Is all cannabis use really medical use?

Dr Dee Recently, there have been some quite heated debates in the cannabis world around what the term "recreational" use actually means. Somewhat contentiously, it has been proposed that all cannabis use is basically medical use, except most cannabis users haven't actually realised that this is the case. This is being driven principally by America, where the key reason for all of the semantic nit picking boils down to money, and stems from the fact that while more than 80% (and increasing) of Americans support medical cannabis, only something like 50% (and wavering) support recreational use. The very idea of recreational use is proving to be something of a sticking point for the legalisers, particularly in the conservative Southern states and the Bible Belt, where people generally are absolutely fine with medical use, but any debate around the right to recreational use is effectively dead in the water. An obvious knock on effect here is drastically less money flowing into the coffers of the producers. The way around this interesting conundrum would appear to be to redefine the parameters as to what constitutes medical use, so push this “all use is medical use” agenda: all very clever. I have an issue with the term "recreational drug use" for a whole lot of different reasons, but none of them really come down to making money, which is basically what we’re seeing here. Personally, I think I would 90% agree with this viewpoint: cannabis is a great way to relax and kick back. For people who are emotionally “together”, it can be a most pleasant way to pass an evening in a mildly altered state of consciousness… …however, there’s something about the proposed blanket approval of all use as medical that troubles me. The proposition that “recreational” users simply don’t realise that they’re actually self-medicating, is fine up to a point, but what really causes me concern are those people who use cannabis to try to self-medicate for some pretty severe mental health issues, consequently making those issues worse. There are a significantly sized group of people out there who just shouldn’t use cannabis at all, and putting out the message that “it’s okay, all use is medical use” is doing these people a big disservice, and could potentially cause a lot of harm. Here’s the thing; it’s now pretty much accepted that cannabis per se doesn’t really cause mental health problems so much as worsen and intensify existing or underlying ones. Many (or perhaps even all) of these problems are heritable or genetic. Therefore, prospective or novice cannabis users need to look at their immediate family - parents and siblings – and if there’s even the smallest indication of schizophrenia or whatever, then they should avoid cannabis like the plague: for people in this group, cannabis isn’t benign and there’s really no safe way of using it whether it’s dressed up as medical or recreational use. To play Devil’s Advocate, if we’re seriously talking about the outcomes of relaxation, destressing and unwinding as a basic or fundamental tenet of the “medical use” of a substance, then, to be honest, the same case could be made for more or less all psychoactive substances, and with exactly the same caveats. We could apply this to anything that aids with whatever form of R&R a person might want, so booze or E. For some people out there, this might even involve a little hit of heroin. It’s a logical but probably very unpopular conclusion to this line of thought. Before I finish this column, if books full of drug-related humour are your thing, then I’d draw your attention to a novel by Joe Kane called 1991: A Chemical Odyssey. It was actually written a while ago, but until recently was only available as one of those e-book things, but is now available as a real book. Trust me: it’s very funny.