Cannabis 'dependency'.

 

If "Addiction is an inability to stop using a substance or engaging in a behavior even though it is causing psychological and physical harm" then I am not addicted to cannabis. I can and have refrained from using it for extended periods, either because it was unavailable or, to test/prove a point. An ex friend once had a letter printed in 'The Times' in response to an article claiming that cannabis use promotes paranoia. The letter posed the question: 'if drinking port was criminilised similarly to cannabis, might not port drinkers experience paranoia?' I thought that was quite clever, though it was well over twenty years ago; things have changed. There is something called "Cannabis Dependency Disorder", which is an inability to reduce or stop using cannabis... Hmmm...It does sound a tad made up to me in the sense of clinicians setting out to prove something they already believed. In any case, as I have refrained in the past, I'm unconvinced that CDD applies to me, though I acept that putting an end date to any period of abstinence creates different results to someone who doesn't know when it will end.

Moving to County Durham has a number of appealling factors to it, including a relaxed and sensible approach to cannabis use. Things ARE changing, but much too slowly. The present government: "Bojo and Co" do not see cannabis decriminalisation as anything of a priority. I think that is a major mistake: Decriminalisation of cannabis will have a sequence of positive impacts starting with being able to divert law enforcement resources to more important issues and including significant economic benefits. Colorado and Portugal are uncomfortable real life examples for the cannabis prohibition lobby: none of the societal disasters constantly prophesised have come to pass in places where cannabis has been decriminalised. A 'Selfservative' UK government commissioned research and then rejected it and sacked its leader; Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology; David Nutt when he didn't come up with the prohibition declaration they wanted of him. Then, there is the issue that the MP responsible for this has a husband who has the largest legal cannabis farm in the country where the product is sold (for medical use) at hundreds of times more than what is available 'on the street'...

But, while I can claim with confidence that I am not "addicted" to cannabis, abstinence exposes a pschological "dependence" to which I will confess. Some might say that the difference is too small to be relevant, that isn't my experience. My "dependency" manifests in boredom and mild (sometimes increasing) irritation when I abstain. I will more easily dismiss and ignore things that might bother me when I know I can treat myself to a little 'herbal tonic' later on. I confess that in one 100 day 'holiday' I found myself getting quite murderous near the end, but there were things happening at the time that would have tested a saint!

I've friends whose waking thought is to roll a joint and they spend much of their days in a slight fog as a result. Each to their own! I save mine to be a reward for a day well (or badly) spent and would never use it before I went to work, for example... Having said that; in the past I have used urges to smoke before work as a clear indication that I need to leave that job! It is part of my ethics (?) to use things like cannabis as a personal reward rather than a continual indulgence and cop-out aid. This week was... actually "odd" is a better word than "hard" as I was going to write: being at home and being a bit of a Covid recluse is fine with a mild herbal sedative, without it the TV schedule became boring and irritating, I craved intellectual conversation, I realised that I rarely engage with anyone about things that give me passion. And yet there was a day mid-week where everything seemed delightful and amusing and I was in the best of moods. The weather 'turning' might have helped put pay to those feelings. I began to think about what I have "lost" since giving up on the so-called "Creative Professionals" who caved in to Arse Council (sic) intimidation and allowed the North East Sustained Theatre project to fall by the wayside... That was the last time I spoke with Idriss as we were going to name the studio theatre in the proposed building after him- AND he said he would have been prepared to play a DJ gig for us as a fundraiser! But those... "creative professionals" literally baulked at being asked to stand up and be counted, they preferred to let me take the flakk on their behalf and expected to waltz in an make demands once it had been secured. My practical experience in the creative sector has dwindled to nothing since then...

Hmmm... So, cannabis contributes to me controlling caustic memories which raise my blood-pressure and remind me of times when I failed to steer groups and organisations in directions to ensure their survival and benefit. I derive little comfort in the knowledge that I was proved right each time... 

Time for a toke.