I could hardly believe my ears when i watched the above program on the I Player. I had not heard such an out of date bunch of shite about cannabis for at least 15 years. It seemed to be fixatated on THC and Skunkweed and how dangerous this stuff could be. Well Really. All drugs, and for that matter, all repettive behaviour carries with it dangers both physical and psychological but to single out THC in this infantile way does not do the BBC any credit and paints a sorry picture of drugs research into the bargain.
At the last count ther3e were supposedly 421 chemcials in cannabis, 420 of which are not THC. several of which were found to be useful or potentially useful in the treatment of a number of physical and mental ailments. Surely the BBC program could have found a little time for some of these. And before you way, what do you know about all this i must point out that i worked with my Local MP in the 90s on the issues of cannabis pharmaceuticals and decriminilisation. In the course of this i prepared evidence for the House of Lords Select Committee and even discussed it with the Police Foundation.
Another issue which i find genuinely offensive is the failure of this type of programming to differentiate between use and abuse. There is a long distance which seperates the person who smokes a joint from the person of smokes cannabis in joints, pipes, bongs, etc etc from dawn till dusk. If we apply this kind of misguided logic to much of human activity we find we are surrounded by comparatively few abusers of cannabis but these are certainly well exceeded by sugar addicts and abusers, chocaholics, alcoholics, nicotine addicts, and i havent even begun to consider all those who regularly use and abuse prescription drugs such as aspirin, paracetamol, etc etc.
BBC "ON THE WIRE", 25th BIRTHDAY LIVE SHOW
ADRIAN SHERWOOD AND STEVE BARKER PERUSE SOME VIDEO
John Peel, Legendary DJ, Musical Sage and a nice bloke.
THE MISSING JESUS AND MARY
THE MISSING JESUS AND MARY IN CLITHEROE
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I'm interested in your views but I think you're wrong about this programme.
ReplyDeletehttp://peterreynolds.wordpress.com/2011/01/06/how-drugs-work-cannabis-bbc3-6th-january-2011/
It was excellent. A bit sensationalist in parts but probably the most in depth ever programme on the subject. It’s main failing was a lack of any comparisons to other drugs because, let’s remember, caffeine can cause the heart to race, nicotine takes over the inner workings of the brain and oxygen catalyses the aging process. As for psychosis, there’s some pretty flimsy evidence of correlation with cannabis use but none of causation whereas alcohol is a dead cert - that’s if it hasn’t destroyed your liver first.
On balance though it ws a good, informative programme.
When researching this in the early nineties, i found my views confirmed by experts in several fields. Skunk weed is undoubtedly shit, there is more to smoking dope than high THC contents which certainly cause instability. Many people treating alcoholics actually recommended cannabis as an alternative to drink but it was traditional cannabis which they recommended and not genetically modified crud which seem to cause instability in those who use it, and certainly also some degree of psychological addiction, which i did not see for users of resin. As long as we are governed by drink sossled politicians and people who are afraid of hemp the plant because it would ruin the current wood pulp industry and replace poor quality paper with strong and longer lasting paper. Similarly, we are not likely to hear much truth about cannabis from the alocohol industry are we. I chose to smoke cannabis as an alternative to alcohol in the 1960s. and gave it up without any trouble because i perceived smoke inhalation was bad for lungs. Consequently i stand by all that i said about this truly awfull program. The BBC can and must do better than this other wise the accusations of dumbing down wil certainly stick.
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