Thoughts from the void: Cannabis and Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, the Emerald Island, with its natural beauty and tropical climate, probably has its own indigenous varieties of cannabis that may have initially come from the Asian mainland and then evolved over millions of years to become distinctly unique. Yet the country that has been ravaged by war for decades between various ethnic groups now possibly faces a situation where the cannabis plant is under threat of extinction. Repeated wars between government forces and rebels has possibly caused widespread damage to cannabis cultivation all over the island. Many communities in Sri Lanka possibly still cultivate and use cannabis but the action of law enforcement bears heavily on them. Culturally the island's people have possibly consumed cannabis for thousands of years paralleling the Indian culture of cannabis consumption. With a climate that the plant can thrive in, the Sri Lankan varieties of cannabis could rival Caribbean varieties for their medicinal and recreational properties.

Yet governments that have had authoritarian streaks and rebel forces who have minimal connection with nature have possibly brought the situation to where it currently stands in the island today. There have been reports recently that Sri Lanka was exploring the possibility of growing cannabis for medical purposes and for export to North America and that a plantation was planned by Health minister Rajitha Senaratne. In parallel there have also been reports that Sri Lankan president Sirisena looks up to and admires the Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte for his ruthless war on drugs and would like to adopt his policies of mass execution of drug sellers. Nineteen persons who faced life sentences are said to now face the death penalty. Whether these offenders include cannabis offenders is not known. If that is so the health minister talking about using cannabis for medicine and export and the president handing out death sentences for the same plant to his own people would be a terrible shame.

In most places around the world, the war on drugs is essentially a war on cannabis because it is the cannabis plant that is targeted since it stands in direct competition to most powerful industries. The plant is mostly grown by poor farmers and it is easy to detect during transport and consumption. The synthetic and dangerous drugs that replace cannabis are not only most difficult to detect but they cause many times more harm to society, the environment and fund dangerous criminal activities. This seems to be something that authorities do not seem to grasp or maybe it is something that they benefit immensely from. Decriminalizing drugs is a more effective approach to drug policy but most effective is adult recreational use legalization of cannabis and decriminalization of other drugs.

Legalizing recreational cannabis in Sri Lanka will offer the poor Sri Lankan farmer a sustainable crop. When farmers are free to grow the crop there will be sufficient produce for medicine, recreation, business, economy, industry, research, tourism, wellness and export. It will offer the Sri Lankan economy and industry with various jobs and products. It will serve as affordable medicine for many people. It will free law enforcement resources to address more important issues and free prisons filled with persons convicted for cannabis. It is likely to promote tourism to the island nation. It is very likely to reduce the levels of violence that the country has seen in the past by bringing down anxiety, pain and stress. It will provide the people with a healthy medicinal recreational drug reducing the demand for dangerous drugs like heroin, methamphetamine, synthetic cannabinoids, novel psychotropic substances, harmful prescription drugs and alcohol. That is a more effective way to reduce harmful drug consumption rather than dishing out death sentences as has been proven worldwide especially in states in the US and European nations. Revenues and taxes from cannabis retail sales are funding vital areas such as education, infrastructure and uplifting the weaker sections of society in many US states and Canada where it has been legalized.

The evidence of the harms to public health created by the prohibition of cannabis and the increasing use of harmful synthetic drugs including the abuse of prescription drugs is mounting. It appears that Sri Lanka's attempts to cosy up to India and China is a key factor in this problem. Both these countries have pharmaceutical industries that are ruthless when it comes to capturing markets and the costs to public health are the least of their concerns. The unprecedented dumping of pharmaceutical medicines by China and India into Srilanka did not begin with the so-called Covid vaccines. It has been happening for quite some time now. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020 - 'In Sri Lanka, about 0.2 per cent of the population aged 14 and older are estimated to have misused pharmaceutical drugs in the past year. Among them, the non-medical use of tramadol is the most common, although misuse of morphine, diazepam, flunitrazepam and pregabalin have also been reported in the country. The misuse of more than one pharmaceutical drug (including tramadol) is also a common pattern among heroin users who may use them to potentiate the effects of heroin or compensate for its low level of availability. Recent seizures of tramadol suggest the existence of a market for the drug: in April and September 2018, 200,000 and 1.5 million tablets of tramadol were respectively seized by customs in Sri Lanka.'

Exporting locally cultivated cannabis to North America, as planned by some lawmakers, when the Sri Lankan people do not have access to it sounds particularly cruel on the people of the island nation especially the poorest, the indigenous communities, the minorities, the sick, the elderly, the youth and women who are all the biggest victims of the terrible war on the cannabis plant that was primarily initiated and pushed worldwide by North America and Europe. First making it locally available before exporting it should be the priority of the government as the health of the Sri Lankan people should be more important. It is also important that the people of Sri Lanka do not let global companies patent their local cannabis, gain control over its cultivation and export it to Europe and North America while the local people are deprived of access to the plant. This model has been repeated by multiple industries such as pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, mining, etc in many parts of the world and in Sri Lanka repeatedly in the past. These are the very same industries that lobby to keep cannabis illegal in the UN. Countries like the US, Japan, Russia, China, Israel, India and Germany resist cannabis legalization internationally to protect these big industries that are based out of them while they themselves now scour the world for natural varieties of cannabis to import for their own wealthy people's needs having destroyed their own plants through indiscriminate action against nature. Probably, most importantly, legalization of recreational cannabis for adult use could be the most significant action that the island nation takes in its battle for survival against global warming and climate change.

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, alcohol and tobacco. For something that truly benefits the people, the people themselves have had to make the change. This may be especially true for a country like Sri Lanka which is fractured along ethnic lines. Cannabis legalization is one action that can truly bring together all the people of the country and heal the wounds of the past.

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 non-medical use of tramadol among other pharmaceutical drugs is reported by several countries in South Asia: Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. In 2017, 130,316 capsules containing tramadol and marketed under the trade name “Spasmo Proxyvon Plus (‘SP+’)” were seized in Bhutan. In Sri Lanka, about 0.2 per cent of the population aged 14 and older are estimated to have misused pharmaceutical drugs in the past year. Among them, the non-medical use of tramadol is the most common, although misuse of morphine, diazepam, flunitrazepam and pregabalin have also been reported in the country. The misuse of more than one pharmaceutical drug (including tramadol) is also a common pattern among heroin users who may use them to potentiate the effects of heroin or compensate for its low level of availability. Recent seizures of tramadol suggest the existence of a market for the drug: in April and September 2018, 200,000 and 1.5 million tablets of tramadol were respectively seized by customs in Sri Lanka.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.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 Sri Lanka

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