cannabisnews.com: Not Linked to Hard Drugs!





Not Linked to Hard Drugs!
Posted by FoM on March 17, 1999 at 11:22:23 PT

Chuck Thomas of the Marijuana Policy Project said the report "shoots down" claims that marijuana has no medical benefits. 
Opponents of allowing medical use of marijuana long have claimed that it is a "gateway" drug, giving people a start on the road to more dangerous drugs such as heroin and cocaine. But the report concludes there is "no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs." In fact, the report concludes, most drug users did not begin with marijuana but rather started by using tobacco and alcohol while they were underage. The New England Journal of Medicine has editorialized in favor of marijuana and the American Medical Association has urged the National Institutes of Health to support more research on the subject. An expert panel formed by NIH found in 1997 that existing research showed some patients could be helped by the drug, principally to relieve nausea after cancer chemotherapy or to increase AIDS patients' appetites. The drug also has helped some patients control glaucoma, that panel found. http://www.mpp.org/Medical Correspondent Eileen O'Connor and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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