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DR.

RAM MANOHAR LOHIYA NATIONAL LAW


UNIVERSITY
Semester III

!
SOCIOLOGY PROJECT

WHY MARIJUANA SHOULD BE LEGALISED IN INDIA ?

Submitted to Submitted by

Dr. Sanjay Singh Chaitanya

170101047

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HISTORY
The earliest mention of cannabis has been found in The Vedas, or sacred Hindu texts. These
writings may have been compiled as early as 2000 to 1400 B.C. According to The Vedas, cannabis
was one of five sacred plants and a guardian angel lived in its leaves. The Vedas call cannabis a
source of happiness, joy-giver, liberator that was compassionately given to humans to help us attain
delight and lose fear (Abel, 1980). It releases us from anxiety. The god, Shiva is frequently
associated with cannabis, called bhang in India. According to legend, Shiva wandered off into the
fields after an angry discourse with his family. Drained from the family conflict and the hot sun, he
fell asleep under a leafy plant. When he awoke, his curiosity led him to sample the leaves of the
plant. Instantly rejuvenated, Shiva made the plant his favourite food and he became known as the
Lord of Bhang.

INTRODUCTION
What is Marijuana? Marijuana is a drug made up of hemp plant called Cannabis Sativa.
The cannabis plant is also used to make paper, fuel, soap, rope, maps, net, lace, jute
bags, oil for lightning, paint, animal food, lotions, etc. Production of marijuana has been
present in India since the ancient period- the era of thriving gods and goddesses. The
current status of marijuana in India is defined as an illicit drug because if smoked and
inhaled in high dosage, it results in psychological or physical side effects. Marijuana is just
a plant whose production helps in generating many useful products for our daily survival.
Why should the government ban marijuana when it is aware of the fact that its production
helps in the manufacture of many useful products. Eventually, there are states whose
income depends on the cultivation of cannabis. Keeping in mind the original uses of
marijuana, I believe that marijuana should be legalized in India.

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INDIAN LAW AND PROHIBITION OF
MARIJUANA
The prohibition of cannabis was first entrenched in Indian law in 1985, with the introduction of The
Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. However, the drug had already been illegal in the
country for over two decades because our government had signed the UN’s Single Convention on
Narcotic Drugs treaty in 1961. This piece of international legislation stands out in its emotional
wording; unlike most treaties, which employ accurate and objective terminology to identify their
goals, the Single Convention refers to drug addiction as “a serious evil for the individual [that] is
fraught with social and economic danger to mankind”.
This hyperbolic phrasing formed the base upon which international cannabis prohibition was built,
inflicting needless black-market violence across the world to suppress the trade of a drug with far
less harms than alcohol, tobacco, or even many of the drugs you may find in your medicine cabinet.

REASONS WHY MARIJUANA SHOULD BE


LEGALISED IN INDIA
• 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’.

• 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. According to the World Drug Report, over a
quarter billion people consumed illegal drugs in 2015, nearly 5% of the world population — the
biggest chunk of this were the consumers of Cannabis — 183 million users.

• The international prohibition of cannabis has failed in every country that has attempted to
implement it. Instead of stopping drug use, cannabis prohibition has fuelled violence and

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criminality, increased health harms, and cost society an exorbitant and immeasurable sum of
money.

• When it comes to customary usage of cannabis, the first thing which clicks our mind is Lord
Shiva. The festival of Maha Shivratri is celebrated by offering cannabis to Lord Shiva. The
festival makes consumption of Bhang acceptable as it is stated in the Hindu scriptures that bhang
is used to purify the elixir of life Lord Shiva which he created from his body. Therefore,
marijuana was completely legal in the historical period, and there was no policing done to its
usage.

• According to a 2011 by the American Journal of Medicine, fatness is lower in those people who
use cannabis in comparison to nonusers. In animal tests, the drug additionally had an effect on
the amount of fat within the body as well as its response to internal secretion. Cannabis
compounds were shown to lift metabolism in rats, resulting in lower levels of fat in the liver and
lower cholesterol. Human trials are being conducted to seek out a drug targeting obesity-related
diseases.

• Legalizing of Marijuana will lead to a rise in the growth of GDP. Imposing tax on selling of
marijuana will anyway help in keeping a control over its production, and it would be a help to
the Indian economy. Such Marijuana in Netherland contributes $3.2 billion with an annual gross.
It is said that 60,000 kgs of hash and 40,000 kgs of opium is produced in Himachal Pradesh. Out
of that, only 500 kgs is seized annually. As per reports, “more than 1,600 hectares of cultivable
farmland and an additional 500 hectares of illicitly felled public forests are currently under
cannabis cultivation”.

• Prohibition is failed to curb the production of marijuana as states like Himachal Pradesh, Tamil
Nadu or North East India completely depend on the production of marijuana. They have no other
source income except this. So why not legalize it, as legalizing marijuana will create job
opportunities for many people.

• In India, dealers often mix hash and weed with chemicals or other drugs like afeem to improve
the taste, colour, texture or ‘high’ of the stuff. Legalization will improve the quality of marijuana
sold to the users because government will regulate the production and sale of the drug. You will

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know the realise the difference in taste between that in Mumbai from the stuff in Himachal
Pradesh.

• Cannabis has anti-inflammatory properties which help in providing relief to the patient. In fact,
the effects are said to be a “thousand times more effective than that of aspirin.” Doctors in
California have treated more than 3, 00,000 or more than that migraine cases with the usage of
medical marijuana. It has resulted in effective treatment of a host of illnesses and conditions,
such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and Alzheimer diseases.

• The alcohol lobby, like the cigarette lobby, is very powerful and it would obviously not like
natural intoxicants like weed to be made available legally and easily for the poor, as this would
render weed cheaper than alcohol. Alcohol destroys the health and economy of families. Ideally
one should not be using any intoxicant. No drugs at all. But I wish to allay fears that marijuana is
a gateway drug. By itself, it is not an intoxication that is habit-forming.

• In Odisha, where weed is still legal, people can buy marijuana for recreational use. The elderly
people there congregate every Monday evening and do a puja called the Trinath Mela. They sit
under a big tree and pray to the three supreme beings and smoke ganja in the open. It is a custom
that has been in existence for hundreds of years; I see no reason for making it illegal.

• This banning of marijuana, has been a sweeping action depriving people of the good things it has
to offer. Back then, pressures from the U.S., which is now legalising marijuana, forced us to
conform. Now, several states in the U.S. have legalised pot. In fact, a company called American
Green has bought a small township (Nipton, California) and wants to make it a ‘smart ganja’
township. The townsfolk will get fabrics, medicines, as well as smokable marijuana.

• India should ideally focus on marijuana’s medicinal use. It is known to help people with eye
ailments, cancer, and joint pain. Incidentally, China is also doing a lot of research on marijuana
for cancer cure. Marijuana does not cure cancer but it reportedly stops cancer from spreading.

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IS MARIJUANA ONLY USED FOR
RECREATIONAL PURPOSE?
In the Indian context, marijuana is mostly considered as being of recreational use, but it is not just
that. Recreational use is probably true for not more than 5%; for the rest, it has medicinal purposes.
The cannabis plant has tremendous amount of medicinal value and its potential for industrial usage
can hardly be overstated. China is investing a few billion dollars in developing different strains of
the marijuana plant towards several objectives. It has proper factories for processing marijuana.
Many countries have developed fabrics. It has unlimited usage in diverse fields, including in the
field of semiconductors.

COUNTRIES THAT HAVE DECRIMINALISED


MARIJUANA
• Portugal was the 1st country in the world to decriminalize the use of every drug. They consider
drug users as sick rather than criminals. Consumption is decriminalized up to 25g for weed, 5g
for hash and 2.5g for THC oil.

• Switzerland has decriminalized the use of marijuana to some extent. In 2012, the Cantons Vaud,
Neuchatel, Geneva, and Fribourg permitted the growing and cultivation of weed up to 4 cannabis
plants per person in an attempt to curb illegal street trafficking.

• In Netherlands, the drugs are classified in two categories  —  hard drugs and soft drugs, where
cannabis is classified under soft drugs. Consumption of soft drug for personal use has no active
prosecution. Dutch has its own ‘Policy of Tolerance’ for such uses. Based on this tolerance
policy, cannabis coffee shops are being established in Netherlands where sale of weed for
personal consumption is tolerated by local Police Officers, especially in Amsterdam.

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CONCLUSION
India should follow the laws of Netherlands that have decriminalized the personal usage of
marijuana, and the outcome was an impressive result. The Dutch experience, alongside those of
some alternative countries with minor policy changes, provides a moderately smart empirical case
that removal of criminal prohibitions on cannabis possession (decriminalization) won’t increase the
prevalence of marijuana or the other illicit drug; the argument for decriminalization is so
sturdy.Well according to the study of international laws and their outcome, decriminalization of
weed would be beneficial for India. It’s time to realise that the harder we push the more we drain
our energy. We need to eradicate our fear that marijuana is the gateway to harder drugs. It’s not the
first time when marijuana is being produced Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act in our
country it’s there since ancient period and use of bhang during festive seasons anyway make it
tougher to curb its usage. Moreover, individuals have their discretion on bhang and other substance
like alcohol and tobacco. Then why to put a ban on marijuana? Do our leaders think that we are
immature or incompetent or are they hiding from their incompetence and lack of responsibility?
Once the prohibition is premeditated the crime level escalates at an alarming rate. It’s discovered
that one amongst the necessary actions of those drugs is to quiet and stupefy the individual, so
there’s no tendency of violence, as isn’t the same in cases of alcoholic intoxication. Therefore, we
can say that validation of marijuana can facilitate in the supervision of drug wars and other criminal
activities.

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