Where's the evidence?

A further chunk of responses to Mr Wilkinson.

Mr Wilkinson quotes me: 'In the case of cannabis and other illegal drugs, it is still quite possible, through enforcement, to discourage all but the most determined from taking up the use of drugs which are not part of our culture and which are widely (and justly) viewed with suspicion. For that, possession must remain an offence and be effectively prosecuted.
By the way,  I really do hope those posting here who continue to deny the possibility of a link between cannabis and mental illness will soon grow up and start acting responsibly. Don't they realise that some young person, acting on their complacent, ill-informed  advice, might end up needlessly in a locked ward?  And it will be their fault. Can they really not face the infinitesimally small risk of prosecution, and the still smaller one of actual punishment, as the price of their nasty pleasure?  In that case, are they really the bold revolutionaries they imagine themselves to be? Must they sacrifice others for it? And how long will they continue to expect that the rest of us will take their insistence that 'it never did me any harm' at face value? As I've pointed out before, they're not the ones to say. The self-regard of these people is limitless, and is perhaps a sign of the deeper damage done by this drug even to those who appear superficially to be unharmed by it.'

And he replies: 'I can't agree with this: the reason given for extending much harsher penalties to a substantial proportion of the population is that cannabis is 'not part of the culture' and 'widely (and justly) viewed with suspicion'. The justice of the suspicion is treated as an afterthought, despite being the important point.'

**My comment: This is silly. He should not read too much into word order. It is my view that cannabis is an evil poison that should be banned from sale by law because of the terrible things that it can do and has done to gullible and ill-informed people. That is why we are having this discussion.

Mr Wilkinson: 'If cannabis use is so harmful that we must attempt to stamp it out by the use of harsh penalties and vastly expanded detection efforts, rather than bringing it under regulatory control by legalisation, one would expect to be able to find good evidence of such extreme harmfulness (assuming that we are willing to accept that extreme social engineering should be brought to bear in any case).'

**My reply: 'Would we, though? How is such evidence obtained? Through research. Who will do such research? Those who are paid to do it. What are the sources of money for research which will explore the apparent correlations between cannabis and mental illness? In whose interest, in government or in commerce, would it be?

There seem to me, however, to be pointers. Some posters on this site attest to their own experiences. Patrick and Henry Cockburn's book suggests that there is a connection. My own acquaintance, and my rather wider correspondence with readers attest to numbers of parents (and teachers) who have seen young men (it is usually young men) go through severe mental health problems after the use of cannabis. Unless Mr Wilkinson is a hermit, and knows no parents of male teenagers, I would be amazed if he has not heard of such things. It is a very common story in modern Britain. The absence of research so conclusive as to persuade cannabis advocates doesn't in any way allay the suspicions aroused by such things.  For how many tyears Mr Wilkinson even seems (I am not sure about this) to dismiss the work of Professor Sir Robin Murray as of no account. This seems cavalier, nonchalant,  even arrogant.

The headline of my first reply was a quotation from Oliver Cromwell, in another context (and a play on the name of Mr Wilkinson's weblog, 'Surely Some Mistake'). What Cromwell said was: 'I beseech ye, in the bowels of Christ, to think it possible that ye may be mistaken.'

To the complacent army of the cannabis lobby, I suggest that this is actually quite a modest request. Not to admit that you are mistaken. Just to think it possible that you might be. Try it. On this matter it may save you from some regret when the research finally comes in. You have so much more to lose, from being wrong, than I have. If I manage to prevent a hundred young men (and their parents) from suffering what Henry Cockburn suffered (and will suffer till his life's end), then it will weigh in the balance quite heavily against many of the bad things In have done. If I turn out to be wrong, and Henry's trouble had nothing to do with Cannabis (unlikely, but there), then I will have done no harm to anyone by preventing a hundred young men from using a stupid drug. Now, try that the other way round.

This cannot go further until Mr Wilkinson answers my earlier question. I repeat it, once again: 'I want to know precisely which claims he views as 'overblown', and whether he accepts that cannabis has – or might in future be found to have - any dangers for those who use it. And if so, what he believes those dangers are.'

Mr Wilkinson goes on to deal with the morality of stupefaction. He says: 'That it is morally wrong does not of course entail that it should be subject to criminal sanction. The hoary example of adultery will do for one.'

**I reply: Yes, that's an example of a moral wrong that can't or won't be dealt with by criminal sanction.

But then again there are plenty of others, theft, violence, fraud, rape, that are morally wrong but can be and are dealt with by penal sanctions.  So the distinction is unhelpful. Sometimes you can. Sometimes you can't. Sometimes you should. Sometimes you shouldn't. The decision appears to be pragmatic, as is most law-making. Will it work in this case? Yes, it will.

The need for the criminal law in this case arises from the very strong advertising of dangerous drugs as harmless and benevolent by the behaviour, song lyrics,  statements etc of public figures, especially rock stars, but also painters, actors, scientists, authors, retired policemen, judges  and politicians, broadcasters, poets etc, who have (in most cases knowing no more about it than I do and perhaps less) put their names to advertisements, reports and declarations claiming that the drug is harmless and calling for legal sanctions against it to be weakened. 

Mr Wilkinson continues: 'Further, the claim that it is morally wrong in itself – rather than when done in some specifically irresponsible way such as when driving or in charge of children - is a hard one to justify.

** No it isn't. A substance which has (or which may reasonably be supposed to have) the unpredictable power to destroy the mind of any user even with moderate use, and which is on common sale and effectively decriminalised cannot be driven back into the margins of society if it is a little bit legal. Its sale and possession have to be unequivocally banned and systematically and predictable punished by law. Those who believe that it does them no harm (even though they are in no position to know, and even their closest friends and relatives cannot know what they might have been had they never taken this substance) just have to accept that for the greater good and safety of those weaker than themselves, the law is necessary.  And they must therefore abide by it or accept the known penalties for breaking it. What they cannot morally do is insist that it should be on free sale to people who may be harmed by it, so as to make their own pleasure more convenient.

Mr Wilkinson here shows signs of exasperated superiority at my pigheaded stupidity. He sighs : 'I confess to not really knowing where to start in rebutting thus argument – it just seems obvious to me that this isn't the case, and that's not going to convince anyone who disagrees with me. I suppose I would say the burden of proof, as with regard to the need for prohibition, lies on those who make the claim.'

** My reply: This is slippery. Mr Wilkinson has the sense to know that the question has at least been raised about the safety of cannabis, and raised by serious persons.  He has the historical knowledge to know that there was a long period during which tobacco had a similar status, and its users and promoters used similar arguments against restrictions on it (I have a 1963 volume of 'Punch' magazine containing lots of jokes about the laughable idea of the prohibition of cigarettes, which now looks a little lame).  Richard Doll had a long fight to get official backing. I believe we are now in an equivalent period for cannabis (and for several legal drugs now in alarmingly common use). If my fears are shown, by serious research, to be groundless, then I shall abandon my campaign. But I don't think I shall, and I don't think Mr Wilkinson really thinks so either.

Mr Wilkinson returns to philosophy: 'But certainly Peter Geach – an eminent philosopher who has examined the issue in depth from a traditionalist, Christian perspective - concludes in The Virtues that such a case can't be made out – a view shared by his wife Elizabeth Anscombe:

p133:
If drinking alcohol is wrong, the reason is not that it makes you less alert than you might possibly be, but that makes you less alert than you then and there ought to be; and the degree to which you ought to be alert varies very much… a man safe tucked up in bed has no duty for even the lowest degree of alertness, for he could lawfully just go to sleep. There are mediate cases, into the casuistry of which I will not enter.

If we may for the moment abstract from the question whether the law-breaking that may be involved is morally objectionable, then we ought, I think, to judge about cannabis indica much as we judge about alcohol…'

**I can hear the high-pitched North Oxford giggles as this stuff streamed from the pen. 'Cannabis indica' eh? How jolly scholarly. Yet it is so easy to explode it.  What if the man, having gone to sleep drunk, is woken at two a.m. by the screams of his children, trapped in a fire? Or not woken? Or not woken until far too late?  Where then is his duty? Was the drinking or the (tee hee) consumption of 'cannabis indica' morally objectionable if the children, as a result, were not saved?  Yet he could not have known the house would catch fire -only that there was a remote chance that it might. And a remote chance that he would be too stupefied to act with courage and decision. Even if he was alone and therefore (according to the utilitarian 'libertarians') nobody's concern but his own, he would have been more likely to burn to death, and others would have had to turn out to scrape through the ruins for his charred bones, or even risk their lives trying to rescue his already lifeless body.  If a 'traditional, Christian perspective' gets you off that hook, then I don't share it.

As for the rest, I think it mere repetition. I'd rather have a stern law than freely-available cannabis, and I am quite prepared to accept the consequences. This of course makes me unpopular and disliked simply for saying so, and impels people to call me rude names. So be it.

This distinguishes me from my opponent, who maintains that there are no bad consequences arising from his policy, and would - so far as I can see - deny the dangers of cannabis until and unless they affected him personally (I beg him not to wait). I don't mind being called 'paternalist', as I think drug-takers are largely infantilised by their pitiable habit, and need a parental hand.

My reply is now concluded.