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.
Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 1:58 pm | By: Radical Russ
OK, so it’s a whole two months since we brought this study to your attention on the Stash, but whenever the British press prints something good about cannabis, it’s news to us.
(The Sentinel) A STUDY by North Staffordshire academics has rejected a link between smoking cannabis and an increase in mental illness.
The research found there were no rises in cases of schizophrenia or psychoses diagnosed in the UK over nine years, during which the use of the drug had grown substantially.
From their base at the Harplands Psychiatric Hospital in Hartshill, the four experts reviewed the notes of hundreds of thousands of patients at 183 GP practices throughout the country to look for any changing rate in cases of schizophrenia.
The work had been set up to see if earlier forecasts from other experts had been borne out, that the mental disorder would soar through the growing popularity of cannabis.
[Researchers concluded,] “The casual models linking cannabis with schizophrenia and other psychoses are… not supported by our study.”Hartshill-based Dilys Wood, national co-ordinator of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance, said that so far the report had been published in medical journals and would have a far-reaching reaction if it surfaced more widely.
She added: “I believe that if it had found a causal link between cannabis and schizophrenia it would have been all over the press.
“The public needs to know the truth about drugs; not more Government-led propaganda.”
And Alliance press officer Don Barnard said: “It is hard to believe the then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith did not know of this very important research when deciding to upgrade cannabis to Class B.”
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 2:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
One of my common one-liners in response to the claim across the pond that smoking the dreaded “skunk” will lead to psychosis and schizophrenia is to sarcastically say, “Yes, that’s why there was such a spike in schizophrenia around 1979 in the US… oh, no, wait, there wasn’t; schizophrenia remains a relatively stable phenomenon that affects less than 1% of the population worldwide.”
Looks like some scientists in the United Kingdom decided to look for just such a correlation:
A recent systematic review concluded that cannabis use increases risk of psychotic outcomes independently of confounding and transient intoxication effects. Furthermore, a model of the association between cannabis use and schizophrenia indicated that the incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia would increase from 1990 onwards.
The model is based on three factors:
a) increased relative risk of psychotic outcomes for frequent cannabis users compared to those who have never used cannabis between 1.8 and 3.1,
b) a substantial rise in UK cannabis use from the mid-1970s and
c) elevated risk of 20 years from first use of cannabis.
This paper investigates whether this has occurred in the UK by examining trends in the annual prevalence and incidence of schizophrenia and psychoses, as measured by diagnosed cases from 1996 to 2005. Retrospective analysis of the General Practice Research Database (GPRD) was conducted for 183 practices in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The study cohort comprised almost 600,000 patients each year, representing approximately 2.3% of the UK population aged 16 to 44.
Between 1996 and 2005 the incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia and psychoses were either stable or declining. Explanations other than a genuine stability or decline were considered, but appeared less plausible. In conclusion, this study did not find any evidence of increasing schizophrenia or psychoses in the general population from 1996 to 2005.
It’s bull, of course. Â 1970s cannabis was every bit as strong as what you’ll find today. Â Those who were consuming cannabis regularly – the ones you’d expect to “go schizo” – were always finding or growing the good stuff. Â This “Woodstock Weed” idea of low-THC joints is what the casual smoker with no connections would smoke, and not very often.
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 1:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
I have an acquaintence here in Portland who claims knowledge of “addictionology”. Â When I have mentioned that marijuana use causes dependence in a few, not addiction, he’s quick to correct me by saying that marijuana use causes the release of dopamine in the brain, just like any other addictive drug, and that is how we can consider marijuana to be physically addictive. Â I’ve always believed that correction to be faulty, but lacked the knowledge of brain functioning to offer a strong rebuttal.
Now it looks like I have a new study to back me up:
Background: Cannabis use in early adolescence may be a risk factor for development of schizophrenia. In animals, Delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) increases the rate of dopamine neuronal firing and release in the striatum. Thus cannabis use may increase dopamine release in the human striatum leading to vulnerability to psychosis
Aims: To investigate whether THC, the main psychoactive component of cannabis, can produce dopamine release in the human striatum.
Methods: 13 healthy volunteers, with previous cannabis experience, underwent two [11C]-raclopride positron emission tomography (PET) scans to indirectly measure striatal dopamine levels following either 10mg THC or placebo.
Results: Although THC markedly increased psychosis-like symptoms on the Psychotomimetic States Inventory (PSI), there was no significant effect of THC on [11C]-raclopride binding
Conclusion: In the largest study of its kind so far, we have shown that recreational cannabis users do not release significant amounts of dopamine from an oral THC dose equivalent to a standard cannabis cigarette. This result challenges current models of striatal dopamine release as the mechanism mediating cannabis as risk factor for schizophrenia.
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 12:20 pm | By: MrSpof
Seriously, if this is the very best the anti-legalization folks can come up with, I should start packing my bags for my move to the Golden State. It should come as no surprise the author was a senior drug policy adviser in the Clinton and Bush administrations. I inserted a couple of notes in following snip:
It is almost universally accepted in the medical community that marijuana use is linked with mental illness (WRONG). Since the appearance of the British Medical Journal’s famous 2002 headline, “Marijuana and psychiatric illness: the link grows stronger,” the research showing marijuana’s link with illnesses like psychosis and schizophrenia has become frighteningly commonplace (FAIL). In fact, researchers from Kings College in London have shown that eliminating marijuana use would decrease the incidence of schizophrenia in the American population by more than 8 percent (NO). That means that marijuana use is responsible for the schizophrenia suffered by more than 19,000 Americans. Other research has shown the drug’s connection to lung damage, as well as to head, neck and testicular cancers (OH COME ON).
It took me three minutes at NORML typing the terms I refuted above in the Search box and inserting the links in the snipped paragraph. I’m starting to get to get the feeling the anti-reform folks just aren’t trying anymore. Â [Or maybe they just don't know how to use 'the Google' on the 'intertubes'. Â --"R"R]
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Researchers from Spain have found a strong and independent link between cannabis use and the onset of psychosis at a younger age. The association, they say, cannot be explained by chance, and is not related to gender or the use of other drugs. It is, however, related to the amount of cannabis used.
The researchers report that “estimates of the attributable risk suggest that the use of cannabis accounts for about 10 percent of cases of psychosis.”
The findings are based on 131 patients ages 15 to 65 years who needed inpatient care for a first psychotic episode during a 2-year period. The subjects were evaluated using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders, and clinical and demographic data were also collected.
The results showed a significant gradual reduction in the age at which psychosis began that correlated with an increased dependence on cannabis. Compared with nonusers, age at onset was reduced by 7, 8.5, and 12 years among users, abusers and dependents, respectively, the researchers report.
In further analysis, the effect of cannabis on age at onset “was not explained by the use of other drugs or by gender,” they also note. The finding was similar in the youngest patients, suggesting that this effect was not due to chance.
These results “point to cannabis as a dangerous drug in young people at risk of developing psychosis,” [the authors] conclude.
We at NORML have long argued for removing penalties for the responsible adult use of cannabis. Â We have also advocated against the non-medical use of cannabis by children and teens. Â That said, potential risks of psychosis for a small subset of young people does not mean we need to be locking up adults for using cannabis. Â Researchers estimate that about 1% of the population suffers from schizophrenia, and only 6.7% of all young people between 12-17 used marijuana in the past month, so we are really talking about very few possible cases here. Â That’s not to say that kids at risk for psychosis using marijuana isn’t something to worry about, but we should keep the problem in perspective, when millions more adults are using marijuana safely and without incident.
Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 2:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
Since it has been shown that Canada has the world’s highest rate of cannabis use, the reefer madness has expanded to epidemic proportions. First we had Barbara Kay and her illogical anti-cannabis ravings in the National Post, now we get Margret Kopala writing in The Ottawa Citizen:
What we know about marijuana
Leading the recent National Post debate on cannabis, columnist Barbara Kay can’t have anticipated Vancouver’s safe injection site, rather than legalized cannabis, would be the Trojan Horse for the legalization of all addictive drugs.
This week, the right of addicts to continue use of illicit drugs was upheld by the B.C. Supreme Court even though no treatment of which I am aware uses the substance that caused the problem to cure it. Smokers use nicotine gum, not more cigarettes, to kick the habit, don’t steal to feed their habit and if heroine [sic] and cocaine are so helpful, why aren’t doctors prescribing them in pill form?
(I agree the heroines are very helpful. Like Wonder Woman. I don’t know how you out a heroine into a pill form, though. I think she’d be quite upset.)
First of all, doctors are prescribing cocaine every time you get that numbing shot in your gums at the dentist, and other opium derivatives, like morphine, are routinely prescribed.
Second, addicts wouldn’t steal to feed their habit if they could buy their drug or a patch-type alternative cheaply and legally, like cigarette smokers can.
And finally, there is a very common medical treatment that uses the dangerous substance to cure or prevent the damages from that substance; they are called vaccines. A disabled version of a virus is injected into the bloodstream to promote the growth of natural antibodies.
Among more than 6,000 youngsters interviewed for the largest study of its kind, users of the drug had a higher average number of symptoms associated with a risk of psychosis.
These included feeling like something strange or inexplicable was taking place, suspecting they were being influenced or followed and difficulty in controlling the speed of thoughts.
Researchers also found that those who took cannabis in adolescence had a greater risk of developing schizophrenia than older users of the drug.
The teenagers, aged 15 and 16, were asked about their drug use before their risk of developing a psychotic disorder was assessed by experts.
More than 5 per cent said they had used cannabis once or more, and one in 100 had used cannabis more than five times. Girls were more likely to take the drug than boys.
The study, carried out by a team at the University of Oulu in Finland, is published on Monday in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
Dr Jouko Miettunen, who led the research said: “These teenagers are likely to be vulnerable to the mental effects, which means they are probably vulnerable to developing psychosis at some point.”
Once again, we have to agree that teenagers shouldn’t use marijuana. There is evidence that the developing adolescent brain can be negatively affected by cannabis use.
That said, these symptoms that are associated with psychosis risk – that association was discovered in non-drug-using populations, right? I mean, if you have never used cannabis, and you felt something strange was happening or couldn’t control the speed of your thoughts, then you’d be considered at risk for psychosis.
But what if these “symptoms” are just the natural by-product of what some of us call the “mind expansion” from using cannabis? What if early cannabis users do have “speedy thoughts” or feelings of being followed, but then that never leads to full-blown psychosis? Maybe inexplicable feelings and a bit of paranoia are as far as it progresses?
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 9:51 am | By: Radical Russ
Looks like the UK reefer madness has now spread to Canada – this is an editorial from Canada’s National Post:
Barbara Kay on the new marijuana: Not your mother’s reefer – Full Comment
The words “intoxicate the brain” bring to mind the Post’s 2007 editorial on marijuana, enunciated in response to evidence that Canada’s marijuana consumption was the highest in the industrialized world: “What is really remarkable about Canada’s status as a cannabis capital is that if you were to set out looking for reasons to worry about it … you would have an awfully hard time finding them. Legalizing pot makes sense.”
What was the editorial board smoking when these words were written? In fact, one would not “have an awfully hard time” finding reasons to worry if one were actually open to finding them.
In 1997, the liberal U.K. newspaper The Independent launched a campaign to decriminalize marijuana. …Since then, “skunk,” as Britons call the hybrid form of cannabis in current usage, has offered users a 25-fold increase in tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabis’s psychoactive ingredient. The mental and physical effects of this chemical change have been dramatic.
In March, 2007, The Lancet, Britain’s leading medical journal, declared cannabis to be more dangerous and addictive than LSD and Ecstasy. About the same time, Professor Colin Blakemore, chief of the Medical Research Council (and in 1997, the moral authority behind The Independent’s liberalization campaign) unequivocally reversed his cannabis-friendliness: “The link between cannabis and psychosis is quite clear now; it wasn’t 10 years ago.”
As a result, The Independent last year offered its readership a fulsome apology: “If only we had known then what we can reveal today…”
Psychiatry professor Robin Murray of London’s Institute of Psychiatry estimates that cannabis usage is causally linked to a full 10% of the U. K.’s 250,000 bipolar patients.
Indeed, just this past February, the European Respiratory Journal reported on a New Zealand study indicating that long term cannabis use increases the annual risk of lung cancer in young adults by 8% for every year of use.
In 1970, pot contained 1% THC. Bud contains 20% THC. Imagine a glass of wine or beer with a similarly proportioned alcohol content and consider the “rush” it would provide.
Two weeks ago, the Home Office in the U.K. announced: “Cannabis will be reclassified as a Class B drug, sending a strong message that the drug is harmful.”
The verdict on the new marijuana is in, and it’s “guilty.” I would therefore respectfully ask the Post to reconsider its editorial stance on the legalization of “pot,” clearly a superannuated description of cannabis today, and in future commentary on this issue, so critical to our youth’s health, exercise a little more intellectual — ahem — sobriety.
Intellectual sobriety? How about instead, a few facts, please:
Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 12:09 pm | By: Radical Russ
If you haven’t followed the War On (Certain British Subjects Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs going on “across the pond”, then you’re missing some Reefer Madness reminiscent of the days of Harry J. Anslinger and warnings of marijuana being more frightening than Frankenstein and the devil’s tool to make Negroes kill white men and rape white women.
The tactics are familiar. Anslinger took “cannabis” and “hemp”, which almost every early-20th Century American knew to be a common medication and a source of rope and canvas, and re-branded it “marijuana”. That way he and his buddy, William Randolph Hearst, could spread sensationalist lies about cannabis in Hearst’s newspapers, and the scary, Mexican-sounding word helped frighten people about weed in a way that scaremongering on “cannabis” and “hemp” would not.
But the British version of this, happening right now in the 21st Century, is to re-brand the popular herb as “skunk”, with the addition of the scaremongering “this ain’t your father’s pot” rhetoric (”’skunk’ is fifty times more potent than the ganja of the 1960s!”). And this time, it’s not the Negroes coming to hurt whitey, but rather the patently false claim that ’skunk’ triggers psychosis and schizophrenia.
Here is a typical article, from The Argus in the UK…
A mother driven insane by cannabis stabbed herself repeatedly through the chest with a carving knife after claiming she was spoken to by a dog.
Julie Cross told friends the animal was “trying to tell her something” before picking up the 5in blade and ramming it at least five times into her chest and abdomen.
An inquest was told the former receptionist, from Goring, used speed and cannabis on a daily basis and in the weeks running up to her death had slashed her wrists and smeared her blood across a crucifix and also hung a noose from her attic.
Cannabis and speed! Do ya think, perhaps, the speed had more to do with the psychosis? That’s a link that has substantial basis in research and plenty of anecdotal evidence that I’ll testify to as a former club musician who’s seen his share of tweekers.
RevRayGreen: MASS TWEET THIS -@ChuckGrassley Truth is Chuck you follow Nixon's CSA full of reefer sadness. btw Chuck, Marijuana is not a drug.
RevRayGreen: @ChuckGrassley http://bit.ly/55Ejsi Truth is Chuck you follow Nixon's CSA full of reefer madness. btw Chuck, Marijuana is not a drug.
SneakerPimp: one last thing Puff puff pass to any one who wants it
SneakerPimp: i wanna here about the imminent MiniSpof sounds like time for some
SneakerPimp: im estatic and excited for NSL today.
SneakerPimp: mountain time wake n bake
SneakerPimp: oh yea also wake n bake
SneakerPimp: its central im high as a kite everybody
SneakerPimp: ill grab that WUD
WakeUpDead: @Russ, I dont think that wireless is going to work out for the show, it was choppy and studdered just like last week. Hardline may be the only way. Puff [...]
WakeUpDead: A MINI Spof, Lock up your Weed, in 18 years that is. Really Man congrats! Greatest days of my life when my kids were born, hell yeh, great news [...]
BenJaMin: Late night Stash!!!
SneakerPimp: heres a bong rip for spof
RevRayGreen: errr test over....
RevRayGreen: on hold..
RevRayGreen: @RR I'll try and lob a call to you.....
SneakerPimp: where is the first field of cannabis gonna be?
SneakerPimp: !
Radical Russ: Breaking News: MrSpof's wife's water just broke! A MiniSpof is imminent!
SneakerPimp: oh russ its not my fault that i dont understand choppy word:stoned:
SneakerPimp: @Mrspof congratulations tell us all about it tommrow
Radical Russ: OK, test over. Sorry. Only needed a half hour. Be back tomorrow afternoon.
slash5city: don't forget to watch CCS live on u-stream 8 pm west
thaistik: Local Crime Stoppers notice.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Pot shop burglars sought
Crime Stoppers is looking for information on the suspects who police say burglarized a medical marijuana dispensary and stole cash, drugs [...]
American Medical Association Calls For Scientific Review Of Marijuana's Prohibitive Status; Dutch Marijuana Use Lower Than European Average, Study Says […]
"Truth In Trials Act" Reintroduced In Congress; Maine: Voters Approve Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Measure; Colorado: Breckenridge Voters Overwhelmingly Decide To End Pot Penalties. […]
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. […]
Health Risks of Marijuana Still Not Nailed Down… really?
A new article on MedPage today claims that we still don’t fully understand the health risks of cannabis use:
sounds like time for some 
mountain time wake n bake 
don't forget to watch CCS live on u-stream 8 pm west 
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