Few doctors have not seen the sudden mental changes that can follow intoxication with cannabis. In the short time that I was involved with large numbers of drug-dependents — mainly, but not exclusively, young people — it was a comparatively common occurrence. The argument always deployed to belittle the importance of this well-known phenomenon is that the personality of many of those who are apt to become cannabis-dependent is essentially a flawed one, and that the easygoing, hearty rugby or hockey player with an outlook as phlegmatic as that of his or her parents would not be affected in the same way.

Even if this were true, it ignores the obvious truth that there is a large and important minority of people, often clever and aesthetic, but with a vulnerable personality, who might have had happier and more productive lives if they hadn’t smoked pot and developed one of the psychological conditions associated with it.

The ability of cannabis to change the slightly bizarre behaviour of a young person carrying a genetic disposition to schizophrenia, from that described as being characteristic of a schizotypal personality disorder, to the disordered thought and behavioural pattern of someone with a frank psychosis is now accepted. The ability of cannabis to cause other psychotic and neurotic conditions, as well as precipitating schizophrenia, is well documented. Likewise, its deleterious effect on short-term memory, with all its attendant disadvantages, is well known.

The physical disadvantages of cannabis are less well described. Young people rarely think about mortality: death is for older age groups. They may worry, or claim to worry, about the long-term effects of pesticides, food additives, exhaust pollution and eating the right sort of fat (in the more extreme cases, no fat at all), but they prefer to ignore that even in the short term, cannabis can be a killer.

Twenty years ago M.B. Holmberg presented statistics based on a study of 1,000 16-year-olds that showed that those who had been regular cannabis smokers at that time were five to eight times more likely to have died over the following ten years. Not only were they more likely to have ended up at the undertakers but there was a greater probability that they had spent time in hospital or under the care of doctors or social workers. They had a greater incidence of disease and social problems.

In Holmberg’s study 10 per cent of the regular cannabis smokers at the age of 16 were recognised as suffering from a psychosis during the ten-year follow-up period. Much of the excess mortality in young cannabis-takers occurred among the psychotic patients who obviously were prone to suicide and accidental death. A study has shown that even in the early 1980s, when cannabis wasn’t as strong as it is now, someone who smoked cannabis once every ten days ran nearly two-and-a-half times the risk of being involved in a road accident.

A later survey has put the risk of road accidents greater than this. D.H. Gieringer, writing on marijuana, driving and accident safety in The Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, suggests that the true figure of accident-proneness in driving is three to five times that of those who do not use cannabis regularly. This was demonstrated to me many years ago when I was working with drug-dependent patients. I was to speak in a debate opposing the legalisation of cannabis.

My opponent, a university lecturer of great charm, offered to give me a lift to the debating hall because he wanted to demonstrate how cannabis-smoking did not affect driving. After a terror-inducing drive, which could compete in the nonchalance stakes with a French taxi driver’s, he abandoned the car — parking would not be the right word — feet from the pavement.

He was happy with his performance. “There you are, Tom,” he said, “I told you it would be nothing like driving with someone who has been drinking.”

Not all the excess deaths of regular cannabis-takers, as opposed to non-smokers, can be attributed to suicide and accidents. Cannabis has been commonly smoked in Western society for only the past 40 years or so. So its long-term effect as a cancer inducer has until recently been conjectural. It is known that there is twice as much tar in cannabis as in tobacco, and there is evidence that this tar is carcinogenic. Tests have shown that most cannabis smokers — President Clinton is the obvious exception — aim to inhale deeply and to retain the smoke for as long as possible.

As a result of these two factors, a person who smokes a joint rather than a cigarette will ingest four times as much tar. It is not therefore surprising that not only does the tissue of cannabis smokers show pre-malignant changes but that there is now evidence of an increased incidence of many cancers. Research workers at New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre, one of the top ten cancer centres in the world, found that on average regular smokers of cannabis were 30 times more likely to develop cancer of the neck, throat, mouth and larynx than those who never inhale marijuana. Other research in the early 1990s demonstrated that these tumours appear between ten and 30 years earlier than in non-cannabis takers. These cancers struck more often and at an earlier age in cannabis smokers than in other people.

The Sloan-Kettering researchers analysed their statistics. The response, as would be expected, was dose-related. The risk of head and neck cancer was doubled by smoking any marijuana, and those who smoked more than a joint a day increased the incidence by five times. If they also smoked cigarettes, as most did, the incidence of head and neck cancers increased 36 times. Cigarettes and cannabis are a deadly mixture. The SloanKettering researchers, like those from the Swedish National Institute of Public Health, had no doubts about the ability of cannabis to induce cancer of the lungs, mouth, pharynx (throat) and larynx (voice box). In all probability, it also increases cancer of the oesophagus.

Workers on psycho-active drugs have also studied the effects of cannabis on the heart and cardiovascular system. They have shown that when patients are stoned they suffer palpitations, cardiac arrhythmias and a drop in blood pressure that may, for instance, induce dizziness when they stand up.

In a fit young person the general view is that these changes are more likely to be inconvenient and disturbing than dangerous. There have been one or two cases of heart attacks recorded in young people after heavy cannabis use, but they were not shown to be necessarily the result of the heavy cannabis use.

The news is less encouraging for those who smoked cannabis in the 1960s and 1970s and have never given it up. They should not be too sanguine about its effect on their ageing cardiovascular systems. Older people with heart disease or high blood pressure have been shown to be adversely affected by smoking cannabis. Whenever cannabis and hormones are discussed, the story is usually told of a young Swedish patient who had started smoking cannabis before he was 12. He was a heavy cannabis smoker by the time he was 16. The boy was undersized, had no pubic hair, small testicles and an underdeveloped penis. His testosterone levels were abnormally low for a boy of his age.

He stopped smoking and it was as if a miracle had happened. He grew, his testosterone levels returned to normal and once again he could go proudly into the communal showers after PE. This is only a single case and has therefore little scientific value, but it is a good illustration of an extreme example of the changes that can follow heavy smoking of cannabis.

Men who smoke too much cannabis may well, for instance, develop heavy breasts.

When I was working in Whitechapel a Rastafarian told me that he could notice no difference between alcohol and a spliff. “You drink whisky, doctor, and become impotent; I take ganga and become impotent. The only difference is that I get red eyes and you don’t.” He was right about the whisky, and the red eyes, but knew nothing about my sex life — it was in pre-prostatectomy days. To judge from my chats with heavy cannabis takers, it seems that though they claimed the drug enhanced sexual sensations, in many cases it also reduced potency.

It is known that heavy doses of cannabis can induce foetal malformations in animals. There has been much argument about whether it also causes an increase in stillbirth and foetal abnormality rate in human beings. At present, the case for this could be described only as unproven, but it reduces sperm counts, and when there is so much worry from the green movement about the reduction in sperm counts over the past century, it would seem a pity to hasten the process.

Most of us with children and grandchildren whose own opinions on the legalisation of cannabis weren’t formed by its widespread use in undergraduate days will continue to worry about its psychological and neurological effects (admirably described recently by Professor Susan Greenfield in The Times). The former has been a source of anxiety for 40 years.

We should never forget that cannabis induces both physical and mental changes.

Source: Times, The (UK)
Author: Dr Thomas Stuttaford
Published: Tuesday, July 31, 2001
Copyright: 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd
Contact: letters@the-times.co.uk
Website: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/

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I just can't get over how the big pharmas and alkie industries are terrified of folks having legal access to a much less harmful product!

M

PS -- At first I was convinced this piece had to be a send-up, some sort of parody, a harmless spoof; but three problems with that theory:

(1) How could at least 30 C-News readers (the posters here), whom I have learned over time here are some of the most sophisticated and analytical readers anywhere, have missed the subtle humor that one would find in a satirical composition?

(2) This definitely not a HARMLESS (even if we give Dr. S the benefit of the doubt and call it a parody) article as this creep is apparently one of the biggest "media doctors" (the ones who write lots of columns, have TV appearances, etc.) in the UK, sort of like Oprah's "Dr. Phil" or Dr. Dean Adell here, so a lot of people take him seriously as an authority about any subject on which he pronounces opinions, and the resulting faith hapless readers place in this ostenible "objective journalism" could really hurt our cause;

AND,

(3) I re-read and re-read the piece, even high once, and simply fail, like the other readers, to find ANY humor in the outrageous statements he makes as they are all banal re-hashes of the "Reefer Madness" flick or the writings of a historical drug warrior like Canada's Mily Murphy in the 1920's.

Yet, somehow, I do giggle at the thought that ANYONE could expect a reader to consider as true these egregiously and palpably false assertions -- perhaps that's why I reallly thought this piece of sh*t might be a send-up?

Second, I think that everyone else here has pretty much made the point that this article is nothing but a collection of lies reported as truth and believed by only the stupid and uninformed.

Consider that even if one is uninformed, one should still be able to easily deduce that cannabis doesn't do half of what Dr. Stuttaford claims; otherwise, we'd have huge tallies of accidents due to marijuana intoxication (we don't), a larger population of "pothead" schizophrenics than "potheads" in the general population (we don't), and vast numbers of infertile men wielding large mammaries (need I even say it?).

Furthermore, we'd have millions of people in body bags with toe tags that read "Death by Marijuana Overdose" (to the uninformed: there is no such thing as pot overdose).

Yep, even the uninformed should be able to deduce that this article amounts to just a large pile of excrement. In order to buy this load, one would have to be both uninformed and stupid!

I won't bore you with anticdotes about how productive my life is, but I will tell you this:

I am not some tree hugging hippie who ADVOCATES the use of cannabis. I don't advocate abusing drugs anymore than I advocate abusing booze, or one's spouse. What I will not stand for is jails full of non-violent drug offenders, while criminals who rape, pillage and murder go free. There are no profits in locking up murderous scumbags, because the authorities can't steal everything they own.

You pretend to be conserned about people's health, but this is about money. You doctors don't like pot because pot competes with all the "good" and "safe" dope that you guys peddle. Drug dealers are your competition.

I don't want the government to protect me from myself. I am allowed to jump out of a plane, climb a mountain, drink a beer, and smoke tobbaco in our free society. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to grow a plant and smoke it. By the way all of the above risky behaviours have caused more deaths than cannabis.

Doctor Dr. Stuttaford, if you think pot is dangerous than don't you smoke it. I think jumping out of planes is dangerous so I don't skydive. The difference between you and me is that I don't feel the need to inflict my beliefs on others via laws.

I don't believe there should be a law against jumping out of planes. If you want to sky dive go ahead. Its not my problem unless you land on me. Then I will sue your estate. In the mean time I will leave you alone with your risky habit. I want you and your ilk to do the same with me and my risky habit. Leave me the hell alone.

Shame on you for printing Dr Thomas Stuttaford's "Cannabis Kills". It was so full of factual error that one wonders at your newspaper's credibility.

First, let's start with the title, "Cannabis Kills". No one has ever died of a cannabis overdose. This is because the active ingredient in cannabis, THC, is non-toxic. That is what differentiates cannabis from virtually all other psychoactive drugs, from alcohol to cocaine to nicotine to
caffeine: its main ingredient has no known toxic dose.

Second, we must address the many factual errors regarding the dangers of marijuana. Stuttaford, your so-called
"medical expert", manages to nicely rehash some of the most popular myths regarding cannabis use -- including the oft-told untruth that it causes men to grow breasts! Is your editorial department short on fact-checkers, or do you typically print falsehoods in your newspaper?

However, what makes the article most despicable, is that even if every horrible thing Dr. Stuttaford printed about cannabis were true, none of it would justify putting people into jail for merely possessing and using it.

The British people are a little further advanced on this question than our duly elected leaders here in the States. I ask only that we leave the propaganda and lies out of this much-needed debate; it is because of such
distortion of the truth that we are in such a wretched mess
today. Legalize cannabis, and you end once and for all the only truly harmful side effect of the herb -- going to jail.

DOn't lose it. Frame it. Keep it. It's going to be exhibit A in the war-crimes and stupidity trial of the "underdeveloped penis" "Dr" Thomas Stuttaford.

More lies = more backlash

For the sake of argument, let's say that something this goon said is true. Or let's just say that everything he said is true. It still does not justify PUTTING PEOPLE IN JAIL FOR A CONSENSUAL ACTIVITY WHICH HARMS NOBODY ELSE'S PERSON OR PROPERTY!!!

As support grows for the decriminalisation of the
so-called soft drug marijuana, Dr Thomas
Stuttaford explains why advocates of change need
to consider the long-term consequences - mental and
physical - of such a move.

The Institute of Medicine report came up with very different conclusions from this doctor, after an exhaustive review of all previous scientific studies of marijuana that have even been published in peer reviewed scientific journals.

They conluded that marijuana has relatively benign effects on physical and mental health. Animal studies are often quoted in these scare stories, but the dosage of THC given to animals in these studies is tyoically about 300 times the normal effective dose delivered by smoking a joint of high potency marijuana.

When they talk about the mind-numbing effects of marijuana, what they really mean is that if you give a rat the equivelent of 300 joints of high potency marijuana in a single dose through an IV, that rat will essentially be frozen in a nearly catatonic state.

That has absolutely nothing to do with the effects of marijuana at the very low doses consumed by smoking even the highest potency sliffs.

The Institute of Medicine, in their wisdom, understood the difference between animal experiments at radically high doses of THC, and human consumption of cannabis for recrteational and medical purposes at the normal dosages of THC where the effects are merely pleasant, not disabling.

Hi Everyone,

I'm not going to post the transcripts because of the volume of news right now but here is the link.

Date: July 30, 2001

The new recreational drug of choice among teens has produced a 50 percent increase in emergency room visits.

Click here to listen to this segment in RealAudio.
http://audio.pbs.org:8080/ramgen/newshour/expansion/2001/07/30/ecstasy.rm?altplay=ecstasy.rm

JIM LEHRER: There was a Senate hearing at the Capitol this morning about ecstasy, the new drug of choice among teens that has produced a 50% increase in emergency room visits in the United States. Betty Ann Bowser reports.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: It's become part of the scene, dance parties, called raves, that attract hundreds of teenagers, some as young as 13.

This man constantly rationalizes on why "cannabis kills" but he still doesn't give the reader any evidence that what he claims is true. "Marijuana causes cancer," he says. But, no...wait a minute...

So its long-term effect as a cancer inducer has until recently been conjectural

OK, so where's the recently? What evidence is there that smoking marijuana causes cancer? Is there proof? So marijuana looks like it should cause cancer in the same way as cigarrettes. While reasonable, there's still no link, not to mention the fact that people smoke (smoked) far more tobacco leaf than they do marijuana.

A joint the size and shape of a regular cigarette would last me 3 or 4 days. So if an MJ cig has 4 times the tar and chemicals, yet I smoke, say, 1/70th as much material... Then that would mean that I'd get roughly 1/17th the amount of tar from a joint smoked over days than I would from four cigarettes smoked in the space of 2-3 hours.

I wish this cool-headed ignorance was taken by the public-at-large with just a bit more cynicism. So many people are so easily led.

The same pharmaceutical industry that denied AIDS medicine to Africa, and killed millions.

We should never forget that cannabis induces both physical and mental changes.

Cannabis helps cure stress and emotional problems, if cannabis helps us then we wouldn't need this bozo.

Men who smoke too much cannabis may well, for instance, develop heavy breasts.

An all out attack happens when this metal miget says this. I had to laugh. Hey ladies, look what cannabis does. :-)

According to you, given the fact that millions of people around the planet smoke The Herb every day, some for the past 30 years, the morgues would have to rent space in the local butcher's frig for all the bodies. All those dead hippies and Rastas - not to mention doctors, lawyers, Indian Chiefs and whatnot - would have to be stacked like frozen cordwood, there'd be so many.

There should be file cabinets bursting at the seams, papers strew over the floor, out the door and into the street. Autopsy reports with "death by cancer caused by cannabis smoke" printed in nice neat lettering.

But there aren't any, Doctor; now, why is that?

All over Asia and Europe, Africa and the Americas, everywhere it grows, not a single solitary recorded death caused by use.

In 5,000 years.

pure cowdung!

That so called doctor is no doctor!

The doctor forgot something..

It is not right to put someone in prison because he thinks that way....

Sick!