Cannabis literature from Holland, where it's legal to buy small quantities of the drug for personal use.
Murat Yucel, a neuropsychologist and brain researcher at the Orygen Research Centre at the University of Melbourne, reads even more into this finding. "We know that 75 per cent of all mental illness has its origins during the teenage years. We've been aware of that for a long time, but now we may understand why.
This is a critical time when parts of the brain involved in weighing up one's actions are still maturing and connecting up with the emotional centre. Maybe disrupting that link has something to do with the emergence of mental disorders."
Just as a finished building is better able to withstand damage than the bare foundations, the brains of teenagers are likely to be more vulnerable to the effects of damaging drugs.
So far, the evidence incriminating marijuana is sparse, but Yücel sees an intriguing trend: in those who have used both alcohol and marijuana from an early age, the size of the amygdala (where emotions are processed) is larger; while the hippocampus (where short-term memories are stored) is smaller than in people who used the cocktail later in life. Interestingly,
that is precisely the kind of problem reported by many drug users: mood disorders and memory problems.
Most of the researchers I interviewed, including Yücel, agreed that it remains to be proven whether marijuana permanently affects the function of the teenage brain. Still, none hesitated to proffer that they thought teenagers were at the highest risk from using marijuana, and should avoid it.
David Castle's concerns relate not so much to long-term brain damage but the clear-cut impairment to learning and memory. "My concerns are more at a pragmatic level; if youngsters are stoned – and the higher doses today are a major concern – then they are not going to lay down the bedrock of education they need."
There is also agreement that the younger users were more likely to spiral down into dependence followed by the use of harder drugs, dropping out of school, perhaps falling into crime … indeed, the whole nightmare that spooks parents. It seems no-one is going to be able to prove this one, but the warnings seem clear: delay marijuana use as long as possible. Use it moderately. Don't use it at all if you have a personal or family history of mental illness. And stop using it if it makes you feel anxious, distressed or paranoid.
Other harms of regular marijuana use include an increased risk of emphysema (destruction of the elastic wall of the air sacs in the lung) above that of smoking alone.
Some studies have shown that it increases the risk of head and neck cancers. And while researchers such as Hall have long been unconvinced about a link between marijuana and lung cancer, in May 2006 researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles reported they found no increased risk of lung cancer in marijuana smokers. Tobacco smoking, however, increased the risk by 20-fold.
Again, to quote visiting Oxford pharmacologist Les Iversen: "On balance, the public health risks are small. Bear in mind that millions of people smoke marijuana occasionally and there is no evidence of harm. You have to judge the benefits against the risks. I would say a lot of people benefit from moderate use. But that's not to say it's not a dangerous drug."
No scientist, clinician or expert I talked to would argue that marijuana is harmless. Where the battle lines are drawn is how that harm can be reduced.
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"PEOPLE ONLY pay attention to the harms of cannabis," observes Hall. "If they believe it's harmful, they want it criminalised. If they believe it's harmless, they want it legalised. But you've got to look at both sets of harms – the harms of cannabis and the harms of prohibition."
The intention of making cannabis illegal is to reduce the harm by reducing its use. But despite the decades of prohibition, cannabis use continues to flourish in the United States and elsewhere. In Australia, according to the 2004 National Drug Household Survey, about two million people used cannabis during the previous year; that's about 10 per cent of the total population. Clearly, cannabis use is entrenched in developed nations like Australia.
See our boxout that goes with this feature – Hothouse flowers, read the full article here.
Many in the political elite understand the futility of prohibition. Lord Birt, a former director-general of the British Broadcasting Corporation, was commissioned to write a report on illicit drugs for the British cabinet.
In August 2005, the explosive 105-page report was released in response to a freedom of information lawsuit by The Guardian and other newspapers, and promptly posted on its website. It summarised its findings as follows: "The drugs supply market is highly sophisticated. Attempts to intervene have not resulted in sustainable disruption to the market at any level. As a result: i) the supply of drugs has increased; ii) prices are low enough not to deter initiation; iii) but prices are high enough to cause heavy users to commit high levels of crime to fund their habit."
As an article from the Washington DC-based Drug Reform Coordination Network opined, "it would be hard to sugar-coat the report … With its pointed comments that British drug dealers have higher profit margins than Gucci, Luis Vuitton, and other luxury goods purveyors, and that police would have to intercept up to 80 per cent of drugs entering Britain to affect dealers' profit margin (seizure rates are 20 per cent at best, the report noted), it is little wonder the Blair government didn't want the report released.
Its grim conclusion was that even if prohibitionist measures succeeded in driving up prices, the victory would be pyrrhic because problem drug users would commit more crimes to obtain their drugs."
Prohibition is a Crime!
There is a lot of discussion about Cannabis consumption being associated with mental disorders. I find it vexing to say the least that the trauma's of Prohibition are never factored in to the debate or any study done on Cannabis. If these researchers had ever been searched in the street, raided in their homes, insulted by the police, had their homes turned upside down, put through the courts, verbally abused by magistrates and judges, then fined or jailed, then go back to the world and try to explain all this to friends, family, colleagues and employers, they might have some idea of why it is that people who consume cannabis can end up feeling depressed. And after you've been through all that you really need a smoke to calm your nerves. If we really care about people who show signs of depression, mental disorders, psychotic illnes, schizophrenia, then why is it that the first thing that we do to them when we find them is through the law book at them and put them through all that. You say you want to help people who are down on there luck yet the first priority of 'Prohibition' is to punish them and make their life so much harder for them. Who are you trying to fool.
marijuana
Dear Cosmos (Dave Shiflett & Elizabeth Finkel or otherwise)
Looking for connections on the internet for marijuana I found your names and email so I write for advice and maybe a job or a connection.
I'm wondering what would be a good degree to study to help work and legalize marijuana as I believe marijuana is the miracle medicine, if only people had the knowledge of the daily benefits of it. I've done a course in the Arts, Integration and business, and am now pursuing marijuana as a medicine for all humans. I've done a lot of reading, research, studies and experiments myself, and with others being people who like it for recreational use or people who are sick and on tablets which are only ruining them as I've seen outcomes and no solutions.
Recent news has shown cough medicines have killed children in the past, this is where I believe marijuana is also harmless for children as it has also never before killed a grown adult, and I've found research it was used on children also as a medicine many years ago.
I went to the May 2007 Marijuana Mardigrass in Australia Nimbin and had very good outcomes and information, and had a really good time too and noticed no violence or anything to fear.
If we can connect/meet/talk somehow I'd love to share information and work to help in the process of legalizing marijuana for the benefit of all our sakes.
I hope to hear from you and for Victory to finally be done.
Thankyou
Antonia Likisiotis
email: toniaa1@xxxxxxxxxxx
Phone: 0402xxxxxx
Edit: personal details removed
Marijuana reply
Antonia,
Im completely with you on this subject and have no doubts about the use of marijuana. I have just started an honours course in molecular drug designing in South Australia at university.
I believe that this course is going to help me to understrand exactly what marijuana does to the brain of adults and children. Maybe i will find that the drug is more complicated or more simple than what we know in todays science but one thing that will stay the same is my stand. Pot, in my opinion is far from extremely harmfull (as the government likes to put it) to humans. Although it is not harmless either, purely from the fact that inhaling smoke and in particular carbon monoxide onto your lungs is not good for you.
Good luck with your research,
i would be honoured if we could speak over e-mail or on msn about this subject.
Sincerely yours ,
Dustin
email: dustin_301@hotmail.com
prohibition is a crime
so true paul, ive smoked the herb for 27 years, the only time i feel paranoid is if and when i have contact with the police, and yes i do feel depressed at times because im viewed as a criminal,when i know im not. i believe the war on drugs antagonises mental illness, some people who have mental health issues avoid help because they understand thier choice to use cannabis will be viewed by health professionals with a negative bias,focusing on the drug use not the underlying issues.(i see doctors as an arm of the state, blindly accepting laws whether right or wrong).my view is a lot of drug users may have been abused(sexually,physically or emotionally)as children, only to be abused by the state with their punitive drug war when adults.prosecuted drug users are just Victims many times over.Hate and ideology should be replaced with peace and compassion. we shouldn't allow the government to use prisons to treat the mentaly ill,or push illconcieved political ideology down our throats. It's such an irony that we consider places like the US or australia as free countries, they are anything but.
Silly
I found it unbelievably hilarious to see the anti marijuana advertisement, depicting the number plate "cannabis- a paranoid state" im sure drinking coffee would make you fairly paranoid if every time you drank it, you thought the police were going to arrest you.
enough said
Marijuana and alcohol should
Marijuana and alcohol should be treated the same, they are both drugs that people take in order to make life more bearable. I guarantee if alcohol was to be outlawed again, there would be an uproar. Marijuana wasn't considered dangerous until propaganda brain washed America. People didn't question, they figured that the government knew what they were doing, and they trusted them. Not a single death has been related to marijuana use and nor will it ever, why? because marijuana users who use it on the weekends to celebrate a hard weeks work, tend to be extremely cautious. Like any drug, there are people who know when and when not to use. People who cannot control their drinking or smoking should not be using at all, PERIOD. Even though alcohol is legal, it has many risks that are not associated with marijuana. Alcohol impairs, while marijuana relaxes and many people have different preferences. Some people just don't like to get drunk and turn into an idiot for a few hours, some just want to sit back, relax and think. Also, science has blessed us thinkers with some hope, the vaporizer. For those who don't know yet, a vaporizer simply vaporizers the THC crystals off of the plant material giving you a smokeless high, therefore eliminating the need to smoke the plant. When the user is done, they throw the plant material in the garbage. Another way to harmlessly take marijuana is to ingest it, new studies have shown that ingesting marijuana has no negative physical long term affects.
thank you for letting me post my thoughts, and I hope this has enlightened people who are unfamiliar with marijuana.
The true crime is not using
The true crime is not using such a perfect medicine with over 4,000 of documented use and the fact that tobacco is legal which causes over 450,000 death a year and weed which only is responsible for 0 deaths a year look up info about weed at webmd .com
Marijuana
Dear Cosmos,
Can we all please call it by it's proper english name. HEMP.... If you look up Marijuana in my 1946 Edition Oxford Dictionary it says and I quote "Dried Indian HEMP used to make 'doped cigarettes'.
I cannot understand the mentality that puts hemp in the same pigeon hole as heroin,cocaine and amphetamines. Even comparing it to alchohol does hemp a dis-service. I like the 'about as harmful as aspirin' quote on your web page. You can die of overdose from Paracetemol but not THC.
One of my sisters was beaten for years by her alchoholic husband. I have observed during my 48 years of life that reactions to drug related deaths are given huge headlines by the news media but alchohol related deaths are somehow acceptable. One of my work acquaintances died of schlerosis of the liver at age 21. He had been drinking heavily since age 14. The only mention of his death was in the Obituaries. I have seen marriages break up because of every conceivable reason except hemp smoking. I'm sure that other people have seen it but not many I'll bet.
For those who don't know, American Foriegn Policy dictates that if you want any kind of help from them your country must prohibit hemp. What does that mean? If you want fibre to make a product you have to use a synthetic fibre. Which country produces more synthetic fibre than anyone else? America of course. The whole reason it was called Marijuana (a Mexican colloquialism) was to confuse their own farmers who had been growing it since before the USA was a country. When Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941 the Dupont company had to inform the U.S. military that it could not supply enough synthetic fibre for the war effort, so what did the American Government do, it started the "Hemp for Victory" campaign. Suddenly American farmers were asked to grow 'hemp' for tents and ropes etc.Cannot stand hypocrites.
In my opinion companies like Dupont are the main protagonists of modern hemp laws. If hemp fibre was once again widely used for canvas, rope, heshion, denim fibre and the like, synthetic fibre companies and the cotton industry in general would loose huge profits. If the cotton growers swapped to hemp they would still get those profits, probably more because hemp is less labour and chemically intensive. When I was young everything was packaged in heshion.Potatoes,apples,oranges,carpets all sorts of things.
Hemp is a hardy plant with a million uses (and many millions of users). Plastic is the current fibre with a million uses. Please don't get me wrong, without plastis most medical procedures could not be done and all sorts of essential services and products would not exist, but in 1943 Henry Ford made a plastic car body from hemp. That little fact seems to have been forgotten.
Planet Earth cannot degrade polymers. The fibres separate but do not degrade. I would be much happier carrying my groceries home in heshion bags rather than plastic ones (and I do) and I'm sure some people would be VERY happy to wipe their bums with paper made from hemp, (if you get my meaning).
Hemp could save a lot of environmental damage but who cares eh?
Re Cannabis versus Hemp
I totally agree with the hypothesis that large-scale hemp production is heavily influenced by the multinationals in favour of the more chemically intensive Cotton and Nylon-Synthetics industry.
It's the chemical derived from the female flowering tops is used medicinally and is the source of marijuana and hashish.
The word hemp is used in combination for several other kinds of fiber plants, notably Manila hemp and sisal hemp. The true hemp plant is related to the hop,
Hemp was a popular fiber because it is strong and grows quickly; it produces 250% more fiber than cotton and 600% more fiber than flax when grown on the same land.
The Declaration of Independence was printed on hemp paper.
It was used to make canvas, and the word canvas itself derives from cannabis
Manila yielded better rope. Burlap, made from jute, took over the sacking market. The paper industry began using wood pulp. The carpet industry switched over to wool, sisal, and jute, then nylon. Netting and webbing applications were taken over by cotton and synthetics.
Industrial Hemp should be harvested before it flowers. This early cropping is done because fibre quality declines if flowering is allowed and prevents the source of drug material.
In these strains of industrial hemp the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) are almost negligible.
Cannabis is the genus favoured by medical practitioners.
Cannabis for non-drug purposes (especially ropes and textiles) was then already well known as hemp.
Synthetics especially nylon and other polymers are dependent on huge quantities of petrochemicals either as a solvent in their production or as fuel for the actual production. Nylon, polymex, polyamitride, viscous, polyester, acrylic- the list goes on.
If hemp, jute or flax were to be substituted- which as cellulose fibres are many times stronger than the synthetics, it would totally erase any incentive for a synthetic.
True- we do need synthetics for specific tasks- but many mundane and basic goods can be manufactured easily with natural fibres.
Do not forget that the medieval and Renaissance of Europe was built on a wool-jute-hemp-linen economy.
Cotton is incredibly dependent on agricultural chemicals such as pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilizer. In many areas, cotton simply could not grow without chemical assistant- in terms of pestcide and fertiliser.
The entire cotton mega-industry is a major earner for the agricultural chemical giants like Monsanto.
Summarily- I think you hit the nail right on the head. Like most things in this world basic economics rather than ideologies are the basis of all conflict.
My comment above on industrial hemp
All that being said about industrial hemp- I ccompletely disagree with any legalization of cannabis.
It has documented side effects which do create massive costs to society- the tax paying kind as opposed to the stereotypically marginally employed or low-income stoner- yes we all know that there are a few exceptions- but statistically the bell-curve is known to best represent population demographic info- HENCE- the centre of the bell-curve is on low-income groups- who do not subsidise their own health care nor illegitimate offspring and higher income groups should not be burdened by other demographics' poor choices or control of will power.