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".
I (and probably most of us out here on this thread), first and foremost, want the gubment out of out business and back into the Constitutional bottle from whence it came. For you to put your perceived personal safety ahead of individual rights puts you in the same catagory as just about every socialist thinker/tyrant the world has ever been subject to.
EBUCK
All I'm guilty of is taking a stand for Law & Order.
Your name calling and propagandizing are "part of the debate" about as much as ants are part of a picnic, or horseshit is part of a rodeo. Nothing more.
Unlike you potheads I'm at work. Our Server is currently down, and I'm waiting for the computer jockies to get it up and running again. Periodically, I do have to do a little work as it comes my way. I don't expect any of you to understand the concept of working for a living.
You are being a socialist with this stand just on the simple basis of your support for the WOD's funding which is taken from us for the STATE to spend. And which is used to accomplish definately socialist goals, i.e. population control, propoganda, and massive state payrolls.
The socialists cannot conquer us without our money or support. Your law and order stance is the same one used to "re-organize" the gubments of Germany and Russia. Wherein a minority was painted as a threat to the common mans "way of life", a call for more money and power came from the halls of gument, the people (brainwashed into submission) gave until it hurt and viola, A SOCIALIST STATE. You are supporting our transformation to a socialist state!!!
EBUCK
"How about cutting and pasting a post that says pot and pot smokers should be celebrated."
Why don't you go back and read them for yourself? I guess I just really have a problem with all the lies that I'm reading from your side: Pot doesn't harm your health at all. Pot doesn't effect your ability to drive at all (it even makes you a better driver). Pot doesn't contribute to crime, or lead to the use of harder drugs. It's all bull!
You're all so dead set on getting wasted that you've convinced yourselves that your line of crap is gospel! It's amazing that people can be so blatantly dishonest!! If this stuff is such a wonderful cure for all of the ills of Society why do you suppose it was made illegal in the first place?
More and more you are resorting to personal attackes because you have LOST the argument on a legal and constitutional basis and are running on pure emotionalism and symbolism over substance.
I have disagreed with you on many many posts on this thread but i have yet to lauch a personal attack or put down upon you a single time. Its too bad you can not do the same.
Bull! If the Socialist succeed in turning us into a Nation largely populated by drugged out zombies they will win. That is what the whole counter-culture drug movement of the 60's was about. Undermining the very fabric of our Society. Leftist druggies are the ones supporting the establishment of a "SOCIALIST STATE." Not Law abiding citizens.
I'm sorry that you have the misfortune of living in a civilized country. A country that governs itself by rule of Law. Maybe you could move to another country where you won't be burdened by the requirement of following the Law.
I have never said that it 'improves' your driving ability and would not blindly agree with those that say it does. I havent read studies on the matter. I would not reject them out of hand, as you have done on EVERY matter that is contrary to your world view. I suspect, and think they would agree, that if studies do show it has an improving factor on driving that there comes a point in consumption where your ability goes down. Rapidly.
And you never answered my question regarding alcohol, a drug, and harder drugs. Why is that?
And where have I a single time said that I want to get wasted?
Have I or others ever claimed that MJ is the "cure for societies ills"?
You, far more than the MJ legalization crowd is a believer of 'gospel'.
I support the legalization of MJ on a CONSTITUTIONAL basis and support each states right to determine its legality on an individual basis without interferance or blackmail from the IFG.
And the notion that MJ money supports terrorism is nonsense. Cocaine, heroine and other drugs most likely. But pot, no. Pot is either home grown in the USA, Canada, or Mexico.
I can not answer the question regarding why it was made illegal in the first half of the 20th Century. I am sure others can. But if memory serves me right, DuPont had something to do with it. They had a competing product they wanted to replace hemp, which the US Military used to make uniforms, ropes and other war materials. Nylon.
If you believe one solitary bit of the movie Reefer Madness and other propoganda films about MJ at the time you are brainwashed, possibly beyond repair. Its all lies.
Your argument for the maintanence of MJ prohibition has failed to move past "stoned drivers". When shall you be rallying the "good citizens of the US" to bring back alcohol prohibition?
Nor constitutional.
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