Panel: 'Spice' Should Be Banned As Drug

A commercially available smoking mixture called Spice, containing a powerful synthetic cannabinoid, should be banned in Britain, authorities say.

The product comes in slick packages and is touted as an all-natural, legal high containing Baybean and vanilla. But it also contains includes a man-made cannabinoid four or five times as potent as THC, the main psychoactive substance in marijuana, The Times of London reported Wednesday....

No. Lumber pools, guns and hamburgers aren't normally considered harmful, whereas cannibis has been deemed such by society. And society has struck it's own balance with cigarettes and whiskey.

If this is the best thinking your brain can do you should submit yourself for a lobotomy ASAP.

I've reviewed the conclusions made by the Keele study and am not impressed.

The Keele study basic claim is that during a 10 year period during which pot use by the general population allegedly soared in the UK, that no increase in psychotic outcomes by the general population was noted.

There are so many things that could be wrong with this study.

The claim that UK pot use soared? Who really has accurate data on the use of an illegal drug in England during this time?
There may be other factors going on in the general population. Pot is not the only cause of psychotic episodes, so many other factors could be masking the impact of pot use.
Changes in national mental health policy could be impacting the reporting.
Improvements in mental health diagnostics could result in a decrease in episodes.
Improvements in treatment could result in a decrease in episodes.
Inavailability of access to health care due to socialized medicine may result in a decrease in reporting.

The Harvard study showed definite brain damage in long-term pot users. That seems to me to be a level of specificity that is orders of magnitude better than this general societal trend analysis by Keele.

The whole Dune epic started out great but quickly went downhill. In the hands of Herbert films, it turned completely into pulp.

My personal take is that the books are excellent. The TV conversions are iffy, with the old original being the best IMO..... The newer ones were too spaced out......almost irritating in content and drama. I did not like them.

I have googled it. There is no Harvard study that shows that long term pot usage “damages the brain in the same areas that are damaged in bipolar people.” If you can point me to the study I’d appreciate it. I looked through the first 5 pages of google on a search of “marijuana study harvard bipolar” and didn’t find it.

I do remember a study from the Lancet that said that “marijuana use can increase the risk of psychotic illnesses by 40 percent for casual users and up to 200 percent for heavy users.” Sounds bad, but if the risk is small the increase of a small risk isn’t all that amazing. If carrying a metal pin increased my chance of being hit by lightning from 1 in a million to 1 in 500k, I’d still be at a pretty low risk of getting hit despite my risk increasing by 100%.

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