October 24, 2007
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter
Lippmann. Original:
http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/2007/10/24/nacional/artic04.html
He who sows cannabis shall reap evil
Because of its disastrous effects on human health and society, marihuana growers and dealers are severely punished in our country.
LOURDES PÉREZ NAVARRO
lourdes.p@granma.cip.cu
Growing and breeding illicit drugs will be the focus of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime campaign in 2008, its purpose to raise public awareness and foster governments’ political will to fight this scourge of humanity.
Cuba
regards illegal drugs as the polar opposite
of the Battle of Ideas, assures Lieutenant
Colonel Ignacio Turcios Lima.
Trends have arisen these days in a number of developed countries to decriminalize the production and possession of Cannabis indica or marijuana, on grounds of the plant’s alleged “mild effects” and certain therapeutic properties.
Scientific research has it that some of Cannabis’s active elements may be medically beneficial when isolated, but they only come “from the plant, not its flowers, leaves, stems, resins or oils, which is what the dealers profit from... Opposite the good qualities is the irrefutable fact that for every positive effect there’s a much cheaper and therefore more efficacious medicine with no addictive or toxic property whatsoever”. (*)
MariJuana: the antITHESIS OF THE BATTLE OF IDEAS
“While some currents in favor of reducing the enforcement of cannabis prohibition almost to the point of legalization are rearing their head these days,” –underscores Lieutenant Colonel Ignacio Turcios Lima Tamayo, senior professor of the Antidrug Department at the Ministry of the Interior’s Higher Institute Capitán San Luis– “Cuba regards illegal drugs as the antithesis of the Battle of Ideas and its aims of achieving humanity’s spiritual and social development. Drugs do nothing but destroy people by reducing their universe to the search for and use of those harmful substances.”
Q: What consequences may marijuana consumption have for human health?
“Those who take the risk may not know that the plant has 36 active components, that is, substances capable of inflicting short-, medium- or long-term damage on human health.
“Classified as a psychedelic or a perturbing drug, cannabis’s major biologically active chemical compound is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (known as THC), which creates distortion of temporal and spatial perception, produces delusional thinking, and reduces men’s sperm concentration. In fertile women, THC has brutally harmful effects on the fetus as a result of toxic substances conducive to various diseases ranging from lung and heart conditions to the progressive weakening of the individual’s immune system.
“Besides, it accelerates cancer cell growth and brain cell destruction, a prelude to progressive memory loss. In other words, far from giving anything, it gradually takes away a great deal of a person’s capacity.
“Throw in the fact that when you consume marijuana –be that because it tickles your fancy, peer pressure or lack of knowledge about how damaging it can be– the effects on you are quite unpredictable, for you may just as easily feel overall relaxation and euphoria as depression and a tendency to extreme violence.
“Some people use it as an attempt to fill an emotional void, only to add other big problems to their life and that of their family and friends.”
Q: So there’s also a strong social impact involved...
“Illegal drug use can undermine any society from within as it upsets and undermines its social foundations, since where there’s drugs there’s violence, corruption, money laundering and a broad criminal spectrum expressed in murder, homicide, theft, traffic accidents and the like.
“The special period in our country fueled economic problems and brought with it a rise in crime figures as a result, including drug use. There were isolated cases of unscrupulous people who started to grow marijuana and tried to make room for such an awful vice at the very heart of the Cuban society.
“Bear in mind as well that several U.S. governments have politicized the issue of drug consumption in Cuba and turned it into a spearhead of the efforts to overthrow the Revolution by using the fight on drugs as an excuse to launch a large-scale military attack against our country.
“We have succeeded in developing means to involve everybody and everything in this struggle. Our people’s governmental and party structures share a single, inexorable view about illegal drugs: we will have none of that. And that makes our experience unique in the world.”
Q: How is this problem handled at legal level?
“Cuba is signatory to the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances and the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, which involves a great deal of responsibility on the part of our State in that it must fulfill these rules to the letter.
“Our State’s political will is equally reflected in the Master Plan of the Republic of Cuba that Cuba submitted to the United Nations in 1993, designed to keep the Cuban population drug-free and protect our sovereignty from international drug trafficking, among other purposes.
“The Revolution has invariably and responsibly followed this line, even before it seized power, as evidenced by an unprecedented fact: by enforcing Regulation No. 6 in the liberated territories, the Rebel Army became –and remains– the only revolutionary movement to lay down antidrug legislation.
“Signed right in the Sierra Maestra Mountains on October 7, 1958 by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro and Faustino Pérez, this provision prohibits and strenuously condemns drug cultivation, sale and use, and specifically marijuana because of the high number of fields the rebels found during their operations. To this day, almost 50 years later, this legal rule has been in full effect.
“Our laws heavily penalize the unlawful production, sale, demand, traffic, distribution and possession of drugs, narcotics, psychotropics and other related substances with sentences ranging from 30 years in prison to capital punishment.
“In 2003, given the seriousness of these crimes, Decree-Law 232 was enacted to prescribe the confiscation of houses or other premises –and deprivation of any rights over the said property– from homeowners or tenants who grow, deal in, obtain, possess or hide drugs or otherwise allow in their property any activity directly or indirectly related to illegal substances.
“When it comes to growing marijuana or engaging in the above activity in rural areas, the Penal Code stipulates the confiscation of land and its owner’s agricultural items or the loss of rights over them in case of usufructuaries.
“If the crime is committed within the boundaries of a Cooperative Farm or a Cooperative Production Unit, the violators will be deprived of their rights and the entity severely punished with a financial penalization in keeping with the extent of dereliction and lack of surveillance and control.”
Q: Is this legislation the only safeguard against illegal drugs?
“Actually, it is for society to enforce this legislation. It is the ordinary citizens opposed to all kinds of drug-related activity who, together with all our people, make this law effective on the basis of their own social conviction of the need to win this battle.
“Insofar as we succeed in pinpointing the dangers of marijuana and other illicit drugs, we will be able to ensure both the continuity of the Cuban Revolution and the future of our nation.”
(*) Taken from Usted puede prevenir, detectar y vencer las adicciones (You can prevent, detect and kick the habit), by Dr. Ricardo González Menéndez, Head of Higher Education at Psychiatric Hospital Eduardo Ordaz in Havana and president of the Cuban Psychiatric Society.
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