Restoration of cannabis in Canada, Can India do the same?

The Cannabis Act passed its final hurdle on Tuesday in a 52-29 vote in the Senate. The bill controls and regulates how the drug can be grown, distributed, and sold. Canadians will be able to buy and consume cannabis legally as early as this September. The country is the second worldwide to legalize the drug’s recreational use. Cannabis possession first became a crime in Canada in 1923 but medical use has been legal since 2001.

When we talk about cannabis (marijuana) in India, its use has been historically bound to faith and mysticism. India has consumed and celebrated charas (hash), bhang and weed for centuries.

Implementation of stringent narcotic laws in 1986 made the sale, consumption, production and transportation of marijuana illegal in the country. 24 years on, here are 5 reasons why marijuana should now be legalized in India.

 

1. It will eliminate illegal trade and associate crimes

Marijuana legalization (or decriminalization) will replace the black market production and distribution with an ‘overboard industry’. There will be rules and regulations but the trade will be ‘populated by the government, farmers, merchants and retails clerks, not by criminals or drug dealers’.

 

2. Marijuana addiction is rare’

An epidemiological study showed that only 9 percent of those who use marijuana end up being clinically dependent on it. The ‘comparable rates’ for tobacco, alcohol and cocaine stood at 32 percent, 15 percent and 16 percent respectively.

 

3. Taxing marijuana will increase government’s revenue

By legalizing and taxing marijuana, the government will stand to earn huge amounts of revenue that will otherwise go to the Italian and Israeli drug cartels. In an open letter to US President George Bush, around 500 economists, led by Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman, called for marijuana to be “legal but taxed and regulated like other goods”.

 

4. It will create job opportunities

Legalization of marijuana for recreational and medical purposes in Colorado has created 10,000 new jobs in the area. There are a plethora of jobs that can be created by the marijuana industry and help reduce India’s unemployment rate.

 

5. Marijuana use has medical benefits

Studies have shown that marijuana use has dozens of medical benefits. It treats glaucoma, prevents cancer from spreading to other parts of the body, reduces anxiety, slows the progress of Alzheimer’s disease, improves metabolism and is even said to spur creativity in our brain.