cannabisnews.com: Legalizing Marijuana May Lead To Fewer Suicides
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Legalizing Marijuana May Lead To Fewer Suicides
Posted by CN Staff on February 06, 2014 at 06:59:52 PT
By Matt Ferner, The Huffington Post
Source: Huffington Post
USA -- A team of economists' newly published report in the American Journal of Public Health suggests states that have legalized medical marijuana may see a reduction in suicide rates in young men.The researchers took a close look at state-level suicide data over a 17-year period, from 1990 to 2007, from the National Vital Statistics System’s mortality detail files. They analyzed data from the 12 states that had legalized medical marijuana during that time and compared it with states that continued to criminalize the drug. In states that had legalized marijuana for medical use, there was a 10.8 percent reduction in the suicide rate of men in their 20s and a 9.4 percent reduction in men in their 30s, the study found.
"The negative relationship between legalization and suicides among young men is consistent with the hypothesis that marijuana can be used to cope with stressful life events," the authors wrote. "However, this relationship may be explained by alcohol consumption. The mechanism through which legalizing medical marijuana reduces suicides among young men remains a topic for future study."Daniel Rees, co-author of the study, noted to The Huffington Post that although researchers couldn't distinguish between alcohol or marijuana use in this study, another recent study also co-authored by Rees, a 2013 study he co-authored published by Chicago Journals, does show a link between medical marijuana use and a reduction of alcohol use among young adults.The effect on males was clear, but the study did not find conclusive evidence that medical marijuana legalization reduced suicides among females."The estimates for females were less precise and sensitive to model specification," Rees said. "In other words, legalization may reduce suicides among females, but we didn’t find conclusive evidence one way or the other. Females could respond to marijuana differently than males. Females could respond to alcohol differently than males. It’s even possible that they respond to legalization differently than males."Currently, 20 states, along with the District of Columbia, have medical marijuana or recreational marijuana laws. More than a dozen others are likely to legalize marijuana in the next several years.Source: Huffington Post (NY)	Author: Matt Ferner, The Huffington Post   Published: February 5, 2014Copyright: 2014 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC Contact: scoop huffingtonpost.comWebsite: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/URL: http://drugsense.org/url/58UcUUUfCannabisNews  Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml 
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Comment #6 posted by Oleg the Tumor on February 09, 2014 at 09:14:18 PT:
Getting Serious About Treating PTSD (Finally!)
During WWII, my dad served in the Navy as a musician, second class. He was actually a very good violinist, and learned all the major "warhorse" pieces for orchestra work. But this was during the Depression. He was told by the musicians union to "Lose the violin. The big radio orchestras aren't hiring. Get yourself a sax or a clarinet and form a trio." And he did. And his family never went hungry. He knew that survival and change went hand in hand.He became a woodwinds man and played the clarinet in the Navy band in a peculiar oven known as Brownsville, Texas.The Navy ran a Personell Processing Center there.
Every 90 minutes a train originating from San Diego would arrive and off would pour hundreds of sailors in their next step on the way home from war, many of them missing arms or legs or both.As the trains pulled in, The Band would strike up "Under the Double Eagle" or "El Capitan" or "Stars and Stripes Forever" or a dozen others. All of this makes a difference to men coming home from war, don't pretend it doesn't. According to my Mom who was there, many men wept openly at the welcome, after three days on a train eating box lunches and no shower. Surviving combat requires Catharsis.  Catharsis, like many other healings, requires solitude. Ancient peoples knew this. Armies returning from battle would spend a week in the wild first before returning home.We can no longer ignore the realities of PTSD.A man (or woman) in harms way cannot just walk off of the battlefield and onto the crosstown bus to go to the library as if nothing ever happened. Let the Vets heal!
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Comment #5 posted by Paulpot on February 06, 2014 at 16:24:08 PT:
Prohibition Kills
Very simply, cannabis reduces stress. 
All that stuff about panic attacks and schizophrenia is a lie. 
People with problems gravitate to cannabis because it helps them. 
The police know this so they target people with mental illness.
Prohibition treats mental illness by arresting and imprisoning the mentally ill. 
Prohibition traumatizes people.
Prohibition forces paranoia and mental illness on the community. 
Get the police out of health care.
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Comment #4 posted by Universer on February 06, 2014 at 15:07:15 PT
The GCW
True. But tobacco is likewise a "plant," except its drug, nicotine, is pretty damn addictive (whereas THC, the cannabis plant's drug, is not).I wish to expose the glory of cannabis and in so doing expose the demon of tobacco -- a far worse "substance" by any measure -- and so to me the word "plant," while entirely accurate, is not enough of a separator from tobacky.Personally, I fall on the side of "commodity." That has a nice ring for people of all sorts of political stripes. (It doesn't separate from tobacco as much as I'd like, but ... baby steps.)
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Comment #3 posted by The GCW on February 06, 2014 at 09:30:13 PT
Universer,
Substance, could also be applied etc.None have the same effect as using PLANT.Plant is the arrow-splitting bull's eye.
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Comment #2 posted by Universer on February 06, 2014 at 09:19:42 PT
The GCW
"Plant" is fine. As you know, words matter. They guide thoughts.Perhaps more journalistic, though, would be:"item"
"commodity"
"product"
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Comment #1 posted by The GCW on February 06, 2014 at 07:20:38 PT
Cringe
"compared it with states that continued to criminalize the DRUG"One thing that would help end cannabis prohibition is to stop using the word "drug."If every time, that word was replaced with the word PLANT, there would be results quicker.-0-Using the word "drug" is biased, has negative connotation and skirts the fact that it's a PLANT."Drug" plays into the hands of ignoids. -and they know it.
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