Cannabis: Let's learn from alcohol

[Read the original ]

Cannabis is beginning to reach large commercial scale, with all the extra challenges that this brings. We should not let it become alcohol and tobacco 3.0.

THC Review has begun following global cannabis news, a foundation for in-depth reporting and discussion to come. It also has a nascent newsletter and LinkedIn page.

It will borrow heavily from the open format of Alcohol Review which unearthed numerous important stories and hosted a range of informed discussions since it began in 2016.

The coverage will again come from a public-interest perspective, centred on health and wellbeing. It also again does it acknowledging it always has much more to learn.

Why cover cannabis?

The reason for the crossover is that cannabis is beginning to gain the global scale of alcohol and tobacco, which have harms that reflect their enormous customer base.

There is little reason to think that commercialising cannabis will not have similar effects, with marketing, availability and product development, so boosting consumption.?

The duty to deliver shareholder returns means downplaying risk, promoting purported benefits, fighting regulation, often in the guise of a fight for individual freedoms.

THC Review will be vigilant in ensuring the motives and methods of economic interests are known. Cannabis is an unusual product but the business fundamentals apply.

Cannabis interests will increasingly impact public health, science, politics, law, media and public discussion. Those already in business are already making inroads.

Business interests, associates and enthusiasts widely downplay health concerns, berate any critics, and laud their potential economic contributions and cannabis’s ported medicinal use.

If thousands of prescriptions are being written for cannabis to treat someone’s low mood or frayed nerves, say, then why not make it available over-the-counter to everyone?

The US drug’s administrator, the FDA, has not licensed cannabis to treat any disease or condition. This should surely give non-experts some pause for thought, as should many reports of serious health risks.

Alcohol and tobacco trod a similarly confused scientific no-man’s land. Offering them the benefit of the doubt did not work out well. Let’s not do that again.

On legalisation

THC Review is not fundamentally opposed legalisation. Regulation seems better aimed at producers than consumers.?But legalisation is not one thing either and all its forms cannot be given uncritical approval.

It is still an enormous job to police illegal alcohol and tobacco. And we are far from always successful in combating the problems created by large legitimate industries. The risk of repetition is real.

But it is too soon to get into all this now. It will unfold more naturally over time. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, a task that is both stimulating and enlightening.

I hope you will join and look forward to hearing your news, views, feedback and ideas.

You can follow on THC Review on Twitter , LinkedIn and get the newsletter .