India Needs a New Discourse and Debate on Cannabis

The ban on marijuana in the country has denied patients in critical care the pain relief they desperately need.

It’s High Time India had the Weed Talk

• ‎India’s approach to marijuana or cannabis is characterised by ignorance and insularity
• There’s no concern for cancer patients’ need for medical marijuana
• India should do well to learn from The Netherlands

Blinkered policies, a stringent law, and doctors’ resistance impose a terribly painful suffering on many.

That the government and the administration have made a ‘hash’ of India’s drug policy is an opinion which has been voiced for quite some time. It is steadily gaining ground because of the demand to decriminalise the use of cannabis (also known as marijuana). This demand has come from multiple sectors, members of which have given different reasons.

While some of those reasons – such as “why won’t the government let me have some fun”, or “what’s wrong with a harmless vice or addiction”, or that it was an essential part of “ancient Indian tradition” because a particular Hindu god is believed to be a heavy-duty user, are fatuous. In some cases, they do a disservice to the cause— the demands from certain sections of the medical community, especially oncologists and surgeons.

Meanwhile, in January this year, Pune-based lawyer Aditya Barthakur moved the Bombay High Court with a PIL, contending that the criminalisation of cannabis use by the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act violated citizens’ fundamental rights and other constitutional principles.

On September 4, the court dismissed the PIL, stating that it didn’t have the powers to grant the reliefs demanded. Significantly, the court also expressed its inability (due to lack of expertise) to deal with technical arguments such as the beneficial and therapeutic uses of ganja, and instead suggested that Parliament is best suited to take any decision in this matter.

It is perhaps for the first time that a court in India has even acknowledged that the vicious animus against cannabis, which has formed the bedrock of government policy as well as legislation right from 1985, could deserve a relook. This marks a fundamental departure from the dominant position – that cannabis, or by whatever name it’s known, is a harmful, poisonous narcotic, the use of which is shameful, and thereby, must be criminalised. This extreme measure is at great variance from what the Indian Hemp Commission decided in its comprehensive report in 1894 — prepared after considering the physical, moral and mental effects if the substance. The government, which brought in the NDPS Act in 1985, was completely overwhelmed by the US’ “war on drugs” rhetoric — a Nixonian doctrine and policy which stands discredited today.

But these questions and concerns seem not to remotely bother Indian legislators, or many other stakeholders. Even among the medical community, the last serious exercise was undertaken by a team of doctors at a workshop in AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) who recommended that the use of cannabis be decriminalised. Abroad, doctors are trying to rectify the lack of rigorous studies on the psychiatric effects of the substance, while in India, oncologists are emphasising upon decriminalisation so that those in critical condition and in urgent need of palliative care are spared torturous pains and can have access to some relief.

In yet another development, this year the Supreme Court of Canada firmly ruled against the government which had refused to allow the use of liquid marijuana, which, while used as an oil, plays a critical role in reducing the pain of cancer patients.

A comparison between the narcotics policies of the US and the Netherlands (which is known to have the most equitable marijuana policy in the world) lucidly details the terms on which the government of India should do well to approach the issue. If it is willing, that is.