New centre will fight marijuana - National - smh.com.au
Cannabis use and addiction have become such a problem, particularly among the young, that the Federal Government is funding a $12 million research centre at the University of NSW to try to turn the trend around.

Cannabis is the most popular illicit drug in Australia, with 33.5 per cent of adults having used it, [The centre’s director] Professor [Jan] Copeland said.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures from last year showed that 750,000 people used cannabis weekly and 300,000 used it every day.

The number of those seeking treatment had tripled since 1992, but many young people still did not understand the significant potential for harm to their health nor that there were treatment services available, Professor Copeland said.

She said about one in 10 people who tried cannabis would develop a dependence.

Those under 16 who had used it at all were three times more likely to either drop out of school or finish without attaining their Higher School Certificate, she said. Professor Copeland said those who began smoking cannabis in the 1970s were starting to develop respiratory, head and neck cancers.

A single cannabis joint has the same effect on the lungs as smoking up to five cigarettes in one sitting, according to research published in the respiratory medicine journal Thorax last year.

Nothing like starting the week out with a trifecta of drug war lies.

1. Yes, admissions for drug treatment, both in Australia and the US and elsewhere, have increased since 1992.  This is because courts are increasingly sentencing people to drug rehab when they’re caught with marijuana.  Imagine if they sent to rehab people who are ever found to be buzzed on alcohol - would there be a mass media frenzy about the incredible increase in alcoholism?  Of course not, because not all use is abuse.  If you factor out those forced into marijuana rehab, you find the number of pot smokers choosing to enter rehab is quite small.
2. People who have smoked pot in the 1970’s may indeed be getting head and neck cancers some three decades later, but you can’t attribute that to the pot.  Recent studies have concluded that smoking marijuana, even heavily, does not increase the risks of these cancers.
3. The “one joint = 5 / 10 / 20 cigarettes” myth has been debunked as well.  Marijuana does not cause emphysema and marijuana smokers show much better respiratory function than tobacco smokers.

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Wednesday is Cannabis Science day on the Stash, and coming up after the news, we’re separating the stems of propaganda from the buds of truth with Dr. Mitch Earleywine. Today Dr. Mitch and I discuss the lead contamination found in some German marijuana and the insane idea of treating marijuana “addiction” with lithium.

Cannabis Karri brings us our musical break this hempday humpday with an Asian rapper named Khmer Kid. Based in Los Angeles, Khmer Kid’s anthem “Smoke Weed” will bring you back down from your Tax Day anxiety.

Then we wrap things up with Dale Geiringer, the Executive Director of California NORML. Dale’s got some great news about the fight to protect California’s Prop 215 patients from employment discrimination.

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So welcome to the show, grab your best glass and sit back with your favorite strain… This is your NORML Daily Audio Stash.

I’m reminded of Bob Saget’s cameo in the movie Half Baked.  The recent litany of “marijuana addiction” stories always offend me as a person who has struggled with real addictions to speed and alcohol, whose father was damn near killed by addictions to speed, alcohol, and nicotine, whose grandfather was killed by addiction to alcohol, whose grandmother was killed by addictions to pharmaceuticals.  To paraphrase the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, “Mary Jane, I suffered with addiction: I knew addiction; addiction was a friend of mine. Mary Jane, you’re no addiction.”

I’m told that there are some people who do have serious dependency issues with marijuana.  But that is nowhere near the physical and psychological hell suffered by a heroin addict, alcoholic, or cigarette smoker trying to quit.  This press to label “marijuana addicts” is just the latest reefer madness salvo to keep funding the perpetual drug war prison/rehab industrial complex.  Paul Armentano, our Deputy Director, picks up on this theme as he notes that a full one-third of these “marijuana addicts” haven’t even used marijuana for over a month!  If you can find any treatment facility for alcohol, heroin, cocaine, meth, or nicotine addicts that contains even one addict who hasn’t used in a month, I’ll be amazed…

NORML Blog » Blog Archive » SAMHSA: One-Third Of Marijuana ‘Treatment’ Admissions Haven’t Used Pot!
According to a recent UPI news wire story, researchers are now proposing prescribing the psychoactive prescription drug Lithium to so-called ‘pot addicts’ to help them kick the habit. But just who are these alleged ‘addicts?’

According to the latest statistics from the US Department of Health and Human Services, a startling high number of US government-defined marijuana ‘addicts’ don’t even smoke pot! That’s right, according to a recent DHS report, more than one-third of Americans entered into drug treatment with a primary diagnosis of marijuana ‘dependency’ haven’t used pot in the month prior to their admission.

How’s this possible? It’s possible because the majority of folks admitted to ‘drug treatment’ for pot don’t need treatment at all, but were arrested and ordered by a judge to attend rehab in lieu of going to jail.

Nevertheless, the White House touts this phony ‘data’ as evidence that marijuana is allegedly more dangerous than cocaine or heroin, and NIDA touts these numbers as evidence to support multi-million dollar ‘Cannabis Addiction Centers.’

Looking for the truth about marijuana use and dependency? Look no further than my recent Alternet.org essay on the subject here, or you can ‘digg’ it here.

Calling B.S. on the Idea of ‘Marijuana Addiction’ | DrugReporter | AlterNet
The U.S. government believes that America is going to pot — literally.

Earlier this month, the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse announced plans to spend $4 million to establish the nation’s first-ever “Center on Cannabis Addiction,” which will be based in La Jolla, Calif. The goal of the center, according to NIDA’s press release, is to “develop novel approaches to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of marijuana addiction.”

And what does the science say? Well, according to the nonpartisan National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine — which published a multiyear, million-dollar federal study assessing marijuana and health in 1999 — “millions of Americans have tried marijuana, but most are not regular users [and] few marijuana users become dependent on it.” The investigator added, “[A]though [some] marijuana users develop dependence, they appear to be less likely to do so than users of other drugs (including alcohol and nicotine), and marijuana dependence appears to be less severe than dependence on other drugs.”

Most importantly, unlike the withdrawal symptoms associated with the cessation of most other intoxicants, pot’s mild after-effects do not appear to be either severe or long-lasting enough to perpetuate marijuana use in individuals who have decided to quit. This is why most marijuana smokers report voluntarily ceasing their cannabis use by age 30 with little physical or psychological difficulty. By comparison, many cigarette smokers who pick up the habit early in life continue to smoke for the rest of their lives, despite making numerous efforts to quit.

Further, pot lacks the profound abstinence symptoms associated with most legal intoxicants, including caffeine.

As always, it’s worth clicking the link to read the full story.  You only have to follow the money to understand why there is a push for creating in the public’s mind a false stereotype about “marijuana addiction” - that creates jobs for “marijuana rehab” and “marijuana drug testing” and prescriptions for drugs like lithium to relieve the “addict’s” craving for the ganja!

Study Tackles Marijuana Addiction - Health - redOrbitWhen [marijuana is] used in adolescents, it can permanently change the brain’s chemistry and how the brain functions, said Francesca Filbey, a research scientist at the Mind Research Network at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

Filbey and another Mind research scientist, Kent Hutchison, have started a $930,000, five-year study to understand more about the complex workings of marijuana in adolescents.

They want to study the brains of 96 adults, about half of whom used marijuana in their adolescent years and half who didn’t.

“What we want to look at is the long-term effects,” Filbey said. “We want to look at adults and see how their brains have changed.”

The researchers are looking for volunteers to participate in the study. All personal information will be kept confidential, Filbey said.Participants must be over age 18. The researchers are looking both for those who smoked marijuana between ages 13-18 and those who didn’t smoke marijuana between those ages for a control group.

Teenagers should definitely not be using cannabis, except under a doctor’s supervision for specific medical treatment. Studies have shown that marijuana does have harmful effects on the developing adolescent brain. It will be interesting to see what these researchers find. But when I read “marijuana addiction” in the title of the article, I worry about potential bias in the study.