cannabisnews.com: Drug Czar's Latest B.S. Claim





Drug Czar's Latest B.S. Claim
Posted by CN Staff on May 13, 2008 at 08:27:32 PT
By Paul Armentano, NORML
Source: AlterNet 
Washington, D.C. -- Depression, teens and marijuana are a dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report released Friday. A teen who has been depressed at some point in the past year is more than twice as likely to have used marijuana as teens who have not reported being depressed -- 25 percent compared with 12 percent, said the report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
“Marijuana is a more consequential substance of abuse than our culture has treated it in the last 20 years,” said John Walters, director of the office. “This is not just youthful experimentation that they’ll get over as we used to think in the past.”“It’s not something you look the other way about when your teen starts appearing careless about their grooming, withdrawing from the family, losing interest in daily activities,” Walters said. “Find out what’s wrong.”Gotta love Walters’ remark about hygiene — which he appears to have taken almost verbatim from Above The Influence’s hateful propaganda film, Stoners In The Mist.Seriously though, it goes without saying that this so-called White House ‘report‘ (I use the term euphemistically here, given that said ‘report’ is under five pages and consists mostly of bar charts rather than text) is much ado about nothing. In fact, the only newsworthy aspect of this supposed ’study’ is that the lapdog mainstream media gave it any coverage at all.In short, there’s nothing to the Drug Czar’s marijuana and mental health claims that NORML Advisory Board member Dr. Mitch Earleywine and I haven’t previously addressed in our essay here:Pot Smoking Won’t Make You Crazy, But Dealing With The Lies About It Will via Alternet: http://alternet.org/drugreporter/59500/Perhaps the most impressive evidence against the cause-and-effect relationship concerns the unvarying rate of psychoses across different eras and different countries. People are no more likely to be psychotic in Canada or the United States (two nations where large percentages of citizens use cannabis) than they are in Sweden or Japan (where self-reported marijuana use is extremely low). Even after the enormous popularity of cannabis in the 1960s and 1970s, rates of psychotic disorders haven’t increased.Ironically, just two days prior to the Drug Czar’s much ballyhooed press conference, Britain’s Advisory Panel on the Misuse of Drugs refuted the notion that pot use causes mental illness, stating, “The evidence for the existence of an association between frequency of cannabis use and the development of psychosis is, on the available evidence, weak.”A 2006 review by the same commission previously concluded, “The current evidence suggests, at worst, that using cannabis increases lifetime risk of developing schizophrenia by one percent.” And more recently, a highly touted meta-analysis in the British medical journal, The Lancet, reported that there is a dearth of scientific evidence indicating that cannabis use causes psychotic behavior, noting, “Projected trends for schizophrenia incidence have not paralleled trends in cannabis use over time.”Of course, none of this dismisses the possibility that pot use may exacerbate certain mental health problems in a handful of individuals. As NORML notes in a recent white paper, “Cannabis, Mental Health and Context:”There is limited data suggesting an association, albiet a minor one, between chronic cannabis (primarily among adolescents and/or those predisposed to mental illness) and increased symptoms of depression, psychotic symptoms, and/or schizophrenia. However, interpretation of this data is troublesome and, to date, this observation association is not well understood. Identified as well as unidentified confounding factors (such as poverty, family history, polydrug use, etc.) make it difficult, if not impossible, for researchers to adequately determine whether any cause-and-effect relationship exists between cannabis use and mental illness. Also, many experts point out that this association may be due to patients’ self-medicating with cannabis, as survey data and anecdotal reports of individuals finding therapeutic relief from both clinical depression and schizotypal behavior are common within medical lore, and clinical testing on the use of cannabinoids to treat certain symptoms of mental illness has been recommended.That said, however, the most practical public policy to address these concerns is not criminal prohibition, but regulation.If there does exist a minority population of citizens who may be genetically prone to potential harms from cannabis (such as, possibly, those predisposed to schizophrenia), then a regulated system would best identify and educate this sub-population to pot’s potential risks so that they may refrain from its use, if they so choose.To draw a real world comparison, millions of Americans safely use ibuprofen as an effective pain reliever. However, among a minority of the population who suffer from liver and kidney problems, ibuprofen presents a legitimate and substantial health risk. However, this fact no more calls for the criminalization of ibuprofen among adults than do these latest allegations, even if true, call for the current prohibition of cannabis.You can read the full report here. -- http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6798Editor's note: NORML deputy directoy Paul Armentano catches the latest insanity from the drug czar.Complete Title: Drug Czar's Latest B.S. Claim: Pot Makes Teens Crazy and SuicidalPaul Armentano is the senior policy analyst for the NORML Foundation in Washington, DC.Source: AlterNet (US)Author: Paul Armentano, NORMLPublished: May 13, 2008Copyright: 2008 Independent Media InstituteContact: letters alternet.org Website: http://www.alternet.org/URL: http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/85217/Related Articles & Web Site:NORMLhttp://www.norml.org/Drug Czar Links Marijuana Use and Depressionhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread23920.shtmlTeen Marijuana Use Linked To Later Illnesshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread23918.shtml
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Comment #9 posted by museman on May 16, 2008 at 10:52:21 PT
'depressed' teens
As one who is certified and documented as 'depressed,' I believe I have some experiential insight into the situation.Re-pression, o-pression; those are terms closer to the facts.The fact that a teenager, just becoming mentally mature, capable of knowing anything that an adult could know, is confronted with the f***ed situation of a lifetime of slavery so a few fortunate can live life in luxury and comfort, the possibilty of dying in one of the corporate-sponsored wars, the inabilty to choose their own destiny, to be self-responsible,... and even though realisticly and logicly they know more about themselves than anyone else, they have a government that claims to own everything, including their will, and body fluids, with a 'medical' establishment whose bottom line is profit.If that ain't a 'depressing' state of affairs, I don't know what is. And like someone said on another thread, "I'd rather be depressed and high, than just plain old depressed."The status-quo-establishment tries to mask their complicity by reassigning guilt, creating crime, and propagating false values with incredible impetus while continuing their own corrupt and insidious ways.Smoke pot and you risk seeing the truth. Truth is greatly feared by the status quo. Wouldn't want all those former santa claus followers to wake up before they get too old to stand in the way of 'progress.'
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Comment #8 posted by overwhelmSam on May 16, 2008 at 06:01:39 PT
There's A Good Question for Obama
If elected President, will you fire John Walters?
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Comment #7 posted by goneposthole on May 14, 2008 at 07:32:40 PT
Drugs Tsar
Cannabis is bad for ya. Really, really, really bad. It's all bad. You'll go incurably insane. All of the facts were laid out in Reefer Madness.Prozac is good for ya. Mr. Walters needs to mind his own business and stop sticking his nose into someone else's business where it doesn't belong.
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Comment #6 posted by Had Enough on May 14, 2008 at 07:09:16 PT
Re: runruff #2
Walters has the look on his face “How dare someone have the nerve to steal my boss’s banana”
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Comment #5 posted by 1RastaWarrior on May 13, 2008 at 19:38:58 PT
On the subject of cannabis potency
I do not necessarily reject the notion that cannabis potency has increased over the past 30-40 years. During the 60s and 70s the vast majority of cannabis used in the U.S. was imported from Mexico, Colombia, Jamaica and various other nations south of us. The imported cannabis contained many seeds and was often compressed into "bricks" to make the smuggling process more efficient and stealthy.Seeded cannabis is never as potent as the seedless variety (assuming both varieties have similar genetic compositions) due to the fact that once a female plant has been fertilized, its' energy transfers from flower/THC production to seed production. Also, the process of compressing harvested cannabis ruptures THC glands which render them ineffective to the user.In our current era seedless, non-compressed cannabis is in the vast majority (not to mention that breeding and growing techniques have also improved significantly). Based on these facts how can one logically argue that cannabis potency hasn't increased from a time when the vast majority of cannabis was seeded, compressed and grown with techniques significantly inferior to the ones being applied today?I would however logically argue that a seedless, non-compressed crop harvested in the 60s and 70s was comparable in potency to a crop harvested today. I would further argue that an increase in cannabis potency hasn't translated into a significant rise in use or negative consequences.Jah Bless
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Comment #4 posted by museman on May 13, 2008 at 10:16:28 PT
how do you spell 'relief'
It will be such an incredible lift to the spirit of the world to not have to look at that...thing every time you turn on the TV or go to a website.And of course I really don't expect Mr. JPW to be around much longer either.ha! ha! Nah nah na-na nah nah!
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on May 13, 2008 at 09:34:41 PT
Made Me Think Of This Song
People from the days gone by remember how good Panama Red was. I don't think potency has changed.New Riders -- Panama Red http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2oVNtpcYrs
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Comment #2 posted by runruff on May 13, 2008 at 09:26:48 PT:
I know I sound silly here but,
the look on chimpy's face looks like he just saw someone take the last banana.
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Comment #1 posted by Hope on May 13, 2008 at 08:43:25 PT
Today's supposed super potent pot.
“This is not just youthful experimentation that they’ll get over as we used to think in the past.”Next time they start spouting that crap about marijuana being so much more potent than it used to be, someone needs to remind them of the Congressional Record back in the thirties, where a guy testified before Congress that smoking just one cigarette caused him to turn into a bat and fly around the room several times.Sounds like dang potent stuff they had in those days. 
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