Earlier this year, GW Pharmaceuticals, the UK-based producer of Sativex, Epidiolex and several other cannabis-derived patented drugs \u2014 and, by some accounts, the largest exporter of raw marijuana in the world \u2014 funded a study examining the UK\u2019s cannabis supply. The results set off a round of alarms.<\/p>\n
For many years, cannabis users in the UK had to make do with either hashish, or \u201ccannabis resin,\u201d as it is classified, or seedy, weak weed. Those days are gone. Researchers with the company and atKings College London analyzed the marijuana seized by UK police, and 94 percent of that illicit cannabis turned out to be \u201csuper-strength skunk,\u201d\u00a0according to a report in the (state-funded) BBC.<\/a><\/p>\n If you are an American, here is where you ask the inevitable question: \u201cWhat the heck is skunk? And how is it different from regular old weed \u2014 which, as an informed person with access to the internet, I know to be relatively benign?\u201d<\/p>\n Skunk, broadly, is weed that is not terrible. Which is to say: It is marijuana, cannabis. It\u2019s weed. It\u2019 s stuff you know \u2014 and know to be relatively benign.\u00a0There is absolutely no genetic, botanical, or scientific difference between cannabis and skunk.<\/a><\/p>\n What difference there is exists solely in the branding. That is, \u201cskunk\u201d is the term the British press trot out whenever they\u2019d like to demonize marijuana and make it more difficult for the conversation around the drug to enter the 21st century. The corrosive effect on discourse is obvious.<\/p>\n Imagine referring to alcohol as \u201cdevil\u2019s drink\u201d or cigarettes as \u201ccancer sticks\u201d \u2014 and in the mainstream press, for years at a stretch \u2014 and then imagine trying to have a rational conversation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n As the NHS pointed out, <\/a>skunk is \u201csinsemilla,\u201d Spanish for \u201cwithout seeds,\u201d\u00a0or the lingo your parents or grandparents used in vain in the 1970s to score some pot that wasn\u2019t stems, seeds and lawn clippings before the Rush concert. Nearly all the flower on every shelf in every dispensary in America would qualify as \u201cskunk\u201d \u2014 and if it didn\u2019t, you would be in a dispensary you would likely never visit again.<\/p>\n In a way, \u201cskunk\u201d is a success story. There really isn\u2019t an analogous loaded word in America used to conveniently denigrate the plant, though that did not stop drug warriors from trying.\u00a0In 2009, then-US Rep. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican<\/a>, pushed a law that would have mandated a 25-year prison sentence for anyone selling cannabis with more than 15 percent THC.\u00a0Kirk\u2019s bill failed, but Kirk ended up in the U.S. Senate.\u00a0Over in the UK, look at how the term is used:\u00a0Here\u2019s the UK Daily Mail in 2015, <\/a>comparing \u201cskunk\u201d to heroin and, for some bizarre reason, moonshine.\u00a0(Does that sound familiar?)<\/p>\n Like bootleg alcohol, this article claimed, skunk \u201cdestroys people.\u201d This is the Pavlovian effect. When British people hear \u201cskunk,\u201d they think madness, addiction, and societal decay. They think this, rather than thinking, \u201cIs it really a good idea to put this drug in the same category as heroin and other drugs that actually kill people?\u201d<\/p>\n Medical cannabis patients in the UK have done their best to counteract the messaging.\u00a0Clark French, who suffers from MS and only really ever feels normal enough to get up and walk around when he is smoking lots of cannabis high in THC<\/a> \u2014 as he did a few years ago when visiting the Bay Area, when he walked across the Golden Gate Bridge in triumph \u2014 informed the press that he needs \u201cskunk\u201d to survive.<\/p>\n That is brave and admirable, but the term needs to die. For that to happen, the public needs to be educated as to what this stuff is \u2014 and the UK press is making it harder, every time they use this silly, childish, and misleading slur.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>,\u00a0have you ever used the word skunk to describe cannabis?<\/p>\n The post Stop Saying \u2018Skunk\u2019 & Just Say Cannabis<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, GW Pharmaceuticals, the UK-based producer of Sativex, Epidiolex and several other cannabis-derived patented drugs \u2014 and, by some accounts, the largest exporter of raw marijuana in the world \u2014 funded a study examining the UK\u2019s cannabis supply. The results set off a round of alarms. For manyContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,4611,3156,3157,1831,4612,3949,4613,3400,107,420],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26990"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26990"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26991,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26990\/revisions\/26991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Stop Saying \u2018Skunk\u2019 & Just Say Cannabis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"