[| I, CWAS |]

- The Marijuana Lobby is not that powerful, so it must be an intra-science related phenomena, because I'm not aware of any pro-Marijuana group that can fund large scale research.

-Most likely scientists are marijuana smokers themselves, which is how these myths get started.

Fashionable opinion has long held that cannabis is a soft drug with few risks to health. Its use has become so commonplace that even those who have not tried it usually have friends and relatives who have done so without ill effects. Such widespread personal experience did much to drive the successful campaign to downgrade it from a class B drug to class C.

There is, however, significant scientific evidence that cannabis is not always benign. A study from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden this week found that when rats were exposed to THC — its main psychoactive ingredient — during the equivalent of adolescence, their brains became more sensitive to heroin. In subsequent experiments, animals with experience of THC took much more heroin.

The findings lend biological support to the “gateway theory” of drug abuse, that early cannabis use makes people more susceptible to heroin addiction later in life. Social factors, and perhaps a genetic propensity to risk-taking, probably also explain why most heroin users have experimented with cannabis first. But the notion that neurological changes in the brain are also important cannot be dismissed.

This is far from the only way in which cannabis can be harmful. It is estimated that smoking three joints a day carries the same risk of cancer as 20 cigarettes. More serious still is a link to mental illness: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and psychosis.

Scientists have built a compelling case that cannabis can trigger or worsen these psychiatric disorders. While most people’s mental health will be unaffected by the drug, for some it can have catastrophic consequences. Robin Murray, of the Institute of Psychiatry, estimates that as many as 10 per cent of schizophrenia diagnoses can be attributed to cannabis. The risk may be partly genetic; research by Avashalom Caspi, a colleague of Murray’s, has found that a gene variant carried by one person in four multiplies the risk of cannabis- induced psychosis fivefold.

It is no longer possible to contend that cannabis is a safe or mild drug. Critics of the Government’s liberal stance are increasingly claiming that the science is on their side and they are right that it gives cause for concern. It does not necessarily follow, though, that ministers were wrong to reclassify cannabis. Science can offer valuable guidance, which should always set the baseline for policy decisions. But though it has a critical place in any sensible debate, it can contribute only so much.

Science has no view on the most appropriate use of police time and resources, the chief reason that was advanced for reclassification. Medical evidence also reveals nothing about the legal strategies that best dissuade young people from taking cannabis. As Murray says, few teenagers know whether the drug is classified as class B or C, and fewer care. And there is a reasonable if unproven argument that legalisation for adults might be a better way of keeping the drug out of young hands than giving criminals a monopoly on its sale.

Such a policy might make cannabis less attractive to dealers who would sell to teenagers, or send a dangerous message that it is safe, but medical research cannot say which. Evidence suggests that the young, with still developing brains, are most at risk. That, however, could support two different approaches: tough age restrictions and education campaigns about its dangers, or a blanket ban designed to keep it off the streets.

The choice is ultimately a matter of politics. It is essential that rigorous, up-to-date research be taken into account when formulating drug policy, so that risks are considered appropriately. Risks, however, do not automatically require regulation: they must be weighed against the costs and benefits of the measures proposed to control them. Science can inform, but it cannot always decide.

Source

[MobiusTubes]

Good article. Marijuana shouldn't be something just passed out as nothing harmful. While they are tighting the ropes on marijuana, I think they should also added cigarettes on to the list. At the minimum, it should be a illegal drug.

[Avatan]

The Marijuana Lobby is not that powerful, so it must be an intra-science related phenomena, because I'm not aware of any pro-Marijuana group that can fund large scale research.

I'm surprised I,CWAS. I thought you were an educated guy.

Here is detailed and historically accurate information on the report commissioned and paid for by Nixon which he threw in the trash because the results were not what he wanted them to be...

March 22nd marks the 30th anniversary of the release of the report of the so-called "Shafer Commission" -- the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse -- whose members were appointed by then-President Richard Nixon. The Shafer Commission's (named after commission Chair, Gov. Raymond Shafer of Pennsylvania) 1972 report, entitled "Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding," boldly proclaimed that "neither the marihuana user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety" and recommended Congress and state legislatures decriminalize the use and casual distribution of marijuana for personal use.

Source - http://norml.com/index.cfm?Group_ID=5049

Good article. Marijuana shouldn't be something just passed out as nothing harmful. While they are tighting the ropes on marijuana, I think they should also added cigarettes on to the list. At the minimum, it should be a illegal drug.

By your combined logic based on scientific research, alcohol should top the list of illegal substances based on it's effects.

[| I, CWAS |]

Here is detailed and historically accurate information on the report commissioned and paid for by Nixon which he threw in the trash because the results were not what he wanted them to b

That study is over 30 years old. The article opens with the fact it has been assumed to be more benign than it is (mainly due to the SC and propagandists)

[chearn73]

I thought you were all about liberty?

I say, as long as cigarettes and alcohol are legal, marijuana should be decriminalized at best.

[Avatan]

I thought you were all about liberty?

I,CWAS is an anti-authoritarian so long as the authority is liberal. If the authority issues conservative edicts in keeping with his own beliefs, he seems to have no problem with enforced regulation of human behavior.

That study is over 30 years old. The article opens with the fact it has been assumed to be more benign than it is (mainly due to the SC and propagandists)

What does the study being 30 years old have to do with it? Post a single scientifically-sound study done since then that proves this substance is more dangerous than alcohol and your views may gather some non-conservative, non-bible-thumping credibility. Sure marijuana is a de-motivator... but smoking it on a fairly regular basis didn't stop me from graduating university with a minor in Environmental Science and a BA in Anthropology... it didn't stop me from getting married, from having kids or from holding down an 8-4 job as a public policy analyst and technical writer for the past 4 years.

It depends on the individual I,CWAS... same with alcohol and guns. If a man gets drunk and beats his wife, it's obviously not alcohol's fault... it was his decision to drink and beat his wife. The act carries negative concequences, as does drinking and driving and owning a hand gun. So I say; marijuana doesn't kill you or make you lazy if you aren't already severely ill from something unrelated or a lazy bastard to begin with.

It seems particularly easy for you to dismiss scientific research by finding anything you possibly can that's wrong with it, but you never forward any concrete evidence of your own. It's always opinion stuff, and that's fine, but it has no contextual symmetry. Debate this on a clinical level, and we'll be in business. Debate it from an authoritarian flip-flopper's persective, and we'll never get anywhere.

You can call me a dirty hippie if you like, but I never put my fist through a glass cabinet while drunk off my ass and passed out in a pool of my own vomit like almost every other man in my dorm... or couldn't remember exactally what I had done the night before when I woke up.

http://www.come-over.to/FAS/alcdeath.htm

And this shit is still legal. Ol' Georgie is definately swiggin' it back.