cannabisnews.com: Get Off the Pot and Learn the Facts Get Off the Pot and Learn the Facts Posted by CN Staff on September 21, 2002 at 10:45:53 PT By Terry O'Neill Source: Report Magazine If politics is smoke and mirrors, then the smoke part of it these days has a sweet, autumnal odour that is clearly not the scent of burning maple leaves. It is marijuana smoke, and it continues to cloud the vision of many politicians, many Canadians and most journalists.The issue du jour is the medical use of marijuana. Health Minister Anne McLellan indicated in mid-August she is less than enthusiastic about allowing certain sick Canadians to receive prescriptions to use marijuana to treat their pain or nausea, especially when her bureaucrats are busy working at ways to prevent people from smoking cigarettes. That is the sort of logic that escaped her predecessor, Allan Rock.Doctors have long pointed out that, at best, scientific literature is mixed about the impact of marijuana, but several lower-court rulings encouraged Mr. Rock to approve the medical-use plan. Once he was pushed, he embraced pot with all the zeal of a politician reaching for another hand to shake.But Ms. McLellan told doctors at the annual meeting of the Canadian Medical Association in New Brunswick she feels "a certain degree of discomfort around this issue." She continued by saying she supports clinical trials for pot, but she also pointed out the drug's use is tangled in legal issues that may have to be resolved by the Supreme Court of Canada.Regardless, she said later the government will continue growing a second crop of marijuana in Flin Flon, Man., to conduct those trials. You may recall that the first was abandoned after producing too many variations.Ms. McLellan's waffling on the subject leaves her open to criticism from both pro- and anti-marijuana camps. I, for one, am against medical use of the drug, on the grounds its benefits are unproved, its dangers considerable and its use represents an incremental victory for those wanting the drug decriminalized and eventually legalized (more on this later). Therefore, I wish the minister had simply announced a reversal of Mr. Rock's plan.On the other hand, Canada's considerable pro-pot lobby is up in arms over the fact that Ms. McLellan has dared to suggest that the scientific method needs to be adhered to before the government can release its state-approved marijuana. For true-believer pot proponents, the mere questioning of the benefits of marijuana is heresy. Indeed, their bible declares that pot is, at worst, harmless and, at best, a magical, mystical drug that can produce beneficial effects for all mankind.The most hysterical reaction to Ms. McLellan's pronouncement could be found in the pages of the Globe and Mail, where B.C.-based columnist Spider Robinson, a science-fiction writer by night, directed a torrent of verbal abuse toward the minister and anyone else who stands in the way of the pro-pot agenda. But his reasoning is addled and so is his grasp of the facts. For example, he labelled as "preposterous" an Ontario doctor's assertion that "a single joint is as harmful as 10 cigarettes." Mr. Robinson continued, "Fortunately, for anyone with interest, Internet access can find the true facts effortlessly."Well, I am a person "with interest," and when I went to my sources, I found volumes of information about the negative--not positive or neutral--effects of marijuana. This was particularly satisfying to me in the wake of the many testy messages I received in recent weeks from people who disagreed with my earlier column criticizing Justice Minister Martin Cauchon's liberal stance on decriminalization.So, what are some of the studies I found? Here are just a few of the recent ones:In 1999, three researchers published an article in the American Journal of Public Health. It said that early adolescent marijuana use is associated with 1.91 times the risk of low education, 2.59 times the risk of violence toward others, 2.81 times the risk of violence toward the user, 2.69 times the risk of other drug use and 4.44 times the risk of multiple-sex partners.Earlier this year, another team of researchers published a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association in which long-term, heavy use of marijuana was found to lead to problems with memory, attention, word retention and learning. It is noteworthy to mention that the study also finds these deleterious effects persist beyond the period of intoxication, and worsen with increasing years of use.Finally, just this summer, a team of European researchers published a report in the American Journal of Epidemiology, in which it was shown that marijuana use increases the risk of psychosis by 2.76 times in otherwise healthy people.I talked to Eric Voth, a medical doctor who is also chairman of the Florida-based Institute on Global Drug Policy, about these findings and about events in Canada. He says it is clear that a massive propaganda campaign has been launched by marijuana advocates. It is a campaign that not only ignores the medical risks of marijuana, but also misrepresents the facts surrounding decriminalization and legalization. (Decriminalization is the loosely defined term for a policy that would see the drug still being outlawed but that would not prosecute individuals for mere possession.) In short, decriminalization would only encourage both drug use and other criminal activity, he says, while legalization would not only lead to more use--and concurrent problems--but would not eliminate criminal activity from pot "bootleggers.""It was Hitler's director of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, who said that if you tell a lie enough times, it becomes the truth," Dr. Voth says. "That is, by golly, what's going on here. I think it's time the public should realize that they are being manipulated."Source: Report Magazine (CN AB)Author: Terry O'NeillPublished: September 23, 2002 IssueCopyright: 2002 Report MagazineContact: ar incentre.netWebsite: http://www.report.ca/Related Articles:Sick People Have Right to Use Pot, Lawyer Argueshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14186.shtmlThe Flin Flon Flip-Flophttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13958.shtmlHow To Stall On Medicinal Marijuanahttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13823.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #14 posted by Sam Adams on September 22, 2002 at 06:52:48 PT He says... "I, for one, am against medical use of the drug..." That's fine! I have absolutely zero problem with people that are against the medical use of cannabis.I DO have a problem with fascist swine! This guy is much more than just "against medical use". He is FOR sending armed thugs after sick people, he is FOR making suffering Americans live in fear of armed thugs literally breaking down their door in the middle of the night!It's great that America is a vibrant combination of all different sorts of people. I love people with opposing views. But where we disagree is on whether or not humans should be free, or whether they should live under the iron-fisted repressive yoke of a tyrant-led federal government. This guy TOTALLY misses the point.I also want to again point out how completely filled with bullshit the Western medical establishment is. All of the studies this guy quotes are merely the typical jerk-off sessions of over-funded, hard-right Republican doctors. THERE IS NO CAUSATION! Using this logic, you could easily make an airtight case for banning trailing homes. I have no doubt people that live in trailer homes are 50% more likely to use meth, 150% more likely to beat their wives, etc, etc, etc. IT MEANS NOTHING. [ Post Comment ] Comment #13 posted by FoM on September 21, 2002 at 15:00:00 PT DdC The page is being updated and has a glitch and it should be fixed soon. I emailed Matt when I first saw the problem. I'll delete posts after I know it's fixed and you can post again. Sorry for the problem. [ Post Comment ] Comment #12 posted by karkulus on September 21, 2002 at 14:57:35 PT Even circuitous logic requires a circuit ! They just throw this crap out to see what sticks! What about the "Illegal Paradigm" and "risky -behavior"syndrome concerning the violence and sex-partner stuff(if true,which i doubt) .and back to "10 time worse than cigarettes??" and bootleggers?? AND Quoting Goebbels??? Gag me mit der spoon!! [ Post Comment ] Comment #11 posted by DdC on September 21, 2002 at 14:51:42 PT What happened to the html? <BR> thats all... [ Post Comment ] Comment #10 posted by DdC on September 21, 2002 at 14:50:13 PT Lacking A Firm Grasp of the Obvious Reply to: Medicinal Pot Issue is About The Sick, Dying http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread14193.shtml A Firm Grasp of the Obvious Very nice read. (Not this rubbish, the previous article.) As a so called death and dying in home cannabis care giver I haven't run into many objections in the so called final stages. My patients start out sick and require health procedures to maintain an existence. Then they decide its enough and the care turns into a comforting procedure. Both need cannabis. I've witnessed too many patients and too many symptoms aided by cannabis to even consider the D.E.A.th lies to "protect the kids". Sleep alone is a major foundation to health and comfort. Cat napping around the clock is common with many Dis-eases and mostly their "treatments". Get a PDR and see for yourself, ask questions about the side effects of Pharmaceuticals given. You won't need to watch a movie to get the violence of a chemically induced bloody nightmare, its all in the eyes. Cannabis removes the bad dreams. As an analgesic it removes the aches and pains and allows a nice peacefully easy feeling to drift off. Don't be surprised when the grumpiness, lost appetite and depression leaves. That alone should end the debate when hallucinogens are in most sleep aids and many other treatments. Better living through chemistry, thalidomide was reintroduced as an alternative appetite stimulant by the FDA...More Pharmaceutical sales people visit Doctors offices than patients, I see them, and tell them, but they already seem to know. They also know its political and that means money or "National Interest". That isn't as hard to cope with in Santa Cruz as in Florida, but "Liberal" is too lose a term for the most expensive property, most clogged freeways and trinket sales on the planet. More long haired rednecks and yuppies and homeless than I've ever seen. But when enough pressure is added a few realist will step up to the plate. Dr Leff and Mardi are two who have consistently acted realistically over politically. Other Physicians have given their nods of approval but too much is at stake for them to do much in public. And both hemp and ganja meds are politically as correct as fining someone for cigarette smoking outdoors standing in line. But still no mention or concern over the 650 chemicals added to American cigarettes. like igniters, flavors and retardants burned and sucked into the lungs. Go figure why the tobacco is blamed and compared to cannabis, the expectorant used in cough syrups. Also aiding in coughing up phlegm and reflux, drying nasal drip and drooling and increasing liquid intake from the cottonmouth. Grateful Dead and ganja will stimulate the nervous system and calm spasms and aid in exercising Neurological Dis-orders. But the consistency is hard to come by unless growers are allowed to do what WAMM has done in separating the strains and matching them with feedback from the patients. Finding growers underground cost big bucks and deservingly with the risk of California's C.rA.M.P. "project". Though nationwide 99% of these eradications are ditchweed, adding to tally sheets that will comprise the budget next year. In CA its ganja for "medicine". What is medicine? An aid to an injury. Internally or externally and the Hypocrites Oath has been adulterated if thalidomide is deemed more fit than ganja and prison a better remedy than healing or dying at home. Or living at home without the corporate alcohol politico's call "The American Way". We as United Statians seem to have a problem with the end of the road. I've been told morphine is used instead of heroin because its a depressant and we can't have our sick and dying euphoric, why it just t'aint chrishun. And we have to protect the kids by keeping it on the streets for less than a case of beer. England can use it. Cannabis strains can differ and I've used it without the Rox Cocktails lingering coma's for days. Peaceful not unconscious. I have also witnessed sparks of rebellion in seniors that laugh at the fact they could still get worked up over something. And clear the cobwebs of dementia. Correct me if I'm wrong but in having a Glaucoma patient and learning of the "Glutimates" discovery in causing the pressure and doing research with cannabis finding the "Glutimates" reducing brain swelling in trauma cases done in Israel, maybe it does lower the dementia or at least the angst of it. All I know is a couple teaspoons of the milk extractum gave restful sleep and less cat napping, as I mentioned a foundation. That may have contributed. Is cannabis' dreaded "euphoria" the reason Walters Asa and Ashcroft's Ralph Reed Robertson Falwelian hysterical reefer madness what's behind their being so damn afraid of the so called "sick and dyings" cannabis users? THE SICK HAVE TO PAY FOR THEIR SINS? And the Ashcraft Monsanto/UpJohn St Louis connection must be a conspiracy, as is Walters Philanthropy Roundtable tax shelter for Partnership donors coincidentally in competition. Like Bush and Cheney's Meat and Pharmaceuticals and Crude Oil profits? In the name of Geezus we must poison this land? To create new disease to treat for huge profits and jobs and starving foreign deterrents to remind us how good we have it. With Micky D and the Burgerclones supplying the planet with meat raised on our public lands leaving gas and waste for our natural resources. Fed on grain's maintained with the same chemicals Monsanto and Dow poison the "99% hemp eradications and Colombian babies. Causing more illness, injury and abortions called miscarriages in bible belt lands. Just to keep out that heathen hempseed nutrition? "Protecting the kids" from pot by torturing and killing patients, quicker than Kovorkian without the compassion. The hard case kids used as deterrents in juvi prison getting raped 5000 times a year when its reported. More family values with dad's doing 90 years in Okie Keating prisons for growing a few plants while he and Bush bro Kneel and Horowitz Pacific Lumber Home Depot bilked billions in the savings & loan scams. Just Us Dept? Our homeless remind us not to question the bossman and the terminator seed will end the frankenfood debate. Traffic still profits Exxon and Chevron and greenhouses gas is just an illusion, the islands would have disappeared anyway, and the profits on crude CO2 emissions and deforestation have nothing to do with it. The working class is warehoused at three times the cost of homecare without subsidies entitlements or social security and the gall of this buck naked emperor taxing diseases in homecare and medical expenses. To buy more Dyncorp, Sikorskies and Lockheed products to protect our crude oil interest and not our citizens? Oh some have loved ones who provide the care and some go to K Mart parking lots for the cheapest they can find. And bargaining and roulette wheeling of times to lessen the cost in hopes that the patient falls before the buzzer. 100 grand a year and a third goes to W and a third's overhead, leaving most working and those building this land, shipped off to warehouses without their home, pets or possessions. Cutting out the bulk of the price is a risk for the private caring person. Thinking with their hearts might be morally fulfilling but not very financially prudent. To think a tax paid entitlement will go to taxes or 4 or 5 more medications to treat side effects of heavy Pharmaceuticals treating illness caused by chemical exposure and the beat goes on. More in the west are starting to grasp the obvious atrocity of D.E.A.th's torturing sick and dying people. Yet still quickly jump out and shout "but NOT the HEALTHY USERs!!! And not HEMP except to inflate the eradication numbers. I haven't had a cold since 69, my lungs are clean while toking ganja and tobacco since. I don't profit on it and I refuse to consider myself a criminal or terrorist or deserving of being caged because I'm healthy. Deal with the actions of a person, not the predictions of what actions may or may not occur. End the entire insanity of Cannabis prohibition, the keystone of WoD, the paycheck of 21st century fascism. Peace, Love and Liberty or the Merchants of D.E.A.th! DdC D.E.A.th Deceptions [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on September 21, 2002 at 14:48:51 PT LTE Sirs, Terry O'Neill has many interesting points in this article, but one stands out as very odd. Mr. O'Neill says marijuana legalization "would not eliminate criminal activity from pot 'bootleggers.'" Does this mean the USA and Canada still have troubles with people bootlegging alcohol? Despite rising cigarette taxes, are people growing their own tobacco? Once marijuana is legalized, the grossly inflated prices would fall to a point where criminals would no longer be able to make the vast profits they used to. Our government would reap a new avenue of taxation, while simultaneously freeing up finite police resources to be used keeping our nation safe from truly dangerous people. Children would have a harder time obtaining it, because the people selling it would be required not to sell it to people under a certain age. To put it another way: while I dislike being around people who have been drinking, I would rather not see our society return to the days of Al Capone. [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by The GCW on September 21, 2002 at 14:43:34 PT Sometimes I think Police don't get it. That's not limited to the cannabis issue. Confessions of a (busted!) spectator--- http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2002/sep02/sanfrangp02/?id=busted --- "...Those police were complete jackasses and I hope they learned a thing or two about cycling fans yesterday. One of the officers said he had never been booed by so many people in his life!" [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by Jose Melendez on September 21, 2002 at 14:29:33 PT the rest of the story Habitual prohibitionist drug criminalizers pounce on anything that seems to support their firmly held beliefs, often at the expense of the truth. For example, note how many writers go out of their way to complain that cannabis should remain illegal despite evidence that it is "no more dangerous" than legal substances. Yet when you read the actual reports they are referring to, careful inspection of the data clearly shows that pot is actually far less harmful than cigarettes, booze or many pharmaceuticals. This is not mere semantics. It shows that those on the other side of this issue are willing to lie to protect their position, and often their own special interests. Those interests are not health or safety, or they would recommend jailing tobacco users and beer drinkers. Also, since most marijuana users eventually quit with no deleterious effects, long term health issues are a moot point. Alcohol, for example can easily be linked to psychotic behavior, but that does not mean that people should be jailed for use, but for actions they themseves commit while under the influence. Since the author of the above article neglected to include the title of the study he claimed to find in the American Journal of Epidemiology, I decided to look for myself. Sure enough, the authors themselves admit: It is unclear whether subjects with incipient psychosis use cannabis to self-medicate their psychotic symptoms or, conversely, whether exposure to cannabis is a risk factor for onset of psychosis. Another unsolved question regarding the link between cannabis use and psychosis is whether the impact of cannabis use on subsequent psychosis, if any, is stronger in subjects with a preexisting vulnerability to psychosis. and, It can be hypothesized that the neurobiologic changes induced by tetrahydrocannabinol may interact with a preexisting vulnerability to dysregulation of the cannabinoid system or to other neurotransmission systems interacting with the cannabinoid system. In accordance with this hypothesis, the present findings demonstrate that the impact of cannabis use on psychosis outcome is especially marked in subjects with an established vulnerability to psychosis. The difference in the risk of psychosis at follow-up between those who did and did not use cannabis was much stronger for those with a baseline vulnerability to psychosis (54.7 percent) than for those without a baseline experience of psychosis (2.2 percent). Source: "Cannabis Use and Psychosis: A Longitudinal Population-based Study " J. van Os, M. Bak, M. Hanssen, R. V. Bijl, R. de Graaf and H. Verdoux American Journal of Epidemiology [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by Toker00 on September 21, 2002 at 12:34:08 PT If you haven't tried it, you don't know it. "I, for one, am against medical use of the drug, on the grounds its benefits are unproved, its dangers considerable and its use represents an incremental victory for those wanting the drug decriminalized and eventually legalized." Celebrated my 31st year of constant Cannabis use. My health is excellant. Stopped being an active alcoholic twelve years ago. Health vastly improved from that point on. Can't swear cannabis gives me good health, can't swear it doesn't. I can swear it has never given me any danger,(except the risk of arrest) and has replaced medication for depression without ANY side-effects. Making it legal for some WILL help convince others that prohibitionists are simply lieing to protect corporate and special interests. What I know about cannabis, is enough proof for me, we should RE-LEGALIZE IT. And, that it should never have been made illegal. Peace. Realize, Then, Re-legalize. [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by FoM on September 21, 2002 at 12:32:09 PT CorvallisEric Very good advice. When I was being taught by Richard Lake what to post in an article and what can or should not be posted the email or phone numbers should be removed. The reason why is authors don't want to get angry email for writing their opinion. Writing a response to the paper is where we should direct our attention and that way we don't cause ourselves problems in the long run. [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by CorvallisEric on September 21, 2002 at 12:23:56 PT Please If you write or call, be respectful. Don't give him extra "evidence" of his position. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by p4me on September 21, 2002 at 12:04:57 PT What can U say? I might offer Prohibitionist O'Neill one free piece of advice. If this display of ignorance cost you your job when the subscriptions of your paper fall, you would be wasting a stamp to mail a resume to Reason.com. 1,2 [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by Dankhank on September 21, 2002 at 11:34:21 PT: just called him ... Associate Editor Terry O'Neill Phone 604-329-7808 Email: oneill helix.net contact him if you wish ... Hemp N Stuff [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by FoM on September 21, 2002 at 11:34:07 PT test Sick People Have Right to Use Pot, Lawyer Argues http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14186.shtml [ Post Comment ] Post Comment