Peter Moore: Cannabis has a long history - but it is a dangerous drug

This week the police raided a property in Torquay and found 416 cannabis plants, which could have an estimated street value of almost £350,000.
Growing cannabis in South Devon has a long history. During a drought in the 1970s, an off-duty police officer walking from Maidencombe to Shaldon noticed one beautifully green area amongst the parched land. He wandered over and found a field full of cannabis plants. The lesson is, if you’re going to grow cannabis, don’t make it so obvious.
The cannabis plant is a type of flax or hemp and the active drug, THC, is found on the tips of the leaves. Natural cannabis contains about 3-4% THC but modern modified “skunk weed” can have up to 14% and is far more powerful. These plants are grown in bright lights with water.
The word “Canvas” has the same stem as the word “cannabis” as it is also made from a flax, although it does not have a high concentration of THC. It is not worth sniffing the sails of an old sailing ship.
Cannabis has been around for many years. There is a wonderful, probably apocryphal story suggesting that we only wear trousers because of cannabis. It is possible that in 2000 BC, on the Eurasian Steppes, tribesmen fed wild horses cannabis to tame them. Once tamed, it was not possible to ride a horse with clothes wrapped around the legs and so they cut the garment between the legs and sewed them up to make trousers.
We do know that cannabis was used by the Scythians, a nomadic tribe in the Eurasian Steppes from about the 7th Century BC to 4th Century AD. They took the seeds of hemp and threw it on to red hot stones, inhaling the vapour; an idea which might catch on at Glastonbury.
The Roman surgeon Galen mentions the use of hemp seeds as promoters of hilarity and enjoyment, another answer to the Monty Python joke “what have the Romans ever done for us?”.
Arabian, Persian and Sanskrit writers commented that smoking dry cannabis leaves mixed with tobacco produces an intoxicating effect.
In a tomb dating from the 5th century BC in Brandenburg, an urn was found which contained cannabis.
And in Paris, as well as containing gold and silver jewellery, the tomb of Queen Arnegunde dating from AD 570 also contained cannabis.
The chroniclers of the Crusades mention cannabis, which was widely used by the local Arabs. And so, in 2009, when Parliament was debating whether it should be made a Class B drug, outside Westminster was a statue of Richard the Lionheart; someone who knew about cannabis and was probably a user.
In an Act from the time of Henry VIII, it was forbidden to soak hemp in ponds or streams where cattle feed. It must have been understood that hemp releases cannabis.
So is cannabis really dangerous? Although nowhere near as dangerous as the hard drugs such as heroin, cannabis is not a safe drug. Smokers may feel happy and giggly but regular use can lead to loss of motivation, poor memory, mood swings and, for men, low sperm count, for women suppressing ovulation. It can lead to mental illness and also lung cancer.
It may produce paranoia. I once saw a man in the police cells who smoked cannabis, walked into a pub and thought, wrongly, that people were laughing at him. He hit out and was arrested.
The dealers and growers may be linked to serious crime and modern slavery. By buying pot, people may be supporting a dangerous group of criminals.
One of the arguments against young people using cannabis is that, if caught, they could end up with a conviction for using illegal drugs. This might mean that years later when they have a young family and plan to visit Disney in Florida, they are banned from entering America.
Hopefully, this successful police operation has prevented more misery. When anyone argues that pot is harmless and should be legalised, I am afraid that life is a little more complicated.