High anxieties : What the WHO doesn't want you to know about cannabis

New Scientist ^

[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".

[Destructor]

"Conspiracy, certainly. Leftist? Hardly. Unless you consider a very large portion of this site "Leftist". Face it. MJ is, at its worst, as bad as alchohol (certainly far less harmfull but FTSOA..) yet it's use and possession is in the same felony class that Heroin and Cocain are in. Does that make sense?"

Are you going to deny that Leftist Dimocrat types ever come on this site? We have half the Dimocratic Underground either lurking or disrupting on a regular basis. Who exactly supports legalizing drugs, and the whole counter-culture, anti-American crap line anyway? Conservatives? Wrong. Leftist infiltrators, and Libertarian types (who ought to know better).

"MJ" is every bit as bad as alcohol. I had a good friend who died while driving "DUI." Ran his van into a utility pole. I know this argument that pot is "not as bad" is nothing but lame! Personally, I'm GLAD that dangerous drugs like "MJ" are illegal, and I want to see people that possess them punished!

[bat-boy]

bwahahahahaha!

I didn't see that, but it sounds about par for course.

[Destructor]

"There is a HUGE difference between physical addition and physcological addiction. Smokers have a strong and controling PHYSICAL addiction to nicotine. And that would be 4:20, not 4:30."

Agreed. Your addiction is also strong. Physically, you don't need it, but mentally you think you need it. The difference is not so huge!

[headsonpikes]

"Personally. I'm GLAD..."

You're a goodthinking citizen; soon there may be little medals for that.

Remember, Eastasia has ALWAYS been the enemy.

[Phantom Lord]

I suspect you are not, nor have ever been a regular smoker of cigarettes.

[Destructor]

Guess that makes perfect sense, if your toasted.

[Lady Jag]

Actually I think it was a Canadian study done on dogs. I read the report back in the 70s that they did determine a lethal dose. One (a dog, anyway) would have to smoke 100 joints in an hour to obtain a fatal dose.

[Destructor]

Whoops! your= you're (No, I'm not toasted)

[headsonpikes]

Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk!!

Gawrsh! That's funny!

You're well on your way to becoming a wit...about half way, I reckon.

[Destructor]

"I suspect you are not, nor have ever been a regular smoker of cigarettes."

Guess again. I was in the Army. I did smoke when my unit went out in the field, and I had to stay up for hours/days on end.

[tacticalogic]

One (a dog, anyway) would have to smoke 100 joints in an hour to obtain a fatal dose.

That's about a joint every 40 seconds. Did the dog die of THC poisoning or oxygen deprivation?

[William Terrell]

Hmmmmm. . .perhaps there should be a study on the affects of cannibas on the ability to present an intelligent argument.

You would probably be amazed at the sheer number of software systems used every day by people all over the world which were written, every single line of code, while stoned on cannabis. This not to include the articles, fiction, poetry, commercial drawings, commercial ads, legal briefs, architect plans and draft drawings for machinery likewise crafted while stoned.

You evidently have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, no clue to objective results of the use and effect of cannabis, and one emotional exerience to base your objection on. Like the poster above asked, did you hang yourself in your jail cell, too?

[EBUCK]

I've never run into a DU lurker/disruptor. What are some of them titled so I know one when I see one.

On to the rest of your rant.

Libertarian types do know better. Appearantly better than you at least. The WOPot disposes of billions of tax dollars a year. Incarcerates nearly 3/4 of a million people a year. And has trampled the constitution every minute of every day since it started. Which is worse? Your idiot friend driving into a tele-pole because he got high then drove around or the millions of people adversely effected by the WOPot every day?

I suppose that you think the constant rights violations (which our forefathers fought to establish in the first place), wasted funds (that you and I pay), and wasted lives are a fair price to pay for the irradication of a plant that is at worst "every bit as bad as alcohol". I also suppose that you believe also that the needs of the many outweigh the rights of the few, that gubment must protect us from ourselves and that the only true authority is the gubment and its duty is to protect us from ourselves.

EBUCK

[Lady Jag]

That's about a joint every 40 seconds. Did the dog die of THC poisoning or oxygen deprivation?

Most definitely the dog expired because it couldn't inspire. Oxygen deprivation was indeed the terminal affect of smoking so much pot, something a voluntary smoker couldn't possibly attain because a human would eventually forget to smoke the thing.

[Destructor]

"You're well on your way to becoming a wit...about half way, I reckon."

Thanks! You're pretty funny too! Especially when you're trying to make an intelligent argument.

[EBUCK]

They tried the same thing on a monkey I remember. Same result. Died of asphyxiation. Probably passed out long before dying though.

EBUCK

[EBUCK]

Become informed please.....

Pot Myths

EBUCK

[Gabz]

Smokers have a strong and controling PHYSICAL addiction to nicotine.

I really don't think so. I think it's a psychological thing. Cig smokers hav had the "it's more addictive than cocaine and heroin" shoved down their throat for so long they've started to believe they have to have help in quitting.

And I don't think pot is addictive either, but that's just my personal opinion. I have no science to prove the statement one way or the other.

[vin-one]

Be sure to include some names of real live people, and real documents from credible sources that can be referenced. I'm not interested in anybody's drug-induced delusions, or drug-addled rants!

you are very funny, drug induced delusions,
try going to a couple of these sites, and see, documented proof
first is the dea judge young, do a google search and find plenty of information
or this
http://www.ccguide.org.uk/young88.html statement by DEA Judge Young,"The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana
has been accepted as capable of relieving the
distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision.
It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for the Drug Enforcement Administration to continue to stand
between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence."
or try this link to a medical study done by the IOM (institute of Medicince)
http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_medical_iom_report.pdf
but I will summarize it for you,
"Until a non-smoked, rapid-onset cannabinoid drug delivery system becomes available, we
acknowledge that there is no clear alternative for people suffering from chronic conditions that
might be relieved by smoking marijuana, such as pain or AIDS wasting. One possible approach is"

Not sure how this will look but I gave it a try

[William Terrell]

Try Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts by Zimmer and Morgan. They give you 68 pages of government and independent research studies that completely refute beyond rational argument every statement of "fact" you would care to give about the destructive effect, both personal and societal, of cannabis. Read it and get back to me. Your blinders do allow you to read, right?