We need to talk about Mary-Jane...

It would probably be prudent to start off by clarifying my drugs stance. Everyone has one. Drugs are one of those topics that everybody has an opinion on, and I am no different.
 

Drugs should not be decriminalised. 

                                        

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Absolutely not. They should be completely legalised.
 

Did I catch you out there? Sorry if I did, but it was a trick to try and disarm the reader, because I have some thoughts on marijuana (which may actually be a racist term, oddly enough) that might be out of kilter with the toking community, and I want to avoid looking like the enemy.
 

I am not the enemy.

Let me rewind a little. All drugs should be legalised. Full stop. Once legalised, they can be controlled (especially the quality), regulated and taxed, like we do with alcohol. The war on drugs has been lost, and prohibition is a nonsense that leaves all the control in the hands of organised criminals. I have followed this debate for years, and logically and intellectually, this is a slam dunk. Those that argue to the contrary use a variety of rhetoric (“won’t someone think of the children?”) that is dishonest and disingenuous, and they rely on mawkish and manipulative sentimentality. Nearly every argument they use could be similarly applied to alcohol, and we all know what happened in America when they tried to ban that.

                                   

                                        

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I believe I have made my position crystal clear!
 

Prohibition was a failure for a hosts of reasons, and it directly led to a booming black market of illicit alcohol, and one of the most notorious of these was moonshine. Moonshine has existed in one form or another for centuries, but the onset of prohibition gave it a new lease of life. Moonshine can be staggeringly strong – indeed, that is its raison d’etre. And with this strength, there is an inherent danger.
 

So, here is the point of this blog:
 

Skunk is moonshine.
 

Skunk is utterly ubiquitous. It’s relatively easy to grow, which means it can be grown anywhere, with the right equipment. And this means that it doesn’t have to be moved across borders, and this removes a huge risk for those that want to supply it.

                                       

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In the part of the World I live in, there is no decriminalisation. If you speak to the police, they will tell you that this is an inconvenience to them, for the most part. They will happily bust a skunk farmer (it’s a fairly big win for them usually), but they have little interest in arresting the user. The law is the law though, and if you get caught, you’ll probably end up with a criminal record.
 

In some parts of Europe, like many American states, a system of decriminalisation exists, but in most of the continent, possession of cannabis is illegal.
 

Why is skunk moonshine, and what does that mean?
 

Modern skunk is an unnatural substance. It has been artificially selected to increase THC levels, to make it stronger than nature intended. And as the THC has gone up, the CBD has invariably gone down.
 

In the 60s, and for the next two or three decades, the most popular form of cannabis was resin. The quality varied hugely, but generally speaking, the THC and CBD levels would be roughly similar, coming in around 5-6%. Nowadays, those THC levels are topping 30% (a huge increase), and the levels of CBD are next to nothing.
 

THC is the active substance that gets a user stoned, and a part of that experience can be a little paranoia. The CBD acts to level that out. Nature is so clever. Us, on the other hand? Not so much.

                                      

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Getting stoned these days is a qualitatively different experience than it was back in the day. Most younger people having a smoke for the first time are smoking moonshine. When I was growing up, they were having a beer.
 

These mega strong strains are a direct result of prohibition. I understand why is has happened. People who take drugs are invariably hedonists, and hedonists invariably want to push the limits of getting high. Trust me when I say I completely understand that.
 

The problem is that in making it stronger, we are out of kilter with nature, and that means that we are in unchartered territories.
 

There is a fair amount of scientific evidence that suggests skunk could be having a detrimental effect on mental health, especially in adolescent males. It isn’t firmly established, and the big problem is that the toking community views such research with scepticism and cynicism. I am all for a little scepticism – it is healthy – but if you haven’t been a-Googling this, I really recommend you invest some time to get a balanced picture.

                                       

                                       

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I fear for young people growing up with skunk. I know – I absolutely know – that imbibing it can send the user to dark places. More experienced smokers will be able to deal with this side effect pretty well, but a sixteen year old boy who has got into the habit of smoking on his own, and left to his own bizarre thoughts for hours at a time? I worry for him. I worry about where the THC and his brain will take him.
 

I am patently not anti-drugs. Especially as far as cannabis is concerned. But I wonder if the anti-establishment nature of the toking community (a meaningless phrase in many respects, but  you get my drift) means that they are blind to the potential risks of this moonshine that we have developed.
 

It has to be worth some thought, doesn’t it?