By Gavin Mackintosh-

The bill seeks to legalise and regulate cannabis products for those suffering serious illnesses like cancer, multiple sclerosis and those living with chronic pain.

However, the terms of its legalisation will require doctors to vet its benefits for individual patients

The news is the latest in a series of  politicians processes globally to legalise marijuana  for medical use. Cannabis has been legalised in parts of the U.S, including New York, New Jersey, and most recently California. Australia, and Germany. Recently, a school in New Jersey, U.S, has been allowed to be administered to pupils on its grounds by a parent or guardian.

The growing trend in many countries to legalise Cannabis has been hailed a huge  triumph among Cannabis smokers, with the danger that it may even further encourage teenagers to take up smoking cannabis as the cool thing to do.

In the U.K, an emphatically worded study entitled: The Tide Effect: how the world is changing its mind on cannabis was produced by the Adam Smith Institute, with the backing of Mp’s across different parties, notably among them, former deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg. This shows the appetite for legalization of Cannabis is gaining momentum in the UK, but since when did recommendation from Mp’s become a benchmark for measuring ideal standards?

Mp’s have had their fair share of embarrassing and disgraceful deeds, though their opinions do carry some weight, after all, they are well educated and very intelligent, right? Even so, we must closely examine their recommendations at every stage.

Although the case generally made for the legalisation of cannabis is to for medical purposes, most cannabis smokers see it as a license for its recreational use with more and more cannabis smokers celebrating the almost world -wide gradual acceptance of cannabis.

Cannabis does, according to scientific opinion, relieve pain for arthritis sufferers and some other serious illnesses, but this does not change the fact that it also causes psychosis for many others, and has a dependence rate so addictive, it is worrying. Many cannabis users will spend their last pound or dollar on marijuana, become lazy and forgetful when high, and very irresponsible too.

It is true that there are cannabis smokers who led relatively responsible lives in terms of holding a  steady job, but there are more who become stupendously lazy and unmotivated. Teenagers and youngsters in their early 20’s are the worst for it. They sit at home smoking endlessly, with no goals or direction. Many of these have no illnesses but will later develop illnesses, physical, mental, or both. The psychological dependence of cannabis itself is an illness of a kind, even though not physical.

The various governments that have put up cannabis for legalisation have all stressed its medical purposes, but not stressed the potential harmful effects it has on the brain of those who abuse it for recreational purposes when they have no serious medical conditions. This needs to be done, to avoid giving the wrong idea to the populace.

Am I against its decriminalisation in the U.K? That’s a tougher question for me. Individuals found with a small amount of cannabis should not be criminalised in my opinion, but if decriminalised completely, it will send the wrong message out to young impressionable teenagers. The cannabis craze is bad enough as it is, complete legalisation of cannabis will make cannabis almost no different to cigarettes. That’s got to be a worrying prospect, though cannabis lovers will hate me for this.