Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 1:25 pm | By: Radical Russ
AMSTERDAM, Nov 5 (Reuters) – The Dutch are among the lowest users of marijuana or cannabis in Europe despite the Netherlands’ well-known tolerance of the drug, according to a regional study published on Thursday. Among adults in the Netherlands, 5.4 percent used cannabis, compared with the European average of 6.8 percent, according to an annual report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, using latest available figures.
A higher percentage of adults in Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic and France took cannabis last year, the EU agency said, with the highest being Italy at 14.6 percent. Usage in Italy used to be among the lowest at below 10 percent a decade ago.
The policy on soft drugs in the Netherlands, one of the most liberal in Europe, allows for the sale of marijuana at “coffee shops”, which the Dutch have allowed to operate for decades, and possession of less than 5 grams (0.18 oz).
The full report is available here. Some interesting stats of note:
While 41% or 102 million Americans have tried cannabis in their lifetime, only 22% or 74 million Europeans have. Interestingly, there are about the same number of Europeans as Americans who will use cannabis this year (about 22 million) and this month (12 million), but of course that represents a lower percentage of population since America has 304 million and Europe has 491 million.
While cannabis represents 49.8% of all drug law arrests in America, it represents between 55% and 85% of all drug offenses in the majority of European countries.
While 25% of American 15-16-year-olds have tried cannabis in the past year, only 15% of European 15-16-year-olds have. The same percentage of 15-16-year-olds in the Netherlands used cannabis in the past year as in the USA, 25%.
The greatest decrease among European countries in the prevalence of cannabis use among young adults aged 15-34 has occurred in the United Kingdom since 2003, where past year use has dropped by a third. Incidentally, 2003 was the year the UK downgraded cannabis to a Class C offense, essentially decriminalizing it.
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 11:35 am | By: Radical Russ
(New Scientist) IF THERE is one thing that politicians can and should do to limit the damage caused by illegal drugs, it is to take careful note of the evidence and develop a rational drug policy. Some politicians find it easier to ignore the evidence, and pander to public prejudice instead.
I can trace the beginning of the end of my role as chairman of the UK’s official advisory body on drugs to the moment I quoted a New Scientist editorial (14 February, p 5). Entitled, fittingly enough, “Drugs drive politicians out of their minds”, the editorial asked the reader to imagine being seated at a table with two bowls, one containing peanuts, the other the illegal drug MDMA (ecstasy). Which is safer to give to a stranger? Why, the ecstasy of course.
I quoted these words in the Eve Saville lecture at King’s College London in July. This example plus other comments I have made – such as horse riding is more harmful than ecstasy – prompted Alan Johnson, the home secretary, to say that I had crossed the line from science to policy. This, he said, is why I had to go.
But simple, accurate and understandable statements of scientific fact are precisely what the advisory council is supposed to provide. Why would any scientist take up some future offer of a government advisory post when their advice can be treated with such disdain?
The results of a government inventing its own reality and acting on it can be seen in the appalling consequences the George W. Bush presidency had for world peace, the environment and human rights. The message for the British government is a simple one: don’t exclude rational argument in order to exploit a visceral public response. Politicians have to win the hearts and minds of their electorate. If your policy is informed by an underlying moral imperative, be open about what that is, and don’t try to disguise it with a veneer of pseudo-science. We ignore scientific evidence at our peril.
David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, was chairman of the UK government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs until he was dismissed last week by the UK home secretary
It’s a message President Obama needs to hear as well. He promised to return us from the George W. Bush presidency’s disdain for rational thought and scientific evidence. Obama promised to base our policies on sound science with respect to global climate change and other issues. But stubbornly, this administration’s drug czar is still out parroting the completely unscientific falsehood that “the raw cannabis plant is certainly not medicine”. Obama himself is laughing off the notion of marijuana legalization as having any economic benefit to cash-strapped states, despite the rational analysis by many prominent economists. And despite the evidence of reduced social farms in the Netherlands, Portugal, and other countries that have experimented with drug decriminalization and tolerance, Obama continues to push a federal policy that relies heavily on interdiction and incarceration.
For over a century now, every time hard scientists, social scientists, economists, and policy experts gather to take a rational and scientific look at marijuana policy, they recommend decriminalization and tolerance or they recognize medical usage of cannabis, from the 1894 British East India survey to the 1942 Laguardia Commission to the 1972 Shaffer Commission to the 1999 Institute of Medicine study. Cannabis can no longer be the exception to the “we believe in science” rule!
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 10:49 am | By: Radical Russ
I have about a half dozen Vietnam vets as friends who would tell you, “no shit,” but it’s always good to get the official science on our side.
Newswise — Use of cannabinoids (marijuana) could assist in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder patients. This is exposed in a recent study carried out at the Learning and Memory Lab in the University of Haifa’s Department of Psychology. The study, carried out by research student Eti Ganon-Elazar under the supervision of Dr. Irit Akirav, was published in the prestigious Journal of Neuroscience.
The present study, carried out by Dr. Akirav and research student Eti Ganon-Elazar, aimed to examine the efficiency of cannabinoids as a medical treatment for coping with post-traumatic stress. The researchers used a synthetic form of marijuana, which has similar properties to the natural plant, and they chose to use a rat model, which presents similar physiological responses to stress to that of humans.
Dr. Akirav and Ganon-Elazar also examined hormonal changes in the course of the experiment and found that synthetic marijuana prevents increased release of the stress hormone that the body produces in response to stress.
According to Dr. Akirav, the results of this study show that cannabinoids can play an important role in stress-related disorders. “The results of our research should encourage psychiatric investigation into the use of cannabinoids in post-traumatic stress patients,” she concludes.
I agree with Willie Nelson when he says “The biggest killer on the planet is stress and I still think the best medicine is and always has been cannabis.” I think cannabis is good not just for PTSD, but for everyday stress most of us feel from time to time. How much could we reduce road rage, ulcers, and domestic abuse if our hyper-stressed, always-on culture embraced a little more cannabis and a little less caffeine?
Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 4:22 pm | By: Radical Russ
LONDON (AP) — Britain’s top drug adviser was fired Friday after saying that marijuana, Ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol.
David Nutt’s comments have embarrassed the British government, which toughened the penalties for possessing marijuana earlier this year over the protests of many prominent British scientists.
In later comments to BBC radio’s “PM” program, Nutt accused British Prime Minister Gordon Brown of making “completely irrational statements” about the dangerousness of marijuana.
“I’m not prepared to mislead the public about the harmfulness of drugs like cannabis and Ecstasy,” he said.
Although Nutt’s views have long been public knowledge, the government seems to have been angered by a recent lecture for the Center for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College in London during which Nutt accused former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith of “distorting and devaluing” researchers’ work.
Honesty… is such a lonely word… everyone is so untrue.
It’s getting tougher and tougher for governments to conceal the plain fact that now a majority of people recognize: marijuana is safer than alcohol. We’re tired of being harassed, locked up, and lives ruined because we prefer not to get hangovers when we party. We’re tired of every other commercial on the telly being for beer and boner pills, then being told our pot smoking is bad for a “drug-free America”. We’re tired of being punished for using a natural substance that doesn’t make us cause wrecks, punch people, and puke on your shoes.
This news comes on the heels of our “drugs advisor”, drug czar Kerlikowske, once again saying that marijuana legalization is a “non-starter”. It’s not a surprising statement, given that Kerlikowske is mandated by law to lie about marijuana. Three cheers for David Nutt for having the stones to tell the truth based on science!
Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 11:44 am | By: Radical Russ
Cannabis smoke condensate III: The cannabinoid content of vaporised Cannabis sativa
Cannabis sativa is a well-known recreational drug and, as such, a controlled substance of which possession and use are illegal in most countries of the world. Due to the legal constraints on the possession and use of C. sativa, relatively little research on the medicinal qualities of this plant has been conducted. Interest in the medicinal uses of this plant has, however, increased in the last decades. The methods of administration for medicinal purposes are mainly through oral ingestion, smoking, and nowadays also inhalation through vaporization. During this study the commercially available Volcano vaporizing device was compared with cannabis cigarette smoke. The cannabis smoke and vapor (obtained at different temperatures) were quantitatively analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). In addition, different quantities of cannabis material were also tested with the vaporizer. The cannabinoids:by-products ratio in the vapor obtained at 200°C and 230°C was significantly higher than in the cigarette smoke. The worst ratio of cannabinoids:by-products was obtained from the vaporized cannabis sample at 170°C.
Smoking cannabis provides more by-products (e.g. carcinogens, tar) than vaporization.
Experiments show that vaporization at 230° C provides the highest THC:by-product ratio.
Loading more cannabis in your vaporizer actually leads to less THC by weight.
Overall, “the public health burden of cannabis use is probably modest compared with that of alcohol, tobacco, and other illicit drugs,” Australian researchers reported in the Oct. 17 issue of The Lancet.
Wayne Hall, PhD, of the University of Queensland in Herston, Australia, and Louisa Degenhardt, PhD, of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, reviewed nearly 100 studies covering acute as well as chronic effects of marijuana, including reports of the prevalence of marijuana use around the world.
Globally, they wrote, about 3.9% of the world’s population used marijuana in 2006, according to United Nations statistics.
Well it opens nicely by noting that cannabis is safer and that almost 1 out of 25 people worldwide use cannabis. It gets a bit dicey from there:
They spent more time detailing the psychomotor impairments associated with the marijuana high. “Some experimental studies have shown diminished driving performance in response to emergency situations,” Hall and Degenhardt said, findings also corroborated in epidemiological studies.
For example, one study of car crash victims found that they were more likely to have tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive component of marijuana, in their blood compared with age- and sex-matched controls.
Another study determined that motorists killed in wrecks were 2.5 times as likely to have been responsible for the accident when they had THC in their blood.
These are meaningless points when you recognize that:
Marijuana is the third-most used drug after alcohol and tobacco, so it is not surprising you’d find it in car crash victims;
Marijuana is detectable in the blood long after most other drugs, including alcohol, are not; and
Recent studies show that people can test positive for THC in the blood up to a week after ceasing their use of cannabis.
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 3:57 pm | By: Radical Russ
Click here to read the actual marijuana booklet produced by the Foundation for a Drug-Free World
Right off the bat, you’ve got to distrust anyone called the Foundation for a Drug-Free World. Might as well be called the Coalition for an Ice-Free Antarctica or the Alliance for a Sand-Free Sahara. Not only is it a completely unattainable goal, but also an undesirable one. Do we really want a world without Lipitor, OxyContin, or Prozac? (Not good drugs, silly, they mean the bad drugs.)
This is one of thirteen little booklets, similar to the “Man or Monkey” and “Are You Saved” cartoon booklets you find left by religious proselytizers in phone booths, that you can order for free from the Foundation for a Drug-Free World. The 24-page booklet on marijuana may just set an Anslinger Rating record.
Let’s start with Page 7, displayed above, which compares alcohol and marijuana.
Alcohol consists of one substance only: ethanol.
Which, we should note, is a poison that is toxic to healthy cells and organs. When metabolized by the body, it produced acetaldehyde, an organic chemical linked to cancers of the upper aerodigestive tract. Recent studies show that lifetime use of alcohol corresponds to a greatly increased risk of cancer.
Marijuana contains more than 400 known chemicals, including the same cancer causing substances found in tobacco smoke.
Yes, which makes marijuana much like every other plant that also contains hundreds of chemicals. The carcinogens are found in marijuana smoke, but also found in marijuana smoke are cannabinoids that seem to mitigate the carcinogens. In thirty years of study, Dr. Donald Tashkin tried to find a link between marijuana smoke and cancer and instead found a protective effect against cancer.
Alcohol is eliminated from the body in a few hours, but THC stays in the body for weeks, possibly months, depending on the length and intensity of usage. …the chemicals in marijuana, some of them cancer-causing, remain in the body long after the drug is taken.
Main metabolic route for delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
Alcohol is eliminated from the body by the liver, which over time with drinking can no longer do the task, one gets cirrhosis, and one dies. Meanwhile, THC is actually metabolized by the body within hours, and the remaining inactive metabolites, THC-COOH and glucuronide, are neither impairing nor carcinogenic.
THC damages the immune system. Alcohol does not.
These studies purporting that marijuana harms the immune system are ridiculous and achieved by using impossibly high doses of THC to cells in a lab. No studies have shown that pot smoking among humans has any effect on the immune system. HIV patients using cannabinoid therapies have actually seen increases in their T-cell counts. However, it does seem very clear that acute and chronic alcohol exposure causes severe immunosuppression in humans.
That’s just one page in a 24-page mini-booklet, and already we’ve found five distortions or outright lies. Won’t you join me for some more debunking after the break?
Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 5:43 pm | By: Radical Russ
I’m editing and compressing audio from our NORML National Conference last month in San Francisco as fast as I can. Here are five items from the conference that are already up at the Special Events feed at http://www.norml.org/rss/normlevents_podcast.xml
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 5:11 pm | By: Radical Russ
Via Twitter I received the plea from a reader named “LindseyDiane” that pointed to this newly released article in the Chicago Tribune entitled “What Parents Need to Know About Pot”. She wrote “This article is full of blatant lies. Please email to set them straight!”
Marijuana packs a bigger wallop now than it did in the ’70s.
Parents may just want to listen up: The most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that among marijuana users over age 12, almost 35 percent used marijuana 20 or more days in the past month.
Ah, statistics. What stood out to you in that sentence? Did you get “age 12″, “35%”, and “20 days a month”? Preceded by a call to parents, right? Oh my god, one third of our kids are getting stoned two-thirds of the time!
But here’s the thing – that’s all marijuana users over age 12, even the ones age 18 to 100 who are long past needing their parents’ guidance on adult decisions.
Now, indeed, the statistic is true. Nice thing about the intertubes is you can check their math. Visit the Substance Abuse Mental Health Data Archive (SAMHDA) and you can run something called Quick Tables. You can choose four different “Measures of Marijuana Use”, like “Number of Days Used Marijuana in the Past Twelve Months”. You can choose eight different “Respondent Characteristics”, like “Age Group”. Then it will build you the table and even a bar graph if you like.
There are about 248 million Americans aged 12 and older. For the 25 million people age 12 and older who will smoke marijuana this year, it is true that 35.6% will smoke 100 days or more in the past year (so, not exactly “20 or more days a month”, more like “8 or more days a month”). But for the 12-17 age group, the number is actually 28%.
Now, that still sounds scary, huh? But this is just the numbers of the kids who do smoke pot. There are 25 million kids aged 12-17 and 880,000 of them are smoking pot “8 or more times a month”. That’s 3.5% of all kids. Think of it as 7 out of 200 getting stoned one-fourth of the time; not 1 out of three getting stoned two-thirds of the time.
Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 11:33 am | By: Radical Russ
I hate auto-tune. You know, it’s that annoying digital pitch-shifter that I first heard in Cher’s “Believe” song, then some Kanye West stuff, and now seems to be used by every pop artist on the charts these days. Back in my day, singers actually sang in tune and musicians didn’t “program”. If I could wave a wand and eliminate auto-tune forever, I’d do it.
And then I saw and heard this clever use of auto-tune to take the words of one of my intellectual heroes, the late Dr. Carl Sagan, and create a video called “A Glorious Dawn”. Auto-tune just got a reprieve from me.
By the way, the next time someone tells you that smoking pot makes you stupid, remind them that Dr. Sagan was not only one of the most gifted physicists of our times, but also a daily pot smoker.
MrSpof: There was a LAG in my computer, a LAG in my computer :metal kicks out the amp Awesome
SneakerPimp: that was a lag in my comp
SneakerPimp: like the new pic slash5 and adam
SneakerPimp: like the new pic slash5
RevRayGreen: that blows B-dog.......
bullbog: Hawkeyes you had a good run...this toke is for you.
Track Snack: Mornin Stashers! Tokin on the Mean Green Martian for breakfast.
MrSpof: Maybe Dr Mitch could comment on the efficacy of reasonable amount of weed like that consumed (smoked) quickly mitigating migraine effects. I know the lowering of blood pressure would be [...]
MrSpof: Had the onset of a migraine yesterday. Immediately took 8 , moist cool washcloth on eyes, heating pad on neck and upper back, turned off lights. Migraine gone in [...]
MrSpof: As you personal non-accredited doctor, I advise the rest of you to smoke/vape/eat heavily
slash5city: frickazee'd.... Mr. Spof, thank you very much
MrSpof: Risen and roasted How the hell are you?
RevRayGreen: always Fidget......always.
Adam: Maybe in WA, judges are starting to think about the true cost of a Drug charge...
Adam: Tim Lincecum, pitcher for the San Francisco Giants will pea to a paraphernalia charge/ Possession charges DROPPED
Adam: Add some cottage cheese to your pancake batter, replace the maple with a fruit syrup! f-ing killer, YES I was stoned...
Fidget Truittelli: Good morning from beautiful Arizona! I hope you all have a happy, fun day. Remember to 'pay-it' forward. Do something nice for someone.
BenJaMin: Go NORML!!!
BenJaMin: Russ Is Tha BEst! :smokin:
SneakerPimp: oh there it is thanx russ
SneakerPimp: so whats up with today stash?
RevRayGreen: Barney Frank Present When Partner Arrested for pot-- http://bit.ly/1XpM2R
"Truth In Trials Act" Reintroduced In Congress; Maine: Voters Approve Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Measure; Colorado: Breckenridge Voters Overwhelmingly Decide To End Pot Penalties. […]
Maine: Voters To Decide Next Week On Medical Marijuana Expansion Measure; Colorado: Breckenridge Voters To Decide Next Week On Eliminating Pot Penalties; California: Lawmakers Hold Historic Hearing On Marijuana Legalization; New Hampshire: Senate Fails To Override Medical Marijuana Veto. […]
Gallup: Majority Of West Coast Voters Back Marijuana Legalization; Pot Arrests Responsible For Majority Of Marijuana Treatment Referrals; DOJ To Federal Prosecutors: Do Not Focus Resources On Medical Marijuana. […]
Some of the nation’s top athletes discuss why today's pros are turning to cannabis — and away from alcohol and painkillers — off the field, and question why pro sports leagues are continuing to sanction those who do. Moderator: Steve Bloom, Author, Pot Culture; editor, celebstoner.com * Toby Grear, MMA fighter * Sean Neumann, Documentary Filmm […]
Cannabis Law Reform's Missing Link: Law Enforcement Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper; LEAP and NORML Advisory Board; Author of Breaking Rank Putting the Mexican Cartels Out of Business Mexican drug cartels now employ over 100,000 soldiers and are responsible for nearly ten thousand deaths per year. Their largest source of income is marijuana. […]
No surprise, again: Use of marijuana in The Netherlands among lowest in Europe
There was a LAG in my computer, a LAG in my computer :metal kicks out the amp 
Awesome 
and adam 
frickazee'd.... Mr. Spof, thank you very much
and roasted 
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sorry i just dont have faith in much of anything federally controlled fda and their approvalls have...
