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As
the prohibitionists get desperate, they're digging around
for health issues to prop up their failed war on cannabis,
but oddly, are keen to avoid talking about the biggest health
issue cannabis users face.
The
same people are also keen to warn of the dangers of mixing
drugs, yet keep strangely quiet about the most common drug
cocktail the vast majority of cannabis users take.
This
is one health issue that no-one seems to want to talk about,
and it's something which affects the vast majority of tokers,
and that's the way cannabis is used, the way cannabis is smoked
mixed with the killer drug, tobacco.
In
the UK, most cannabis users roll joints - cannabis mixed with
tobacco. The dangers of tobacco are well known, its addictive
and carcinogenic for a start.
Perhaps
it's because cannabis is illegal and tobacco is not that this
situation has been allowed to continue for so long, the government
and its agencies feel unable to advise the users of an illegal
substance to avoid using a legal one, to the twisted mind
of a politician, this would be strange advice indeed. To us,
as people who understand the present law to be stupid, the
issue should be clear cut.
But
it isn't clear cut for us, or at least, it hasn't been up
till now.
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In
some respects, tobacco is not unlike cannabis. Both are plants
and hence totally natural herbs and both are smoked. However,
this is where the similarity ends.
Tobacco
is responsible each year for 140000 deaths in the UK and 4
million deaths worldwide.
Our
big claim for cannabis is that it has never directly killed
anyone.
Tobacco
is a more addictive drug than heroin. Breaking a tobacco habit
can be a very agonizing and difficult experience.
Cannabis
may be habit forming and some people may come to feel dependent
on it, but it isn't actually physically addictive, you can
stop using cannabis any time you want and there's nothing
like cold turkey withdrawal to go through like there is with
tobacco.
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How
cannabis is used
Around
75% of cannabis is smoked in joints mixed with tobacco,
5% in pure cannabis joints, around 15% in pipes, and
around 5% eaten - either on its own or mixed in food
(e.g. space cakes) or drink (e.g. bhang, cannabis tea),
with small numbers smoking using other methods e.g.
hot knives - where resin is pressed between red-hot
knife blades and the fumes inhaled through a bottomless
bottle, or "buckets" where smoke is drawn
into a large bottle and inhaled when cooler.
Source:
IDMU
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So
why do people mix the herb with this "evil weed"?
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It's
partly historical, tobacco of course is nothing new to us, not so
long ago most people smoked (men anyway, women less so), tobacco
use was glamorized by Hollywood and it was considered an integral
part of socialising to offer cigs around. It was into this tobacco
using culture that cannabis use took off.
And
so cannabis in Britain is usually smoked in “Joints”.
That is a rollup cigarette with a bit of hashish or herb mixed in.
The smoker then starts to associate the high produced by the tobacco
and cannabis mix as the cannabis experience.
Unfortunately
some users become tobacco addicts very quickly, although others
take a lot longer.
But
regardless of the speed of addiction joint smokers are experiencing
the effect of the two drugs in combination. So people who are introduced
to tobacco through smoking joints find that just smoking tobacco
on its own doesn't give the same experience, so they feel they need
a joint not realising that it is the tobacco addiction kicking in.
Many
users of cannabis in tobacco joints start to smoke at regular intervals
in order to keep up their nicotine levels to satisfy the tobacco
craving. For the minority of people who do suffer some negative
effects from using cannabis, this is clearly a bad thing, for others
it may mean they just get stoned all day.
Using
cannabis with tobacco is likely to increase the amount of cannabis
used and to make the use habitual.
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Why
haven't things changed?
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Over
the past 20 or so years, there's been a lot of health education
aimed at tobacco users and as a result far fewer people now smoke
tobacco than previously. However, this is not the case amongst cannabis
users for whom joints are still the norm. There are several reasons
for this, the first we've already mentioned:
1:
Cannabis is illegal, tobacco is not, so tokers have been ignored.
2:
Safer ways of smoking cannabis such as pipes, bongs, water pipes
or the very safe (but almost unknown in this country) ‘Vaporiser’
can become incriminating evidence for the authorities, whereas a
joint is easy to hide.
3:
Joints are a very social way of using cannabis, people share them,
this of course, spreads the tobacco addiction
4:
Myths have grown up, not least of all that it would be more expensive
to smoke weed or hash without "diluting" it with tobacco.
This is actually totally untrue and cannabis users who smoke pure
weed or hash actually use much less than joint smokers, plus they
don't have to buy the tobacco.
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So
what can we do? - DIY harm reduction
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Cannabis
is not harmless, although it is a remarkably safe and (for most
people) a very enjoyable drug. However, using more cannabis has
the potential to cause more problems for some than using less cannabis,
that is obvious.
It
is also a waste of cannabis if you are smoking joints to satisfy
your tobacco addiction.
The
first and most obvious is to legalise and regulate the cannabis
supply, then not only will the cannabis itself be of better quality
but users can be encouraged to use it in safer ways. However this
may take a while given the blinkered attitude of our government,
wedded as it is to its "war on drugs".
Clearly,
whatever happens is up to us, it's time for some DIY harm reduction.
This is the aim of the safer smoking campaign - Toke Pure.
Cannabis
used without tobacco is an entirely different experience in some
respects, but it is the cannabis experience, it's the real thing.
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What
could government do?
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Well,
whilst they have this mindless attitude to cannabis and insist
it remains illegal, not much. If they were to get real though,
there's a hell of a lot they could do, although some measures
would be deeply unpopular with some tokers who consider the
use of tobacco to be an issue of "freedom of choice"
if they were to be forced onto users by way of restrictive
laws
Education
- the safer smoking campaign
They
could tell the truth for a start and educate cannabis users
about safer ways to use the herb, as we are doing. This sort
of thing is called "Harm reduction" and is deeply
opposed by those idiots who support the war on drugs, the
reason for that is hard for law reform campaigners to understand,
but basically prohibition depends on drugs being made as dangerous
as possible. Yes, it is stupid.
Tobacco
free coffeeshops?
One
of the big arguments in favour of "coffee shops"
- cannabis cafes - is that they separate the cannabis market
from that of dangerous drugs. We would like to see cannabis
cafes which are tobacco free encouraged, where cannabis can
be bought and used on the premises without tobacco.
There's
lots of reasons for this, not least of all it would help tobacco
free use to establish itself
Pipesafe
The
carrying of pipes and other safer ways of consuming cannabis
should no longer count as evidence of illegal drug use, but
again, this would require a more adult attitude regarding
cannabis use.
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Non-tobacco
smoking mixtures
Lets
be honest, sharing a joint is a part of the social experience
of cannabis for some people. There are some pretty good
alternatives to tobacco available now, such as "Honey
Dew". These non-tobacco herbs burn reasonably well
and don't have the addiction of tobacco. However, they
are likely to have many of the other health risks caused
by breathing in large amounts of smoke, but they're
a far better option than tobacco.
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