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| U.S. Official Warns of Teen Pot Use |
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Posted by CN Staff on September 17, 2002 at 16:45:31 PT By Eun-Kyung Kim, Associated Press Source: Associated Press 
The nation's drug policy director warned parents Tuesday against trivializing the dangers of marijuana to their kids, warning them that more teens are addicted to pot than to alcohol or to all other illegal drugs combined.Many parents and children have outdated perceptions about marijuana, said John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. They believe marijuana is not addictive, that it's less dangerous than cigarettes or that it has few long-term health consequences. In reality, more teens enter rehabilitation centers to treat marijuana addiction than alcohol or all illegal drugs combined, Walters said. "Our effort is to correct the ignorance that is the single biggest obstacle to protecting our kids," he said as he announced an advertising campaign by his office and 17 education, public health, anti-drug and family advocacy groups. The national effort will include advertisements on television, radio and print media, along with ones that will air in NFL stadiums and inside game programs. "For too long our nation's teens have been getting the wrong message about marijuana. Youth popular culture has trivialized the real harm of marijuana in kids," Walters said. A common misperception is that smoking marijuana is less dangerous than smoking a cigarette, said Surgeon General Richard Carmona. But marijuana contains three to five times more tar and carbon monoxide than a comparable amount of tobacco, he said. It also affects the brain in ways similar to cocaine and heroin. Carmona said that one out of five eighth-graders has tried marijuana - twice as many who tried it a decade ago. "Marijuana is not a rite of passage but a dangerous behavior that could have serious health consequences. Parents must realize that what they tell their children about drug use makes a difference," Carmona said. Dr. Richard Corlin, former president of the American Medical Association, urged parents, teachers, doctors and anyone else working with children to stop sending conflicting signals. "We must lead by example and not use marijuana ourselves or condone its use by anyone of any age," he said. Source: Associated Press Related Articles: The Violent Side of Marijuana Use New Drug War - ABCNews.com Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #6 posted by DdC on September 17, 2002 at 19:33:05 PT |
| ...all his servants are wicked. (Prov. 29:12)
Researchers at the University of California (UCLA) School of Medicine have announced the results of an 8 - year study into the effects of long-term cannabis smoking on the lungs. In Volume 155 of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Dr. D.P. Tashkin reported: "Findings from the present long-term, follow-up study of heavy, habitual marijuana smokers argue against the concept that continuing heavy use of marijuana is a significant risk factor for the development of [chronic lung disease. ..Neither the continuing nor the intermittent marijuana smokers exhibited any significantly different rates of decline in [lung function] as compared with those individuals who never smoked marijuana. Researchers added: "No differences were noted between even quite heavy marijuana smoking and non-smoking of marijuana." See Also: Proven : Cannabis is a safe medicine by Ian Williams Goddard CANNABIS DOES NOT CAUSE CANCER BOSTON, Jan. 30, 1997 (UPI) - The U.S. federal government has failed to make public its own 1994 study that undercuts its position that marijuana is carcinogenic - a $2 million study by the National Toxicology Program. The program's deputy director, John Bucher, says the study "found absolutely no evidence of cancer." In fact, animals that received THC had fewer cancers. Bucher denies his agency had been pressured to shelve the report, saying the delay in making it public was due to a personnel shortage. The Boston Globe reported Thursday (1-30-97) that the study indicates not only that the main ingredient in marijuana, THC, does not cause cancer, but also that it may even protect against malignancies, laboratory tests on animals show. The report comes on the heels of an editorial in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine that favors the controlled medical use of marijuana, and calls current federal policy "misguided, heavy-handed and inhumane." The Clinton administration has said that doctors prescribing marijuana could be prosecuted for a federal crime. Marijuana has been reported to ease the pain, nausea and vomiting in advanced stages of cancer, AIDS and other serious illnesses, but the federal government claims other treatments have been deemed safer than what it calls "a psychoactive, burning carcinogen." However, The Boston Globe says the government's claim appears to be undercut by its own $2 million study. The USA Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy 1987 "Cannabis can be used on an episodic but continual basis without evidence of social or psychic dysfunction. In many users the term dependence with its obvious connotations, probably is mis-applied... The chief opposition to the drug rests on a moral and political, and not toxicologic, foundation". A-MOTIVATION Dr. Andrew Weil (Rubin & Comitas Ganja in Jamaica, 1975) "a-motivation [is] a cause of heavy marijuana smoking rather than the reverse" ADDICTION /DEPENDENCY The Shafer Commission of 1970 Marijuana does not lead to physical dependency, although some evidence indicates that the heavy, long-term users may develop a psychological dependence on the drug" GATEWAY THEORY The LaGardia sub-committee of New York 1944 "The use of marijuana does not lead to morphine or heroin or cocaine addiction and no effort is made to create a market for these narcotics by stimulating the practice of marijuana smoking" "Marijuana: Facts for Teens." U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Washington, D.C. 1995, p.10. "Most marijuana users do not go on to use other drugs." DRIVING Crancer Study, Washington Department of Motor Vehicles "Simulated driving scores for subjects experiencing a normal social "high" and the same subjects under control conditions are not significantly different. However, there are significantly more errors for alcohol intoxicated than for control subjects" U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (DOT HS 808 078), Final Report, November 1993: "THC's adverse effects on driving performance appear relatively small" Professor Olaf Drummer, a forensic scientist the Royal College of Surgeons in Melbourne in 1996 ":Compared to alcohol, which makers people take more risks on the road, marijuana made drivers slow down and drive more carefully.... Cannabis is good for driving skills, as people tend to overcompensate for a perceived impairment.": MEDICINE Dr. Anthony Henman: "One of the best effects Marijuana can have in any terminal illness is to produce a degree of euphoria which boosts morale in a depressing situation" The Economist March 28th 1992: "Medicines often produce side effects. Sometimes they are physically unpleasant. Cannabis too has discomforting side effects, but these are not physical they are political" Professor Lester Grinspoon, Harvard Medical School, USA: "Marijuana is one of the least toxic substances in the whole pharmacopoeia" Dr. James Malone-Lee, consultant St. Pancras Hospital, London: "I'm quite impressed by what's happened to (MS) patients who have used it". President Jimmy Carter: "Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself" Judge James Pickles, UK: "Cannabis never killed anybody and it's use is widespread. You can"t stop it. The law defeats itself because all the efforts to stop drugs coming in only drives up the prices and then gangsters move in to push the drugs. If they legalised there wouldn't be gangsters and huge profits...The police are gradually decriminalising the possession of cannabis because they realise there's not much point prosecuting" President Abraham Lincoln (December 1840): "Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control mans' appetite through legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not even crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our Government was founded" Volney Brown Jr., Federal Magistrate-Judge,(retired)., Los Angeles. At the DPF Conference, November 1996: "There is only one thing wrong with drug law enforcement, just one - it doesn't work. And when I tell you this I want you to believe me because I have done it" Judge James Grey, Orange County Superior Court, Santa Ana, CA, at the DPF Conference, November 1996: "If we continue as we have for the past 20 years in California, in the year 2020, everybody in the State will either be in prison or running one" Judge Pamela Alexander at the DPF Conference, November 1996: "I am here because I am the first judge in this country to say, in 1990, that the war on drugs was racist. It still is and that hasn't changed" Ann Shulgin, PhD, Therapist and Author, Lafayette, CA, at the DPF Conference, November 1996: "Several generations of high school students have grown up ignoring and disbelieving everything they've heard from government and police about drugs, including information that was factual and valid, because they discovered for themselves that most of what has been taught to them was simply not true." The assassins of youth...FRCn\DARE/PDFA http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=105.topic Who's really behind the Brainwasher Partnerships? http://boards.marihemp.com/boards/politics/media/36/36796.gif [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #5 posted by Nasarius on September 17, 2002 at 18:25:48 PT |
| "In reality, more teens enter rehabilitation centers to treat marijuana addiction than alcohol or all illegal drugs combined, Walters said." What Johnny boy neglected to say is that almost everyone in rehab for marijuana is forced into it. I have a friend who was forced to go to rehab for almost a year after his first conviction for (very small) possession. Why don't you show us the real numbers, John? They prove that marijuana is less addictive than alcohol. Every last study of the long-term effects of cannabis smoking has come back: "little or no consequences". Stop lying, John. Please. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #4 posted by BGreen on September 17, 2002 at 17:09:23 PT |
| Throw in Bennett, Hutchinson, Ashcroft, McCaffrey and Lee Brown, and Dr. Russo will annihilate them. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #3 posted by Dan B on September 17, 2002 at 17:04:54 PT |
| Why don't they let doctors debate these politicians?
What, and make room for a serious debate on the issue? I'm being sarcastic, of course. It is sad, though, that Dr. Russo, you and I and others who are informed (the entire Cannabis News cast and many more!) can see through Walters's and Hutchinson's lies as soon as they exit their mouths, but it seems that the majority of Americans can't tell a lie even when it is biting them square on the rights. Dan B [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by Sam Adams on September 17, 2002 at 17:01:18 PT |
| What a great article - really covered all the angles of the issue. Nice to see all viewpoints covered, eh? Did you guys see this...welcome to the police state.... (AP) PALMER PARK, Md. -- Police defended the use of pepper spray during Monday night's Washington Redskins-Philadelphia Eagles game, causing an eight-minute delay. The Prince George's County (Md.) Police Dept. issued a statement Tuesday saying officers and FedEx Field ushers responding to a report of a fight in the stands found a fan being kicked to the ground by other fans. According to police, a sergeant tried to stop the fight, but there were too many people involved. So he used his department-issued pepper spray, which immediately stopped the brawl and sent the attackers fleeing. "The officer made the decision to deploy the pepper spray to quickly control a potentially dangerous situation with the minimal force necessary to assist the spectator in trouble,'' police said. "The action was taken to safeguard the well being of all nearby spectators.'' The fight broke out with about 6½ minutes to play and the Redskins on their way to a 37-7 loss. By that time more than half the 84,982 fans had left. "If that had happened before last Sept. 11, you would have thought nothing of it,'' Redskins tackle Jon Jansen said, "because we've all been in stadiums where the crowd gets out of hand. But, any more, you don't know what it is, especially in this area.'' Police said cooling fans on the field pulled the pepper spray residue behind the Eagles' bench. Philadelphia players scattered from their bench onto the field, and players and fans in the stands on that side of the stadium held their noses, as a national TV audience tuned to ABC's "Monday Night Football'' watched. Greg Aiello, an NFL vice president, said Tuesday the league was reviewing the pepper-spray incident to see if any changes need to be made in how the situation was handled. Aiello said the use of pepper spray was made at the discretion of the police department and that the league would defer to the judgment of law enforcement on whether the use of the spray was warranted. Aiello said it would not be fair to second-guess the way in which referee Bob McElwee announced that a foreign substance had been released and drifted to the sideline. Since McElwee did not know the nature of the substance, he could say no more than that, Aiello said. "It was clearly a foregin substance," Aiello said. "Were it to have been something more serious, no one would have questioned him then." Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #1 posted by BGreen on September 17, 2002 at 16:56:30 PT |
| That would be amazing if it would happen. Dr. Russo could slam the lies. Why don't they let doctors debate these politicians? [ Post Comment ] |
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