Posted on 01/26/2004 2:36:49 PM PST by quidnunc
As David Blunkett contemplates the chaos and fury triggered by his decision to downgrade the law on cannabis, he could do worse than consider the case of Dominique Lansdowne.
Eleven years ago, when she was 18, the former care assistant from Swindon started smoking cannabis once a week. ‘After a couple of weeks, I found it was addictive’, she said. ‘As soon as you start you get the feeling you’re completely relaxed and calm, but then you crave it. I used it more and more until I was smoking it every day. Then I couldn’t work because I was too stoned all the time. I was so paranoid I couldn’t leave the house.
‘I haven’t worked for the past six years. I lost all my friends and nearly lost my family. I couldn’t afford to pay my mortgage, my house was repossessed, I had to live in a hostel. I was in hospital three times, and couldn’t cope at all in the community. I had no social skills left. My life was in tatters. I didn’t stop completely until two years ago.
‘I still take anti-psychotics, antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs, and will probably have to take medication for the rest of my life. I’m positive cannabis was the cause; I became paranoid as soon as I started smoking it. I’ve known hundreds of people who smoke it; all of them have some kind of paranoia or a problem, whether they recognise it or not.’
All of which makes it truly extraordinary that this Thursday, cannabis will be downgraded from a class B to a class C drug.
The Home Secretary’s move has delighted the drug legalisers — but astonished and horrified those like Dominique, who know the truth about its effects.
Tory leader Michael Howard has boldly declared that a future Conservative government will reverse the policy. Yet Mr Blunkett’s so called ‘reform’ has already caused many people mistakenly to believe cannabis is now legal or safe to use.
Despite ministers’ desperate insistence that it remains illegal and dangerous, putting cannabis in the same category as slimming pills, painkillers, tranquillisers and anabolic steroids sends the inescapable signal that it is not very dangerous after all.
Dominique Lansdowne knows what nonsense this is. Before she used cannabis, she had not even smoked tobacco; afterwards she also tried speed, LSD and ecstasy. ‘I would never have touched hard drugs if I hadn’t taken cannabis. Reclassification is really dreadful and sad because the government is saying cannabis isn’t that bad and so people are going to take it thinking it’s not going to do them any harm.’
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at melaniephillips.com ...
Then learn to garden. Good for the character.
You MAY HAVE "Stumbled Upon" one of the "Great Mysteries" of Life!!
Doc
Significantly less addictive than alcohol, actually. Shall we ban that, too?
"Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is the most common co-occurring disorder in people with schizophrenia."
Co-Occurring Alcohol Use Disorder and Schizophrenia
Robert E. Drake, M.D., Ph.D., and Kim T. Mueser, Ph.D.
Alcohol Research and Health, Volume 26, Number 2, 2002
http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh26-2/99-102.pdf
Shall we ban alcohol, too?
"In the 1990s the use of cannabis increased much among young people so that it is now becoming more common than tobacco smoking in some countries.1-2 The ready availability of the drug, the increasing social disapproval of cigarette smoking, stern drink driving laws, and perceptions that cannabis is safe or less harmful than cigarettes or alcohol may explain these changes. The increase in use is of concern because cannabis may be a gateway to other drugs,3 and it may cause psychiatric illnesses. The link between cannabis and psychosis is well established, and recent studies have found a link between use of marijuana and depression."
There's a causal relationship between pot and schizophrenia. Sorry if that ruins your buzz.
I'm a Scotch and beer man myself, but this is pure hogwash.
You didn't answer my question:
"Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is the most common co-occurring disorder in people with schizophrenia."
Co-Occurring Alcohol Use Disorder and Schizophrenia
Robert E. Drake, M.D., Ph.D., and Kim T. Mueser, Ph.D.
Alcohol Research and Health, Volume 26, Number 2, 2002
http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh26-2/99-102.pdf
Shall we ban alcohol, too?
"The link between cannabis and psychosis is well established"
Bunk. The first of the citations for this claim says quite differently:
"While this study provides some of the strongest evidence for a link between cannabis and psychosis, methodological concerns have been raised. These include the temporal gap between self-reported cannabis use at conscription and later schizophrenia, the potential confounding role of other substance use (particularly as amphetamines were a major drug of abuse during the study period), the adequacy of psychological assessment at conscription, and the reliability of self-reported drug use at conscription. [...]
"A number of hypotheses have been proposed to explain the prevalence of cannabis use in schizophrenia. Apart from the causation/precipitation role, it has been suggested that cannabis is used as self-medication for psychotic or dysphoric symptoms, or to ameliorate the side effects of antipsychotic drugs. Alternatively, the relationship may reflect the common peaks of onset of schizophrenia and cannabis use (particularly as prevalence samples are seldom compared with age- or sex-matched general population controls), or the role of underlying factors such as demographic differences."
Remember that one?
No doubt. But isn't this about the prevalence of schizophrenia in cannabis users?
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