Clarke to decide on cannabis issue

[Judi Lynn]

Clarke to decide on cannabis issue
Jan 19, 2006, 12:13 GMT

Charles Clarke will announce today whether the government will backtrack or not on downgrading cannabis amid mental health warning fears.

Cannabis was changed from a class B drug to class C two years ago but the home secretary now faces new studies linking the drug to mental health problems.

The published study by the advisory council on the misuse of drugs, which reportedly found the impact of smoking cannabis on mental health was more serious than hitherto thought.

Some of the council members have said they may resign if the drug is reclassified, according to reports.
(snip/...)

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/uk/article_1077410.php/Clarke_to_decide_on_cannabis_issue

[0007]

1. This is just another bogus run by the fundies, to stop common

sense.

This is more than a joke
"Mental health experts have long identified a link between strong cannabis forms such as skunk and illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression."

[ixion]

2. yep, without question.

[megatherium]

5. Weed isn't entirely benign I suppose. But nicotine is strongly

linked with mental illness and the relationship might be causal:

Here's an article that describes some jaw-dropping research that was published six years ago:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/11/001122144303.htm


Boston, Ma.- Harvard medical researchers have concluded that Americans with mental illness are nearly twice as likely to smoke cigarettes as people with no mental illness. The study, appearing in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) (http://jama.ama-assn.org/), finds 41 percent of people with mental illness are smokers compared to 22.5 percent of people who have never been mentally ill. The article also states that the mentally ill smoke more heavily than others.

Extrapolating their results to the U.S. population, the researchers estimate that people with diagnosable mental illness comprise nearly 45 percent of the total tobacco market in the U.S.

The study findings are based on analysis of data gathered for the congressionally mandated National Comorbidity Survey (NCS) of psychiatric disease (www.hcp.med.harvard.edu/ncs/index.htm) that was conducted between September 1990 and February 1992 and released to the public in 1998. The data is the most recent national information available to examine the association between type and severity of mental illness and the likelihood of smoking and smoking cessation.

<snip>

Said Harvard study author Lasser: “Perhaps mental illness causes smoking by making people more vulnerable to tobacco advertising or nicotine addiction; however, other studies have called the direction of causality into question, suggesting that smoking may cause mental illness and, our findings are certainly compatible with that as well.”

[0007]

9. Thanks for the information.

[Zhade]

12. Not only is it benign, it's medicinal.

Besides all that we know, did you know it used to be prescribed to asthmatics, because it's a bronchial dilator?

[megatherium]

16. It's a good anti-nausea medicine, it does help the appetite.

Supposedly good for glaucoma. But its detractors say there are better medicines available for each of these conditions.

Of course, I'm not really anti-marijuana, I don't smoke it anymore but I am perfectly mellow about my friends who still do. I think if you're going to go about the business of banning drugs and throwing people in prison, it would be best to do this with drugs that cause real damage. Alcohol, for example -- I've known people whose lives came apart because of alcohol, including a friend who died in his 30s from stomach bleeding due to alcohol. And tobacco -- a close relative just died of lung cancer from heavy smoking, last month. This is a drug that costs its average user 13 years of life. I'm not really in favor of banning anything -- but anything short of that the government can do to get people to quit smoking, or never start, is worth considering.

[Zhade]

17. It's detractors are demonstrably wrong.

Medical science has shown this for quite a while now.

I agree that alcohol and tobacco harm people (far more than even if 1/10th of the lies about mj were true, which they aren't), but prohibition doesn't work, as you know.

I'm a big believer in the benefits of honest education on all drugs - faking lab results on MDMA, for example, discredits what real research might say about potential harm. I think a harm reduction policy is the way to go.

[seemslikeadream]

7. Legalize it, time to recognize it

Sean Paul

Just gimme di trees and mek we smoke it yo (Smoke it yo!)
It a mek we peace so dont provoke it yo (Voke it yo!)
We nuh need nuh speed so we nah nuh coke it yo (Coke it yo!)
Set yuh mind at ease we gotta take it slow

So when yuh see di S.P. floatin dont provoke him
Cau di weed weh we smokin need fi soakin
Fastin fi di medication, and di best hygrade a Jamaican
When we a bun a weed we supportin and promotin
Lau di crack and di coke ting yeah we smoking
Herb a di healin of di nation
Legalize it right now we gwaan blaze one

Everyday, we be burnin not concernin what nobody wanna say
We be earnin dollars turning cau we mind deh pon we pay
Some got gold and all dem diamonds all we got is Mary J
Legalize it, time to recognize it

This purple haze it mek mi crazy
Mek mi write new tune yeah dats what pays me
Cau dat not di only occupation
Goin to get some I give yuh medication
When a farmer grows it he knows to close it
Economical benefit help fi those who a fi deh yah pon di hard jugglin
Cau di system only keep man struggling
Studyin people a use it dont abuse it
Cau di concentration well reputed
Dats why herb man dem a di wise one
And it found on di grave of King Solomon
And it good fi di eye sight and di chest sight
And it give yuh nuff inside just gimme di light
And, mek we blaze it we should a neva waste it

Again, we be burnin not concernin what nobody wanna say
We be earnin dollars turning cau we mind deh pon we pay
Some got gold and all dem diamonds all we got is Mary J
Legalize it, time to recognize it

Just gimme di trees and mek we smoke it yo (Smoke it yo!)
It a mek we peace so dont provoke it yo (Voke it yo!)
We nuh need nuh speed so we nah nuh coke it yo (Coke itr yo!)
Set yuh mind at ease we gotta take it slow

So when yuh see di S.P. floatin dont provoke him
Cau di weed weh we smokin need fi soakin
Fastin fi di medication, and di best hygrade a Jamaican
Cau we know it as a great ting no debatin
While incarceratin true dem hatin
Cau dem dont waan see we a remain calm
Even though dem condemn (?)

Again, we be burnin not concernin what nobody wanna say
We be earnin dollars turning cau we mind deh pon we pay
Some got gold and all dem diamonds all we got is Mary J
Legalize it, time to recognize it
Again, we be burnin not concernin what nobody wanna say
We be earnin dollars turning cau we mind deh pon we pay
Some got gold and all dem diamonds all we got is Mary J
Legalize it, time to recognize it

[0007]

8. Thank you, man for that cool prose.

I made book in the early 50's that it would be legalized by 1960. Then in the sixties I was more than convinced that it would soon happen. I've now in a state of shock of the ignorance that still exist. :shrug:

:hi:

[chefgirl]

3. Meanwhile

How many alcoholics do we have in this country now?? :eyes:

-chef-

[0007]

4. 0h, but that's legal.

How many families has marijuana destroyed? What are the health cost in terms of dollars for alcoholism compared to the daily marijuana smoker?

[Lyle]

6. What ... are they high or something? n/t

[DemInDistress]

10. I beg to differ and offer up this report done 60yrs. ago

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/lag/lagmenu.htm

The La Guardia Committee Report
The Marihuana Problem in the City of New York
Mayor's Committee on Marihuana, by the New York Academy of Medicine

City of New York , 1944.

and this..
http://www.conquestdesign.com/uncler/html/evidence.html

Opponents of legal cannabis access would have us believe that there is not enough research available to determine its safety. Nothing could be further from the truth. Cannabis is one of the most thoroughly researched drugs in history, and the evidence gathered over the centuries clearly proves that it is safe:

* The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report (1894): an exhaustive seven-volume, 3,281-page report that concludes: "Moderate use produces practically no ill effects." <5><6><7>

HEMP HAS BEEN A VITAL PART OF COMMERCE FOR 200 YEARS

[Fovea]

11. So is it more or less harmful than Iraq service induced

PTSD?

[malachibk]

13. OK, so I'm a psychiatric epidemiologist

and an avid pot smoker, so I really am as "objective" a source as your going to find. Promise. In fact, I'm stoned right now and am too lazy to post link after link, so you'll just have to trust me.

(I've posted about this before, by the way).

Well conducted, prospective as well as case-control studies show that there is, indeed, an association between marijuana and schizophrenia. Period. It's roughly 3-fold, I believe. These are real studies by excellent scientists who aren't crazy, anti-pot, fundamentalist activists. That said...

It's hard to accurately measure dosage. Most find an association between "daily use" and increased risk/odds. But some people smoke all day and some 1 or 2 hits at night, every night. Both are 'daily users'. Statistically, however, the presence of 'light, daily users' in that category would drive the point estimate (risk/odds) toward the null (no association). That only strengthens the finding.

More fundamentally, however, is that there is no way to know whether pot CAUSES sz. Perhaps teens who are hearing voices are more likely to turn to drugs to quiet their symptoms. Impossible to know. But, as any pot smoker will tell you, too much of the good shit can make you paranoid - a rather common symptom of...schizophrenia. So there's that. But, again, association does not mean causation. So unless we conduct an unethical RCT (randomized clinical trial) we'll never know. I'm sure there are a few good animal studies out there, though.

Remember, prevalence studies show that sz afflicts fewer than 2% of any given population (and that figure is steady world-wide -- although I did hear a presentation last year at the American Psychopathological Association's Annual meeting that Jamaican immigrants to England have a higher prevalence. (Hmmmmmmmmm........wonder why.......) So even if the risk is 2 or 3 times that of non-users, it's still pretty low. The choice is yours.

I would also argue that smoking earlier in life (there aren't any studies I'm aware of that use 'onset age' as the independent variable) might disrupt neural migration and pruning that occurs in adolescence. Maybe there's a critical window?

[0007]

15. Thank you kindly doctor. I enjoy being reconfirmed that

people like you took the time to add a note of sanity to this ridiculous propaganda.

[High Plains]

14. Marijuana will remain Class B in Britain, Clarke announced today