On the first of September 2020, Federal Minister Fawad Chaudhary announced a landmark decision by the cabinet. According to his tweet, Cabinet has approved the first license for the “industrial and medicinal use of Hemp..”.
Even though you still can not go out and purchase marijuana for recreational use, it is still an incredibly progressive move on behalf of the federal government in light of the recent growth in marijuana and marijuana adjacent industries across the globe.
Alongside this, other hemp products like fabrics and ropes and substances like hempcrete are incredibly durable and environmentally friendly compared to the mainstream substances used for such purposes.
For example, hempcrete is a construction material made from hemp (as the name implies). It is far more environmentally friendly than concrete. For starters, hemp is recyclable and thus it has a much smaller carbon footprint than most other construction material. It is also great for carbon absorption. The same land can produce two crops of hemp a year whereas for wood you would need multiple years to grow and there would be more impact on the environment when compared to hemp.
This would make it far more suitable for developing countries like Pakistan too, since poorer countries are far more susceptible to the impact of climate change than developed countries and there is enough recent evidence to prove that we can not afford to ruin the environment more than we already have. Furthermore, hempcrete is actually a better option than concrete as a building material, owing to it being much more flexible than the latter.
Hemp is such a versatile substance that it can be used in protein shakes to shoes and even as an environmentally friendly building material and biofuel. It is better for insulation than most other construction material and also water absorbent and naturally insect and pest repellant too, making it a cash crop with an incredibly high variety of industrial use.
In his tweet, Fawad Chaudhary also mentioned the CBD industry and that this act would allow Pakistan to tap into the global market for CBD products. The CBD industry is currently worth upwards of 400 million USD. CBD oil, which is one of the substances found in cannabis along with THC, is used around the world for its medicinal properties. Sufferers of chronic pain, insomnia, and anxiety have been using CBD oil for years now.
Currently, there is ongoing research into some other properties of CBD oil, including its use in reducing or even outright preventing strokes in children with epilepsy as well. All this could not have been done had government regulations not allowed for the legalization of the use of marijuana and hemp products in the United States.
Unfortunately, due to the taboo nature of cannabis, it has not been rigorously researched by scientists in the field of medicine and so there was not enough evidence for the effects of the use of cannabis. Now, however, many countries have lifted their restrictions on the use of medicinal marijuana and now physicians have even started prescribing it to patients for use.
It is generally given to sufferers of acute and chronic pain, HIV AIDs patients and those undergoing chemotherapy are prescribed with medicinal marijuana to induce hunger and reduce nausea and vomiting, it is also prescribed to individuals prone to muscle spasms and, as mentioned earlier, to those suffering from epilepsy as well.
It is hoped that as the restrictions continue to be lifted there will be more evidence to confirm or rule out the benefits of using marijuana in the field of medicine in the future.
It might seem that legalizing marijuana for recreational use in order to bring it from the black market to the more taxable market might be the smarter move, economically, the medicinal use of marijuana might actually make it easier to legalize the use of other controlled substances as well.
Illegal drugs like LSD, Mushrooms (Psilocybin etcetera) and DMT are currently being studied and their effects are being researched for possible use in treatment. For example, in the United States, MDMA or Molly is being used in the treatment of individuals suffering from PTSD. It was reported in 2019 that psychotherapists were employing this strategy in victims of trauma in war and in domestic abuse cases, with positive results.
In 2017, the FDA had granted “Breakthrough therapy” status to MDMA assisted psychotherapy and it is predicted that psychotherapists will start moving on from using it in controlled clinical trials and begin using it for patients that have not responded to other forms of therapy.
Alongside the more legal use of substances like MDMA and LSD microdoses to treat PTSD and other forms of mental illness like depression, there is also a new movement for the use of psychedelic substances like DMT to treat addiction to opioids and other substances. Multiple clinics have opened in south america for the use of Ayahuasca and other teas and drinks that contain DMT in order to aid recovering alcoholics and help those addicted to heroin kick the drugs altogether.
It is incredibly unfortunate that research on such substances has been mostly illegal since the 1960s, when the United States government implemented a war on drugs and most other countries around the world followed suit. Thankfully, in recent years, there has been a lifting of restrictions on many of these substances and this has allowed the medical community to get their hands on, and to test, them for their more benign side effects. This is good news since most users that currently use these drugs for amateur self-medication or recreational use can hopefully in the future obtain and use these substances in safe, supervised environments like clinics and under the watchful eyes of psychotherapists and doctors.
The regulation would not only bring in millions of dollars in the economy (and we need that direly) but it would also prevent the harmful side effects of using tainted and impure substances currently available in the black market.
Though the recent government decision to grant a license for the industrial and medicinal use of hemp is a step in the right direction, there is a long way to go if Pakistan is to tap into the economic and medicinal and health benefits of legalizing and regulating controlled and illegal/taboo substances.
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