' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'Although global estimates are not available, the nonmedical use of pharmaceutical opioids is reported in many countries, in particular in countries in West and North Africa and the Near and Middle East (tramadol), and in North America (hydrocodone, oxycodone, codeine, tramadol and fentanyl).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.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

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 Liberia

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