Woke Folks’ Dope Conundrum

“Woke” (adjective): actively aware of systemic injustices and prejudices, especially those related to civil and human rights. (Dictionary.com). So, this is something close to the hearts of all the Social Justice Warriors out there, and why not? It’s a righteous thing, and should be embraced, yes? Fair enough, all of the hate stuff, racism, misogyny, homophobia and all the rest of them are clearly a bad thing. Big Pharma is also obviously a bad thing: I’m not quite sure that it should be classed in there with these others, but that’s just a personal view. Anyhow, these righteous folks will boycott products from particular countries, go on marches, demonstrations and suchlike. And it’s a good thing, too. But of course, “woke” folk can get it wrong too. Recently, a colleague of mine was pretty much forced to make an apology for stating in a lecture that “men can’t have babies”: it’s a “grey area”, apparently. One wonders what the situation is among the “woke” and social justice communities regarding drug use? I’ll come to cannabis in a minute, but not so long ago, UK citizens were given a pretty stern ticking off by the Home Office drug prevention people regarding their use of illicit substances. In that instance, they were specifically aiming at people who use cocaine (though it could certainly be applied to heroin as well), and the main point of the campaign was that purchasing and using coke was pretty much tantamount to “funding terrorism”. It’s a fair point, I suppose. However, in the same way that coke and H could reasonably be regarded as funding terrorism, could the purchase of Israeli cannabis products reasonably be seen as funding a terrorist (if you happen to be a Palestinian) state? Fact: for a number of decades, the Israelis have been at the forefront of cannabis science; Raphael Mechoulam “The Grandfather of Cannabis Research” isolated and identified CBD in 1963, and THC in 1964 (albeit based on the work of one Dr Roger Adams some 20 years earlier). He discovered the endocannabinoid system. As such, we’ve all got quite a lot to thank him for. The effectiveness of the “Entourage Effect” appears to have originated in Israeli work as well. At the moment, there’s intensive research investigating the effectiveness of cannabis in treating ailments more commonly found in older people, such as dementia. More recent developments include the Israeli government green lighting the export of medical cannabis products, And, to digress from cannabis briefly, in the past week, it seems that the Israeli Ministry of Health has approved therapeutic MDMA for PTSD Treatment; bang, just like that. Essentially, Israel is – and has been for a number of decades - way ahead of the rest of the world in the arena of medical cannabis research. Weird, given it’s an absolute no-no to spark up a joint there for non-medical purposes: it’s all big stuff. It’s all important stuff. Here’s my problem with all of this. Many people – both “woke” and just generally concerned - of my acquaintance here in the UK, take a pretty dim view of the Israeli State (as opposed to Jewish people per se, let’s be absolutely clear about that, and not conflate the two things, please), principally regarding their treatment of the Palestinians. I’m wondering whether they’ll apply the same rigid set of principles to Israeli cannabis medicine? All of this may well be a moot point very soon as right now in the UK, we have this, frankly, ludicrous situation unfolding, whereby shadowy vested interests seem intent on turning even the most moderate of protests against the Israeli State into a criminal act of anti-Semitism. And it’s not the same thing. Not in the least. But it’s a problem. Or perhaps it isn’t. Perhaps cognitive dissonance will kick in, the same way it does when the woke folks buy their cocaine. Dr Dee