Malaysian proponents of marijuana legalisation will have a tough time persuading the government to consider the plant’s benefits because it’s next to impossible to legally produce up-to-date scientific results on the matter.
According to Arif Husaini Abdul Rahim, a medical officer at Sarawak General Hospital, one of the biggest obstacles to studying the effects of marijuana in Malaysia is obtaining samples for research.
“We can’t study the chemicals in the plant if we have no legal means of obtaining it; hence we rely on countries that have legalised it to pursue the field,” said Arif in a recent interview with the Malaysian Digest.
It’s a circular mess. Legalisation requires that marijuana’s benefits be proven scientifically and in an empirically undeniable manner, but Malaysian scientists and medical experts can’t do so unless they can obtain the stuff legally.
The medical field will support legalisation, Arif says, if it’s in “a strictly controlled environment which can open up access to further advances in studying the potential health benefits of the plant.”
“As far as the medical effects of marijuana go, an important difference that confuses everyone is that of cannabinoids versus marijuana,” said Arif, who pointed out that it is mainly the extracted product that is used medically, not the leaf itself. “Cannabinoids comprise the substances of potential benefit within marijuana and they have been used in some countries. This is not the same as buying marijuana off the street and using it to cure yourself.
“What we’ve found so far is that cannabinoids play a certain role in helping with pain and stiffness in multiple sclerosis (a disease affecting the covering of your nerve cells and pathways). Other potential benefits include reducing anxiety and stabilising the psychosis in people with schizophrenia. Otherwise, everything else is inconclusive and unsupported.”
It’s worth noting that Colombia has recently made it fully legal to grow, process, import and export cannabis and its derivatives for medical and scientific use. Chile has said it plans to allow the sale of marijuana-derived medication in pharmacies, a measure which requires strict oversight, including authorisation by a specialist and inventory checks.
A good first step would be to follow the precedent set by these countries and legalise marijuana only for medical and research purposes. However, that poses another problem. Legally growing or importing the plant here only for medical and research purposes would require that we implement strict oversight to ensure the product is not leaked or misused. Strict oversight is somewhat of a mythical creature in this country, as should be clear to anyone with a passing knowledge of the government’s financial woes.
The government has also expressed its opinion that legalisation of marijuana is not a pressing issue. Commenting on the recent proposal for decriminalisation by Youth Parliament member Muhamad Ridhwan, Health Minister Dr S Subramaniam said that legalisation was simply not on “the national agenda” and that there were many more pressing issues the government must attend to.
Of course, if one is looking for another incentive for the government to legalise marijuana, there’s the matter of organised crime. Marijuana’s current prohibition means that trade is completely controlled by the gangs. If we legalise it and turn over its production to both government and private ventures, this would deprive organised crime of one of its biggest sources of income.
However, as Deputy Home Minister Nur Jazlan Mohamed has noted, Malaysians are of a different fibre from Westerners. Yes, attitudes in urban areas towards marijuana are gradually becoming more progressive, but you cannot say the same for the rest of the country, where old attitudes are still ingrained.
Studies show a correlation between educational level and marijuana use. To quote a 2011 paper, there’s a “positive association between early marijuana use and low educational attainment as measured by both years of education and high school dropout status.”
You can either interpret that as evidence that marijuana impairs your ability to study, or conversely that poor schooling precedes regular and heavy marijuana use. Either way, Malaysian educational standards have not reached the point where our youth are ready or mature enough to handle the inevitable rush that legalisation will bring.