The Drug Problem part 7 Medical Intervention
I have not pretended in these articles that there are not potentially adverse medical effects from taking drugs. I have never taken illegal drugs myself and that would not want any of my friends or family to do so. However personal preferences should not be the basis of deciding when and in what fashion the coercive use of state power should be involved, still less when those coerces efforts seemed doomed to failure and to bring adverse side-effects.
I have previously commented on the way in which it would be much easier to monitor both the nature of the drugs being administered and the medical consequences if drug use were out in the open rather than being relegated to an unlawful subculture. However there is also the question of potential medical use of drugs.
The first recorded use of cannabis as a medicine came in China some 2800 years before Christ. Whilst there are disputes as to its efficacy (quite apart from its illegal status) there are plenty of people who testify to its medicinal benefits, and there have been various relatively newsworthy and hence high profile cases of people prosecuted for using and supplying it for those purposes. A principal use for cannabis is for pain relief. People living with chronic pain have lives (if lives they can properly be called) that the rest of us can barely begin to comprehend. It would seem right that anything that can reduce that pain or make existence bearable should be considered. Cannabis has long been used for pain relief. It probably does no harm to this overall effect that it can make people feel happy and relaxed. There is considerable anecdotal evidence that many people who suffer from pain use cannabis as their own self-administered pain relief. Needless to say they obtain it through the usual illegal sources.
It is crucial in any society that the law is respected. Laws which are regarded as stupid or unfair risk reducing respect for the law generally. Forcing otherwise law-abiding people to obtain their pain relief by visiting drug dealers is not only medically stupid. This is of course because there will be no particular consistency in the quality or strength of the product required still less any way of accurately monitoring the desired strength or the continuing effects. Forcing people in chronic pain to acquire cannabis illegally is also likely to reduce respect for the law generally, both in then and for others aware of their plight.
There is a scientific basis for showing that cannabis could have an impact on pain. In cannabis the main active chemical is tetrahydrocannibol. This is a chemical which will bind to certain receptors in the brain and therefore can have an impact. It would seem to me right and proper that all avenues for pain relief and other medical benefits should be properly explored and where appropriate available. There should be no illegality based stigma.