Reclassifying Cannabis

Yes, we know, the whole debate over whether cannabis should be Class B or Class C is stupid: the only sensible question anyone should be asking is whether the corner shop can sell it in packs of five or ten.

However, the fools are indeed discussing it, the reasoning apparently being that some people go off their heads having smoked it: something of a replay of reefer madness I think.

The Telegraph tells us that mental hospital admissions are strongly up:

It is estimated that as many as 500,000 individuals in Britain may use the drug regularly. Some have developed schizophrenia-like symptoms and mental health hospital admissions due to cannabis have risen by 63 per cent in the past five years.

Half a million regular users looks very low to me: but what's the absolute number of those hospitalised? From the BBC:

In 1996-7, there were 510 admissions, rising to 946 in 2005-6, data obtained by shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley revealed.

Over the last five years alone there was a 65% rise, with experts saying the figures were "the tip of the iceberg".

The Beeb also tells us that there are 2 million users.

So, by the Telegraph's numbers, 0.2% of those using end up with a mental health problem. By the Beeb's, 0.05%.

No, I don't know what a realistic number of users is but somewhere around the back of my head I recall a 20% of the adult population number perhaps? 8 million or so people as occasional users? If true, that would mean something like 0.01% end up with serious problems as a result of smoking weed.

So, leaving aside all the civil liberties arguments, that consenting adults have a right to ingest what they please, Mill and slavery (if you don't own your own body you are indeed a slave) let's think of this like a liberal paternalist shall we?

We shall ban those things which cause people harm: but we do have to come up with some measure of "harm" which justifies the ban. We are, even if paternalists, still liberals, after all.

So, does 0.2% of users being harmed pass our test? 0.05%? 0.01%? Even at that higher number it's still vastly lower as a percentage than the numbers harmed by either tobacco or alcohol: and yet they are both legal. I'd wager very long odds that it's lower than the STD infection rate on one night stands: which are also legal. I'd even take an evens bet on whether it's less dangerous than playing golf in a thunderstorm which while stupid is also legal.

We can go further. Cannabis was a Class B drug until just a few short years ago. It being so classified did not in fact get rid of all of these supposedly gross harms. Cannabis was indeed still smoked and people were indeed suffering mental illnesses as a result. Let's be generous and say that 50% of the current rate of illness would be wiped out by the reclassification (65% rise, 50% drop, why not?).

Some 500 saved from psychosis: from 0.1% to 0.005% of those smoking pot.

And what will be the damage to wider society of increasing the criminal penalties on 500,000 to 8 million people? The tax burden of more jails? The costs of greater policing? Being a little Benthamite here, aren't we supposed to consider all of these things as we search for the greatest good of the greatest number?

I'm sure that others will differ but I really cannot see that this can be justified even on such grounds: that we should save people when on balance their activities cause harm. For on balance the harm caused by greater criminalisation seems greater than those (I agree, unfortunate) 500 who become mentally ill.

Just another example of bansturbation I'm afraid, this time it's the social authoritarians in the Tory Party getting their rocks off over the matter. Heaven forfend that the citizenry should actually be free to go to hell in their own preferred manner.