Mark Leviton: How much illegal drug use is there in the United States? Nushin Rashidian: In the U.S. around 35 million people over the age of twelve use a drug illegally during any given month. If you remove those who only consumed cannabis, that number drops below 10 million. Yet half of all drug arrests are for cannabis. Given that extent of use, with relatively little harm, it makes sense that so many Americans support cannabis legalization. The prevailing view is that the known harms of prohibition outweigh the possible harms of legalization, and that arresting and incarcerating people for drug use doesn’t make a lot of sense. Mark Leviton: The federal government classifies drugs on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the most dangerous and subject to the toughest restrictions. Anabolic steroids and Tylenol with codeine are Schedule 3. Methamphetamine and Vicodin are both Schedule 2. Marijuana, along with heroin and LSD, is Schedule 1. What does that mean for advocates of legalization? Nushin Rashidian: It’s not really logical that cannabis ended up on Schedule 1, which is reserved for drugs with no accepted medical use and the highest potential for abuse. Cannabis actually does have valid medical applications. There’s long been a racially tinged hysteria about “marijuana.” We might laugh now at the 1930s film Reefer Madness, but it represented the pervasive belief that cannabis was being pushed on “vulnerable” white people by out-of-control Black and Mexican people. The reason Alyson and I prefer to use the word cannabis instead of marijuana is because it’s more scientifically accurate. But there is another reason: the drafters of the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act — which didn’t prohibit cannabis but did try to tax it out of existence — purposely used the word marihuana for the plant to make something familiar, cannabis, sound unfamiliar and foreign. Schedule 1 classification also creates barriers to research. Today there is only one federally approved producer of research-grade cannabis — at the University of Mississippi at Oxford. In 2018 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Epidiolex, a cannabidiol (CBD) oil, for use by children with epilepsy. CBD interacts with the body’s endocannabinoid system, but it doesn’t get you high. Mark Leviton: At this point, how many states have legalized cannabis for either medical or recreational use? Alyson Martin: It’s a patchwork. Eighteen states and Washington, D.C., have legalized cannabis for adult use. Almost all states have legalized some form of medical cannabis, but some are “CBD only,” which means that the entire cannabis plant has not been legalized for medical use: THC, the main psychoactive compound in cannabis, is excluded. It produces the high. Just to confuse matters further, if a cannabis plant has a THC concentration of 0.3 percent or less, it’s classified as hemp, and totally legal. The federal 2018 Farm Bill removed hemp from the Controlled Substances Act, but hemp cultivation is still highly regulated. For years in Georgia, for example, parents of children with epilepsy could possess CBD oil to treat their kids, but there was no legal method for procuring it. But since 2019 Georgia’s governor has signed legislation to allow for in-state production and sale by several companies. Nushin Rashidian: In Texas, which has a “CBD only” law, there are three companies in the entire state that can legally sell it, so it’s not a full medicalcannabis program. A lot of the classification — this is cannabis, this is hemp; this is medical, this isn’t — is arbitrary. The cannabis you buy in a medical dispensary is the same as what you’re buying in a recreational shop. CBD derived from hemp is the same as CBD derived from marijuana. The Farm Bill didn’t legalize hemp; it legalized low-THC cannabis. But I doubt Senator Mitch McConnell [Republican from Kentucky] would have been a big supporter of the bill if it had been framed as a cannabis-legalization bill. Mark Leviton: Legal cannabis is already an $8 billion annual business, but that pales in comparison to domestic sales of alcohol, which topped $250 billion last year. Could it be that the predictable effects of alcoholic drinks — you consistently get the same results from the same dose and brand — is a crucial factor in its market success? By contrast, marijuana fails to provide a reliable, identical high every time, so many people are wary of it.
Large selection of
Gifts, Crystals, Books, Candles, Tarot Decks, Jewelry, Yoga Supplies and more. Large Incense and Sage Selection Psychic Readings Healing Sessions and Workshops Authentic Native American Handcrafts, burden baskets, drums, rattles and flutes
Enchanted Fox Honoring all spiritual paths 174A Main St., Medway, MA 02053 • 508-533-4440
www.enchantedfox.com
426 Main Street Sturbridge, MA 508-347-2111
Shop Hours: Mon-Fri 10-5; Sat 10-4; Sunday 12-4. Closed Tues. Treatments and services by appointment For full class schedule and descriptions please check our website
www.alternatives-4health.com
Continued on page 52
www.spiritofchange.org
SPRING/SUMMER 2022 | Spirit of Change 51
