MARY Jane is her nickname, at least it was back in the day.
Her real name is marijuana, the MJ caught between two worlds – illegal drugs and prescription drug. Famous people like American ex-presidents have admitted a relationship of sorts with Mary Jane during their college days. Compared with LSD, marijuana was kidstuff, or almost.
Now the debate is what harm it can do if it’s a cure for epilepsy, anxiety, pain, depression, insomnia, even addiction, and in the near future should science so decree, the drug to prescribe against cancer. (A friend was suffering from a serious throat ailment that required surgery in Japan. The effects of the procedure lasted a good several months. When the pain returned, her doctor encouraged her to ask the next balikbayan friend to bring in some medical MJ for her. The contraband brought her relief; now she has to look for another friend willing to smuggle it in for her.)
The Dangerous Drugs Board warns that marijuana is still illegal under our laws although one of its components, Cannabidiol or CBD derived from cannabis, the dried flowers of the marijuana plant, does contain the promise of certain benefits. (In the Philippines, President Duterte is the only one I’ve heard pronouncing cannabis right, accent on the first syllable.)
Senate President Tito Sotto supports the use of MJ as long as it is “in medicine form” and conforms with DDB guidelines.
In some states of the USA, marijuana is legal, either for medical purposes or as long as it is for adults, although the sale of CBD is still regulated. I’m not pushing for MJ, never tasted it, don’t own a plant or plantation, but it’s such a waste to read about hectares of MJ being put to the torch when the “mildly euphoriant and intoxicating drug” (a phrase borrowed from the dictionary) could someday become a lucrative, dollar-rich export.
From Dec. 5, 2019 to Jan. 8, 2020, a total of P46.3 million worth of marijuana plantations were destroyed and small amounts of the drug seized – cheap, compared with the shabu haul. With regulation and strict enforcement, and until we see our way more clearly through the curative side of MJ, those crops could be grown “for export only.”
