The recent news that Singapore swimmer Joseph Schooling admitted taking cannabis in Hanoi is only the latest controversy involving weed which hit close to home. Singaporeans appear divided as to whether the government was overly harsh in meting out a punishment for Schooling; the swimmer is no longer allowed to take leave to compete and train overseas. On one hand this move, which will effectively end Schooling’s career, doesn’t seem to fit the crime. On another, the world swimming body, Fina, prohibits such substances and, of course, what sort of ‘message’ (whether intended or not) is Schooling sending out as a ‘role model’ (whether real or imagined)?
This came almost concurrently with Malaysia’s Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin visiting Thailand on a fact-finding trip on the medicinal use of marijuana. Khairy appears convinced that prescription-based medicines (containing cannabis compounds) are safe and effective, as opposed to self-administered treatment and recreational use.
It has to said at the outset that Schooling’s case and Khairy’s trip are, technically speaking, unrelated. One used marijuana as recreation; another specifically rejects its recreational use. Nevertheless, no one can deny there’s a line from one to the other. Whilst I’m glad Malaysia (and Singapore) continue to criminalize marijuana for recreational purposes, only the very naïve would deny that such use would become more likely should the medicinal aspect be widespread.
Long and short, marijuana has a slippery slope. Towards what, you may ask?
Gateway to hell?
In his 2020 book, award-winning novelist Alex Berenson warned Americans that there is very strong evidence that marijuana use is tied to mental illness and violent crime. In societies where marijuana use is accepted, these outcomes have borne out (see the Bibliography below for sources):
· In 2012, a study of more than nine thousand American men concluded that marijuana use was linked to a doubling of domestic violence.
· Studies in Finland and Denmark, two countries which track mental illness very comprehensively, show a significant rise in psychosis since 2000 following an increase in marijuana use.
· A 2018 study shows that cannabis users were three to five times more likely to have opioid problems three years later
· A 2014 study shows that acute exposure to cannabis produces a full range of symptoms resembling schizophrenia and that an 8-year cumulative risk of conversion to schizophrenia was 46% when the offending substance was cannabis
· A University of Queensland study in 2021 study shows that regular cannabis use has harmful effects regardless of the age a person starts using
· Cannabis use is prospectively associated with both heavy drinking and with the development and maintenance of alcohol use disorder, according to a cross-sectional study in 2020
There are many other studies but I think the point is made. Marijuana is not harmless.
It is, in fact, a gateway drug to numerous problems in our communities, as Europe and the States have already shown us. And since Malaysia is already plagued with tragic levels of alcohol addiction, homelessness, drug abuse, etc. let’s be VERY careful about introducing something like cannabis into the population.
At the very least, we must be cognizant of the hidden (and by now not-so-hidden) risks and dangers it poses to the country — lest we go from ‘medicinal’ to ‘recreational’ to ‘infernal’ in no time.
Bibliography:
Is there a link between marijuana use and psychiatric disorders? (2020). https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/there-link-between-marijuana-use-psychiatric-disorders
Today’s Heroin Epidemic Infographics. (2015). Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/heroin/infographic.html
For Opioid Use Disorder, Does Cannabis Produce Harm or Reduce Harm? (2018). Recovery Research Institute. https://www.recoveryanswers.org/research-post/opioid-use-disorder-cannabis-produce-harm-reduce-harm/
Berenson, A. (2019). Marijuana, Mental illness, and Violence. Missouri Medicine, 116(6), 446–449.
Berenson, A. (2020). Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness and Violence. Free Press.
Chan, G.C.K., Becker, D., Butterworth, P., Hines, L., Coffey, C., Hall, W. and Patton, G. (2021), Young-adult compared to adolescent onset of regular cannabis use: A 20-year prospective cohort study of later consequences. Drug Alcohol Rev., 40: 627–636
Miller, B. (2021). Does Cannabis Cause Psychosis? Psychiatric Times, 38(3). https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/cannabis-cause-psychosis
Radhakrishnan, R., Wilkinson, S. T., & D’Souza, D. C. (2014). Gone to Pot — A Review of the Association between Cannabis and Psychosis. Frontiers in psychiatry, 5, 54. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2014.00054
Ramadan, M.M., Banta, J.E., Bahjri, K. et al. Frequency of cannabis use and alcohol-associated adverse effects in a representative sample of U.S. adolescents and youth (2002–2014) a cross-sectional study. J Cannabis Res 2, 38 (2020)
