A new article on MedPage today claims that we still don’t fully understand the health risks of cannabis use:

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:

1. Marijuana is the third-most used drug after alcohol and tobacco, so it is not surprising you’d find it in car crash victims;
2. Marijuana is detectable in the blood long after most other drugs, including alcohol, are not; and
3. Recent studies show that people can test positive for THC in the blood up to a week after ceasing their use of cannabis.

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here

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State to allow farmers to grow hemp | NEWS.com.au
NEW laws will allow New South Wales farmers to grow cannabis crops for industrial use, the state government says.

But the hemp plants will not be varieties containing any significant amount of the active substance in illicit cannabis.

The Hemp Industry Bill will allow farmers to grow hemp (cannabis sativa) for use in skin care products, paint, load-bearing masonry, insulation and as an additive to wool, Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald said.

Such production is already permitted in Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland, the [Australian Capital Territory], Victoria and Western Australia.

The NSW Department of Primary Industries would work with farmers to make sure crops were only grown under a licence by applicants of good repute, Mr Macdonald said.

The licensing system would stop industrial hemp being used as a camouflage for the marijuana variety of hemp, which contains a high concentration of the illicit cannabis drug THC, he said.

The legislation would pave the way for a potentially lucrative industrial hemp industry, providing farmers with the additional option of another fast-growing summer crop, Mr Macdonald said.

Yet another sensible government allowing its people to grow non-drug cannabis.  Yet another place overseas for our American dollars to flow to fulfill the domestic demand for hemp products that our struggling family farmers aren’t allowed to grow.  And, interestingly, yet another scenario where ignorant politicians don’t realize you can’t use industrial hemp to camouflage consumer cannabis, because hemp will cross-pollinate the cannabis and ruin its potency, and cannabis will cross-pollinate hemp and ruin its fiber potential.

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