Popular Misconceptions Surrounding Cannabis

According to WHO, 147-million people enjoy the many benefits of cannabis. As high as this number sounds, this only makes up for 2.5% of the world’s population. Among the remaining 97.5% there exists a whole manner of misconceptions surrounding the ‘Devil’s Lettuce’, or, as I prefer to call it, ‘God’s Cabbage’.

These fallacies are the spawn of a collective lack of judegement and cast those that choose to enjoy the Heaven-sent vegetation in a dim light; tarring us all in that proverbial brush of criminality. These judgements are seldom accurate and are miles beyond the realms of fairness.

Despite having a better beard than Jamie Hyneman, I thought it was a good time to do some cannabis mythbusting.

1 – Cannabis Makes you Lazy and Stoners Are Work-Shy

This is quite possibly the most damaging of all the false impressions. I have put the two together as they go hand in hand. Yes, I can agree that there do exist many stoners that like to spend their days in their underwear, smoking weed and watching TV, but there’s also an insumountable number of people that don’t smoke and do exactly the same (minus the smoking part, of course).

The truth is that many people that smoke cannabis also work. Unemployed tokers usually smoke more for no other reason than to aliviate the inevitable boredom. In fact, many people use energy-inducing sativa strains at work to help with inspiration, creativity and to motivate.

2 – Cannabis is a Gateway Drug

Many believe that smoking cannabis will invariably lead to people taking harder drugs. In my personal experience, this is way off the mark. Throughout my 20+ years of smoking cannabis, I have met many like-minded smokers that have never touched anything harder than cannabis (apart from the demon drink, of course).

The truth is that hard drugs are oftentimes turned to as a crutch, to “help” people through hard and dark times. It’s seldom the case that people feel a sudden urge to develop a heroin habit (for instance), just because they enjoy being stoned. Among stoners, the dangers of these narcotics are just as well known as they are outside of the circle.

3 – Cannabis Leads to Crime and Increases Taxes

Unlike people with addicitions to life-destroying drugs, there’s a very small percentage that feel the need to hijack a car, burgle a house or attack someone in the street to steal their belongings to pay for their cannabis.

In truth, the reality is exactly the opposite. The legislation of cannabis – in those states and countries that have seen sense – has, in fact, lead to a drop in crime rates. So much money is wasted on the “War Against Cannabis” through intelligence gathering, drug raids and police personnel.

Furthermore, the far more sociably acceptable drug, alcohol, is prevelant in police reports spanning the globe. This is due to the disinhibiting side effects that cause people to do things that they wouldn’t normally do. A far cry from the fits of giggles and fridge-raiding sprees caused by smoking cannabis.

Cannabis Causes Schizophrenia

Another complete misconception, passed off as fact – often by people that have never smoked or injested cannabis – is that the herb causes schizophrenia. On the contrary, there is no medical evidence to support this. People suffering from schizophrenia can have a “schizophrenic break” through smoking cannabis, but there’s nothing to suggest that cannabis can be the root cause of the disorder.

Summary

We may follow this with another article as there are so many misconceptions surrounding cannabis. The above, however, are possibly the most common and widely spread. If you think I have missed a relevant one off this list, please feel free to drop it in the comments.