Sir,
IF anyone were to ask me to name one thing in Bulgaria that I really didn't like, my answer would consist of three words: MICHAEL HARRIS COHEN. I am getting sick and tired of his half-baked and self-obsessed articles in The Echo, but this week's (Issue 14, April 2) effort on the subject on marijuana really got my hackles up. I'm afraid I've just got to respond.
First of all, he is amazed that the Bulgarian Parliament has set a tough line on cannabis possession and use, because he's under the impression that everything that goes on in this country these days is to do with EU accession. Seeing as the trend in Western Europe is towards the decriminalisation of cannabis, so goes MHC's argument, logic dictates that the law in Bulgaria should be going in the same direction. As if the Bulgarians didn't have minds of their own! He even goes so far as to say that the tough drug laws here will lead to an acceleration of the exodus of young people abroad, as if young Bulgarians were not interested in anything except getting stoned out of their heads every night, and would emigrate in order to be able to do so without the risk of going to jail! I have worked with young Bulgarians throughout my six years in this country, and MHC's attitude is a downright insult to them. Most of the ones I know have set their sights a bit higher than their counterparts in the UK, of whom I've also had quite extensive experience.
In any case, his assertion that the trend throughout Europe is towards decriminalisation is something of a generalisation. The Dutch experiment with decriminalisation, dating back to the 1970s, has had mixed results, to put it mildly. The elections of May 2002 which catapulted a fringe party, List Pim Fortuyn, into second place, showed clearly that the Dutch population, as well as showing a new stridency on the issues of immigration and social cohesion, was also getting fed up with the liberalism of the country's drug laws and the social nuisance that they associate with it. That election made a lasting impact on the Dutch political landscape.
Plenty of doctors and drugs workers from Holland advise other countries against going down the road of decriminalisation. For example, Elizabeth van Swinderen of the group Community Action in Holland visited Ireland in 1999 and advised them, on the basis of her own experience in her own country, strongly against softening their laws on soft drugs. She pointed out the misleading nature of the terminology used by the pro-legalisation lobby. To talk about "recreational" use of drugs is a nonsense, because using drugs involves the introduction of toxins to the metabolism. I note that MHC makes extensive reference to the work of Dr Yulian Karajov. In fact, Karajov seems to be almost his sole source! The quote that cannabinoids are "amazingly low in toxicity" is ridiculous when you bear in mind that regular users are constantly exposing themselves to it day in, day out, year after year after year. It is quite clear that THCs affect the receptors in the brain, because that is how the drug creates the effect of being stoned! I'd be keen to know how the pro-cannabis lobby equate the fact that cannabis brings about a change in the mood and perceptions of the user by altering the brain chemistry with their claim that it is completely safe.
MHC, like many others who want to push the "cannabis is good for you and has been used as a medicine for centuries" line, takes a whole lot of information about "medical marijuana" out of context and uses it to support his argument. I also note that the list of websites at the end of the article consists entirely of pro-legalisation or pro-decriminalisation sites. I don't know what The Sofia Echo thinks it's playing at. Surely, in the interests of balance, some websites giving the opposite view should also have been included, even on a page by a particular columnist giving a particular angle?
Well, here's one for everyone to have a look at. It's www.mentalhealthcare.org.uk . Check it out, and see some facts that don't fit in with the "ganja is as harmless as candy-floss" approach of MHC. On that site you'll be able to read more about the research done in New Zealand by Louise Arsenault, Robin Murray and their colleagues, in which they monitored a large sample of subjects born in 1972 and 1973 and found that those who'd used marijuana regularly before the age of 15 were four times more likely to have been diagnosed with schizophrenia by the age of 26 than those who hadn't.
In my own country, I've seen the situation in the education system, where teenagers see flouting the rules about ganja at school or college as a way of giving the finger to authority, and they are emboldened by the awareness that a lot of their teachers and lecturers are also cannabis users and so wouldn't do anything to enforce the rules as it would be hypocritical for them to do so! It has become an issue on which the signals being given out are so mixed that 12 and 13 year-olds are hearing only one side of the story, and that's the "blow is less harmful than cigarettes and alcohol, and everyone from politicians to teachers to the police knows that" side of it. The British government has now confused the issue even more, if such a thing is possible, by reclassifying cannabis from a Class B to a Class C substance, effectively decriminalising it. Simultaneous with that change was a publicity campaign stressing that it is still illegal and has health risks. So, what message do they want to send out?
The argument in favour of decriminalisation claims that it frees up police time and enables the police force to concentrate on more serious matters. Well....street crime in the UK is on the up-and-up, and the reclassification of cannabis doesn't seem to have reversed that trend. It's up by 16 per cent year-on-year at the last count.
Former New York mayor Rudi Giuliani warned the British authorities against relaxing the soft drugs laws on a recent visit to the UK. During his time as mayor, he saw the link between "minor" offences such as cannabis-related ones and more serious crime, and that was the basis of his controversial "zero tolerance" policing policy from the mid-90s onwards. In the US, whatever your angle on Guiliani and his successor Bloomberg, there's no denying that a significant reduction in crime has been achieved, stated as between 50 per cent and 70 per cent by various sources.
It is not all about punishment, and nobody has ever claimed that it is. Wayne Roques of the US Drug Enforcement Agency has visited various European countries and explained the results achieved by the USA, where regular drug users were reduced from 14 per cent of the population in 1979 to four per cent in 1992. That was achieved through a combination of education, treatment and law enforcement. I think that those who think that the law enforcement element can happily be left out of the equation are being naive.
I congratulate the Bulgarian Parliament on their willingness to take a really tough line on drugs. I daresay some of them have visited my country and have sensed the much more threatening and unpleasant atmosphere on the streets there compared with here, and have made a logical link between that and the laws in the two countries. They don't want to go down the road that we in Britain have gone down so far that it's hard to see a way back.
I had plenty of hands-on experience of ganja as a teenager. I smoked my first spliff when I was 12 years old, and carried on smoking it regularly throughout my teens. Unlike MHC, though, I've grown out of it, and I'd encourage others to open their eyes and ears to the other side of the debate, which often seems to get less coverage.
- Sincerely,
Danny Dresser
Sofia
*Michael Harris Cohen responds: See Family Matters, page 16
IF anyone were to ask me to name one thing in Bulgaria that I really didn't like, my answer would consist of three words: MICHAEL HARRIS COHEN. I am getting sick and tired of his half-baked and self-obsessed articles in The Echo, but this week's (Issue 14, April 2) effort on the subject on marijuana really got my hackles up. I'm afraid I've just got to respond.
First of all, he is amazed that the Bulgarian Parliament has set a tough line on cannabis possession and use, because he's under the impression that everything that goes on in this country these days is to do with EU accession. Seeing as the trend in Western Europe is towards the decriminalisation of cannabis, so goes MHC's argument, logic dictates that the law in Bulgaria should be going in the same direction. As if the Bulgarians didn't have minds of their own! He even goes so far as to say that the tough drug laws here will lead to an acceleration of the exodus of young people abroad, as if young Bulgarians were not interested in anything except getting stoned out of their heads every night, and would emigrate in order to be able to do so without the risk of going to jail! I have worked with young Bulgarians throughout my six years in this country, and MHC's attitude is a downright insult to them. Most of the ones I know have set their sights a bit higher than their counterparts in the UK, of whom I've also had quite extensive experience.
In any case, his assertion that the trend throughout Europe is towards decriminalisation is something of a generalisation. The Dutch experiment with decriminalisation, dating back to the 1970s, has had mixed results, to put it mildly. The elections of May 2002 which catapulted a fringe party, List Pim Fortuyn, into second place, showed clearly that the Dutch population, as well as showing a new stridency on the issues of immigration and social cohesion, was also getting fed up with the liberalism of the country's drug laws and the social nuisance that they associate with it. That election made a lasting impact on the Dutch political landscape.
Plenty of doctors and drugs workers from Holland advise other countries against going down the road of decriminalisation. For example, Elizabeth van Swinderen of the group Community Action in Holland visited Ireland in 1999 and advised them, on the basis of her own experience in her own country, strongly against softening their laws on soft drugs. She pointed out the misleading nature of the terminology used by the pro-legalisation lobby. To talk about "recreational" use of drugs is a nonsense, because using drugs involves the introduction of toxins to the metabolism. I note that MHC makes extensive reference to the work of Dr Yulian Karajov. In fact, Karajov seems to be almost his sole source! The quote that cannabinoids are "amazingly low in toxicity" is ridiculous when you bear in mind that regular users are constantly exposing themselves to it day in, day out, year after year after year. It is quite clear that THCs affect the receptors in the brain, because that is how the drug creates the effect of being stoned! I'd be keen to know how the pro-cannabis lobby equate the fact that cannabis brings about a change in the mood and perceptions of the user by altering the brain chemistry with their claim that it is completely safe.
MHC, like many others who want to push the "cannabis is good for you and has been used as a medicine for centuries" line, takes a whole lot of information about "medical marijuana" out of context and uses it to support his argument. I also note that the list of websites at the end of the article consists entirely of pro-legalisation or pro-decriminalisation sites. I don't know what The Sofia Echo thinks it's playing at. Surely, in the interests of balance, some websites giving the opposite view should also have been included, even on a page by a particular columnist giving a particular angle?
Well, here's one for everyone to have a look at. It's www.mentalhealthcare.org.uk . Check it out, and see some facts that don't fit in with the "ganja is as harmless as candy-floss" approach of MHC. On that site you'll be able to read more about the research done in New Zealand by Louise Arsenault, Robin Murray and their colleagues, in which they monitored a large sample of subjects born in 1972 and 1973 and found that those who'd used marijuana regularly before the age of 15 were four times more likely to have been diagnosed with schizophrenia by the age of 26 than those who hadn't.
In my own country, I've seen the situation in the education system, where teenagers see flouting the rules about ganja at school or college as a way of giving the finger to authority, and they are emboldened by the awareness that a lot of their teachers and lecturers are also cannabis users and so wouldn't do anything to enforce the rules as it would be hypocritical for them to do so! It has become an issue on which the signals being given out are so mixed that 12 and 13 year-olds are hearing only one side of the story, and that's the "blow is less harmful than cigarettes and alcohol, and everyone from politicians to teachers to the police knows that" side of it. The British government has now confused the issue even more, if such a thing is possible, by reclassifying cannabis from a Class B to a Class C substance, effectively decriminalising it. Simultaneous with that change was a publicity campaign stressing that it is still illegal and has health risks. So, what message do they want to send out?
The argument in favour of decriminalisation claims that it frees up police time and enables the police force to concentrate on more serious matters. Well....street crime in the UK is on the up-and-up, and the reclassification of cannabis doesn't seem to have reversed that trend. It's up by 16 per cent year-on-year at the last count.
Former New York mayor Rudi Giuliani warned the British authorities against relaxing the soft drugs laws on a recent visit to the UK. During his time as mayor, he saw the link between "minor" offences such as cannabis-related ones and more serious crime, and that was the basis of his controversial "zero tolerance" policing policy from the mid-90s onwards. In the US, whatever your angle on Guiliani and his successor Bloomberg, there's no denying that a significant reduction in crime has been achieved, stated as between 50 per cent and 70 per cent by various sources.
It is not all about punishment, and nobody has ever claimed that it is. Wayne Roques of the US Drug Enforcement Agency has visited various European countries and explained the results achieved by the USA, where regular drug users were reduced from 14 per cent of the population in 1979 to four per cent in 1992. That was achieved through a combination of education, treatment and law enforcement. I think that those who think that the law enforcement element can happily be left out of the equation are being naive.
I congratulate the Bulgarian Parliament on their willingness to take a really tough line on drugs. I daresay some of them have visited my country and have sensed the much more threatening and unpleasant atmosphere on the streets there compared with here, and have made a logical link between that and the laws in the two countries. They don't want to go down the road that we in Britain have gone down so far that it's hard to see a way back.
I had plenty of hands-on experience of ganja as a teenager. I smoked my first spliff when I was 12 years old, and carried on smoking it regularly throughout my teens. Unlike MHC, though, I've grown out of it, and I'd encourage others to open their eyes and ears to the other side of the debate, which often seems to get less coverage.
- Sincerely,
Danny Dresser
Sofia
*Michael Harris Cohen responds: See Family Matters, page 16
