The Dark Side of the Moon: Cannabis Studies
In the last few days, a series of article have been published. Some of them were related to academic researches, like the one conducted by Olivier Marie of Maastricht University and Ulf Zölitz of IZA Bonn that focused on how – supposedly – students who don’t smoke have better results at school, while other pieces were simply considerations, comments and opinions. Interestingly enough, 2015, just like the wonderful 2014, has been so far a great year for cannabis activists and researchers. The number of states in the USA that have approved the use of medical marijuana and/or cannabis oil has increasing at an amazing paste. Plus, more and more people seem to be interested in exploring the plant, a curiosity certainly driven by the many studies that indicate the health benefits of marijuana.
Furthermore, scientists indicate that the amount of resources at their disposal is slowly but steadily increasing when it comes to cannabis studies. And, of course, more and more consumers all over the world are now able to access good quality pot and seeds through Green House Seeds Co. to grow their own little plants.
However, something else is happening. The series of articles I mentioned at the beginning of this post doesn’t exactly support marijuana legalization. On the contrary, a growing number of writers and bloggers seem to be interested in discussing how “bad” cannabis is. This is quite disturbing and extremely problematic at many levels.
First of all, it all sounds a little “too bad” to be true. Honestly, the fact that many conservative people feel the need to scream that cannabis “was bad, is bad and will always be bad” is not exactly that surprising. This wonderful plant has been the victim of the most atrocious propaganda, made of false accusations, misleading quasi-truths and absurd stereotypes, for 100 years. Still, it doesn’t feel quite right, and I wonder if we really need this kind of articles.
Secondly, we should really remember that researches – academic or not – are not exactly the reincarnation of truth. Sure, this means we should be careful about the studies that talk positively about cannabis too. This said, however, there is no reason to think about cannabis as “bad until proven good”. Cannabis is an extremely powerful plant, which has been used by humanity for centuries. What we need now is to be openminded about it, and those who reinforce the green boogie man syndrome aren’t exactly helping with this.
Before talking about it, try it and try to understand all the side of the story: why some people have decided to turn cannabis into an illegal monster, why others are fighting for its legalization, and why some other actors are trying to sell us once again the story about “the bad thing called pot”.
You know what I think. What do you think?
