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Rating: The book.
This is a book that analyzes the so-called "therapeutic properties" of marijuana for the treatment of various diseases, highlighting how the active ingredients of the substance are not harmful to the body.
There is thus a critique of the regulatory regime of various states that not only prohibit its use for therapeutic purposes but also its free trade, demonizing a substance of clear utility.
Preface by Luigi Manconi.
Separating opinions from facts (PDL's comment):
"What paths in front of drugs?"
One of the hottest and most controversial topics of contemporary life, on which many have privately asked me to write, is that of drugs and their spread in society. Cannabis, crack, heroin, hashish, cocaine, speedball, opium, amphetamines, absinthe, ketamine, and various herbs damage, according to medicine, the bodies, and according to the most accredited psychology, souls, clouding them and determining, often forever, the loss of the mental faculties of the consumers.
The resulting plight is truly noteworthy, and it engages us not only as individuals, but also as a community, since we cannot abstain from providing care for drug addicts and, in the crude substance, bearing the costs deriving from the consumption and spread of this merchandise, as well as the habitualization of the relative consumers, not to mention the "means-crimes" functional to purchasing drugs (thefts, robberies, prostitution).
Consumers who, it must be said, are spread across various segments of the population, not only in social centers but also in more refined, cultured, or socially well-integrated environments; together, as clear, with dealers, variously linked to organized crime (it is indeed known how the neighborhood dealer relies on the city dealer who in turn, going up and rising from the depths, takes us to the Drug Traffickers of South America or Central Asia, obviously passing through the Italian mafias: and on this point, I think of the potheads at the social center near my house who hold sit-ins for Saviano while indirectly bringing money to the clans that the writer combats).
The importance of the problem seems so evident that no further elongations are required, while it is interesting, even for the "average" user of the site, to delve into the political reactions to the issue. Two fundamental theses, even if, obviously, I simplify the issue a bit: prohibitionism and anti-prohibitionism.
The prohibitionists, usually moderate or conservative, in essence, intend to discourage the consumption of any type of drug based on an a priori rejection of the substance's use, without too many distinctions (being, after all, a single criminal origin) through very strict prohibitions and sanctions, partly for consumers, and especially for dealers and producers: geometrically clear and enviable thesis in its stringent logic; however little effective, as history shows, also regarding the prohibitionism of the 1920s in the States.
To be seriously anti-prohibitionists, one would indeed have to harshly suppress the phenomenon, and the Police Forces are not always able, due to lack of resources, cultural perspective shortcomings, corruption risks, to act accordingly (think about how the gangsters in "The Godfather" corrupted the prohibitionist cops).
Add to this how the anti-prohibitionist policy, to work effectively, must be global, and not "local" as happens today: I certainly cannot forbid an Italian guy from taking drugs, when with little money he can fly to Amsterdam and do it without limits, because my state policy turns out to be entirely empty, apparent, useless in achieving predetermined goals.
Thus remain the anti-prohibitionist theses, to which goes attributed also this book by *****, where the differences between various drugs are briefly outlined, and a distinction between light and heavy drugs is traced - albeit arbitrarily, on a qualitative basis, without, moreover, considering how the environment and milieu in which light drugs are consumed is the same in which heavy ones can also be consumed.
The anti-prohibitionist theses are liberal theses (though, curiously, championed by the extreme left) according to which, within certain limits, anyone is free to do as they please, so the production and dealing of certain drugs are criminally illicit, but not of all (e.g. I prohibit heroin but not hashish).
It is said that, by doing so, hypocrisies are eliminated; the legs are cut from the crime trading these substances, an alternative is attempted compared to inefficient prohibitionism, and individual responsibility is encouraged as consumers of psychotropic substances.
These are sometimes contradictory theses: for example, there are no studies that allow serious discrimination between drug and drug, determining the exact boundary of the "light" from the "heavy" one, in relation to the consumption and organism need of each; it does not appear credible that the invoked liberalization blocks the business of crime, being well-known the illegal trade of freely consumable substances like cigarettes which are still put in parallel circuits to those of official marketing; furthermore, these are "liberal" theses that do not, however, draw the logical consequences of their premises: in other words, free drugs, but then also a free State from healthcare services for addicts and similar, who should no longer have a right to free medical assistance for their pathologies; these are theses that sometimes mask or underestimate in good faith, the economic interest behind anti-prohibitionism, namely that of the same drug producers who, once the business is liberalized, could eventually resurface, through shell or controlled companies, as producers of the same, which practically becomes a big favor to drug trafficking and its economy.
And contradictory is also this book: where, to justify the liberalization of marijuana consumption, it specifies its therapeutic properties. Which, if true, does not imply that the substance should be used outside of prescribed medical therapies at the hospital level: otherwise, we should liberalize every type of drug. This book essentially tells us that marijuana is a medicine, but qualifying such a substance in these terms is not, nor should it be, a premise for related liberalization. If anything, the opposite, namely for its administration under medical supervision.
The fact remains that, in a no longer ethical State, the anti-prohibitionist theses turn out to be theses (contradictory but) of good accommodating residual sense, similarly to what happened in the past for abortion. Since prohibiting it causes more harm than making it reasonably free, let's make it free.
So, reasonably, the anti-prohibitionist theses can be considered prevalent.
A final thesis of mine remains, which I propose to the users, obviously called to say their own: in reality, drug use is initially encouraged, more than by their psychotropic capability, by the fact that they are forbidden, and therefore by the forbidden's flavor felt while posing as alternative snobs when puffing in certain environments, or inhaling substances in others; by liberalizing light drugs, or only certain drugs, the sense of the forbidden would then push young people to the immediate direct consumption of heavy drugs and various devilries (glue, gasoline), pushing the "sphere of the forbidden" much further, a pillar of Hercules that the human mind always wants to overcome, causing over the long run problems of obvious severity.
I think, therefore, that a median thesis, and one of adequate compromise, is to abstractly prohibit the consumption of all drugs, in such a way as to raise and lower the threshold of the forbidden, but not materially repress young people who occasionally consume them, asking our Law Enforcement to turn a blind eye to them, maybe focusing solely on suppressing drug trafficking, except for some exemplary punishment and always respecting guarantees. Similarly, a mandatory health insurance could be imposed on all subjects who declare to use drugs, light or heavy, or on families with underage children in social centers or high-class drug parties, so as not to overly burden the State coffers – or everyone else's – when drug consumption results in various pathologies.
The topic is obviously delicate, I merely suggest a secular and anti-ideological approach. It is obvious that the solutions can be diverse: the task for the users is to reflect and meditate on them, clearly and correctly – and possibly politely.
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