BBC - False Facts & Unfounded Scares

‘How Drugs Work – Cannabis’ (available for a few days on i-player here ) was broadcast last Thursday and the promised “cutting edge CGI” (computer generated imagery) was pretty good – if a little on the gory side in places but it showed what happens when you ingest cannabis, how it gets in to the body and what happens when it gets there in a pretty clear way.

Now experience has taught many of us on this side of the cannabis law reform debate to be wary of anything connected with BBC 3, there having been some truly awful programmes put out by that channel in the past, but none the less UKCIA was happy to carry the request for people to help in the hope that just for once we might help create a good, balanced report. It has to be said that reaction received at UKCIA and posted to various forums has not been good, although LCA spokesperson Peter Reynolds seems very impressed:

Well done to the BBC for its programme “How Drugs Work – Cannabis” tonight. It was a well balanced and wide ranging examination of the subject. Inevitably it looked at extreme cases and was sensational in parts but I thought it was fair.

I could pick at details. It certainly didn’t provide any comparisons against other drugs. It should have clarified how dramatically more dangerous is alcohol and with many fewer benefits but overall it was a good job, well done.

I am encouraged by this well produced treatment of the subject. We may well be making progress!

The truth is somewhere between the two extremes, it is true that the programme tried to present an informed view, but it also repeated some unfounded scares and stated things as fact with simply aren’t, as well as skating over one or two very obvious complications.

In true BBC 3 style the programme starts off by telling us what we’ve about to see, this is becoming a standard production technique which is really a bit pointless because we’re about to see it. The programme promised to show us what happens when you get stoned and to confront the myths. Perhaps in typical BBC3 style it promised to use

cutting edge research to discover “once and for all” if this is a harmless herbal high or the ultimate bad trip

If only things were that simple! Interesting to note here the use of the term “Bad trip” which belongs to the realm of LSD and has a quite specific meaning which can’t really be applied to cannabis in all honestly.

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