Posted on 07/02/2002 8:56:30 AM PDT by WindMinstrel
Health officials in Geneva have suppressed the publication of a politically sensitive analysis that confirms what ageing hippies have known for decades: cannabis is safer than alcohol or tobacco.
According to a document leaked to New Scientist, the analysis concludes not only that the amount of dope smoked worldwide does less harm to public health than drink and cigarettes, but that the same is likely to hold true even if people consumed dope on the same scale as these legal substances.
The comparison was due to appear in a report on the harmful effects of cannabis published last December by the WHO. But it was ditched at the last minute following a long and intense dispute between WHO officials, the cannabis experts who drafted the report and a group of external advisers.
s As the WHO's first report on cannabis for 15 years, the document had been eagerly awaited by doctors and specialists in drug abuse. The official explanation for excluding the comparison of dope with legal substances is that "the reliability and public health significance of such comparisons are doubtful". However, insiders say the comparison was scientifically sound and that the WHO caved in to political pressure. It is understood that advisers from the US National Institute on Drug Abuse and the UN International Drug Control Programme warned the WHO that it would play into the hands of groups campaigning to legalise marijuana.
One member of the expert panel which drafted the report, says: "In the eyes of some, any such comparison is tantamount to an argument for marijuana legalisation." Another member, Billy Martin of the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, says that some WHO officials "went nuts" when they saw the draft report.
The leaked version of the excluded section states that the reason for making the comparisons was "not to promote one drug over another but rather to minimise the double standards that have operated in appraising the health effects of cannabis". Nevertheless, in most of the comparisons it makes between cannabis and alcohol, the illegal drug comes out better--or at least on a par--with the legal one.
The report concludes, for example, that "in developed societies cannabis appears to play little role in injuries caused by violence, as does alcohol". It also says that while the evidence for fetal alcohol syndrome is "good", the evidence that cannabis can harm fetal development is "far from conclusive".
Cannabis also fared better in five out of seven comparisons of long-term damage to health. For example, the report says that while heavy consumption of either drug can lead to dependence, only alcohol produces a "well defined withdrawal syndrome". And while heavy drinking leads to cirrhosis, severe brain injury and a much increased risk of accidents and suicide, the report concludes that there is only "suggestive evidence that chronic cannabis use may produce subtle defects in cognitive functioning".
Two comparisons were more equivocal. The report says that both heavy drinking and marijuana smoking can produce symptoms of psychosis in susceptible people. And, it says, there is evidence that chronic cannabis smoking "may be a contributory cause of cancers of the aerodigestive tract".
Acually, from a C++ perspective, destructor is a good name for a drug-warrior. Most of them would be quite content to remove all variables from their frightened little lives.
Is the possibility of one driving stoned on MJ the reason for your total opposition to MJ and unwaivering support for its illegality?
When will you be starting a "Bring Back Prohibition" campaign?
I understand that you are angry at your friends for making a bad decision that costs them their lives. That doesn't make them idiots, or jackasses. You should try to forgive them, and remember them well. I've been there.
I have to laugh at that statement Not at you, it just struck me so funny--the anti smokers have screamed for years that "Big T" can't be trusted, evrything they say are lies. Yet they have latched onto this like a dog with a bone as if it were gospel. I hate to tell anyone, if everything coming from Big T is a lie - so is that statement. Everything means everything!
Your observation regarding former cocaine and heroin users not kicking cigaretes is the basis for the attitude regarding nicotne being the more addictive. Personally, I just think some people are characteristically prone to addictions.
The problem with the word addiction is that it's basic meaning has been changed to include numerous things people do that are actually just habits, some good and some bad.
I agree with a earlier observation of yours, MJ use should be handled in the same manner as alcohol.
You have the right not to be killed by other drivers acting un-responsibly. That didn't seem to be the argument at hand but lets run with that. Isn't Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicants already illegal? Isn't the basis of this law that driving and being intoxicated is inherently dangerous to other drivers? If so why then should we be punnishing people that are not driving while in possession? If we make that argument for making our streets safer shouldn't we also outlaw all substances that adversely effect motor skills? Shouldn't we also imprison people for not wearing their corrective eye-wear?
a bad decision that costs them their lives. That doesn't make them idiots, or jackasses. You should try to forgive them, and remember them well. I've been there.
I refuse to give them a break just because they lost their lives as a direct result of their deliberate actions. But I do miss them.<P?EBUCK
Some how the latter part gets left off the story. Wonder why?
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