Cannabis: hard drug or soft drug?

The Garretsen Committee in the Netherlands reported to the Ministers Edith Schippers (Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport) and Ivo Opstelten (Ministry of Security and Justice), giving them the advice that cannabis with a THC level of fifteen percent or more should be classified als a hard drug. There are various opininons about this topic, because there are no scientific grounds for deciding on which THC percentage is acceptable when public health is concerned.

Cannabis and THC

Cannabis is a plant used for producing weed and hash. A different word for cannabis is hemp. Weed is made from the dried leaves and flowering parts of the female cannabis plant. Hashish is made from the compressed stalked resin glands, collected from the unfertilized buds and flowers of the cannabis plant. After pressing the plant, the oil is collected and dried. The active substance in cannabis is THC, which is short for delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol. The more THC weed or hashish contains, the more potency it has. THC in combination with other substances in cannabis, such as cannabinoids, makes you feel stoned or high.

The warmer the climate where cannabis grows, the more THC it contains. Dutch weed grown in greenhouses under proper heating conditions often contains a great deal more THC than cannabis growing outdoors in other parts of the world.

Foreign cannabis and Dutch cannabis

Many brands of weed and hashish can be subdivided in the categories foreign weed, Dutch weed, foreign hashish and Dutch hashish. In the Netherlands, 70 percent of total cannabis sales is Dutch weed, 25 percent is predominantly Moroccan hashish and five percent is Dutch hashish and foreign weed.

For more than ten years, the Trimbos Institute has assessed the THC level of weed and hashish in the Netherlands. Their conclusion after the assessments was that there has been a considerable increase in potency of Dutch weed and hashish during the past few years as a result of crossbreeding powerful variations of the plant. They found an average THC level of 30 percent, which is considered too high. The fact is that older and experienced pot smokers know how to handle the dosis when using it, whereas young users without this experience are liable to smoke too much, which may have nasty consequences.

Other uses of cannabis: clothing, rope and medicin

For more than 12,000 years, the fibers of cannabis have been used for manufacturing clothing and rope. The substance THC is used to minimise the side-effects of chemotherapy. THC is also said to produce positive results in combatting or alleviating:

• Stress or depression

• Chronical pain

• ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)

• Asperger's syndrome

• Anorexia

• Multiple sclerosis

• Spasms

People qualifying for medicinal weed are given a doctor's prescription.

Pot-smoking among young people

In the last few years, there has been an increasing number of young people with a cannabis addiction presenting themselves for drug addiction treatment.

Peter van Dijk, co-ordinator of the Drug Monitoring programme at the Trimbos Institute in the Netherlands, says overdoses of high-potency weed may have a more addictive effect. Furthermore, it leads to passivity and bad performance in work and studies. For that reason, children of school age should not be allowed to smoke pot. A small percentage of young pot smokers are very prone to developing psychosis and schizophrenia, from which they usually recover when kicking off the cannabis habit completely.

Buying home cannabis drug tests online

On the Net, home cannabis drug tests are available for parents that would like to test their children for break-down products of cannabis and its active ingredient THC.

Acceptable soft drug

There is no scientific proof for what is an acceptable THC percentage when public health is concerned. Tolerance to marijuana is not an indication of danger or dependence otherwise either, provided it is used not too frequently or excessively.

Peter van Dijk holds the opinion that local authorities seeking to ban cannabis to protect young people from psychosis and schizophrenia should consider banning Dutch weed only. Unlike weed, hashish contains a lot of cannabidiol (CBD), which is a substance that arouses a peaceful feeling and gives protection against developing psychosis and schizophrenia.

Sources: www.todio.nl