COMMENTARY

By Stephen Chapman

If a major study revealed that people who use marijuana can expect to die before their time, we would hear about it on the news. If people were expiring in noticeable numbers from overdoses of pot, the discovery would soon be common knowledge. If smoking dope were proven to cause lung cancer, Clinton administration drug czar Barry McCaffrey would be shouting from the rooftops.

But you rarely see anything reported about research into the health effects of cannabis. That’s not because there isn’t any research going on. It’s because the findings are acutely embarrassing for supporters of the war on drugs.

Much of that unending war consists of harassing and punishing people who use, sell or cultivate pot. Nearly 600,000 people were arrested on marijuana charges in 1995. Fifteen states provide life sentences for some non-violent marijuana crimes. Under federal law, anyone growing or selling a large quantity of cannabis is eligible for one free lethal injection.

This ferocious approach is supposedly necessary to protect us from the hazards posed by pot use. When voters in California were preparing to vote in November on a referendum allowing the medicinal use of marijuana, critics acted as if someone wanted to put LSD in the Los Angeles water supply. George Bush,

Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford emerged from retirement to portray the proposal as a threat to the health of “all Americans.”

Likewise, a survey last year that found teenagers using more drugs, mainly marijuana, evoked screams of panic. Bob Dole called it a “national tragedy,” and McCaffrey said the study showed that the nation needs to begin delivering “anti-drug” messages to kids starting in kindergarten. (Why not in preschool? Why not in maternity wards?)

But as the rhetoric against marijuana gets more lurid and hysterical, the facts grow less and less alarming. A growing pile of authoritative research, almost entirely ignored by the mainstream news media, has exonerated cannabis of almost all the charges against it.

Physicians in California’s Kaiser Permanente managed care program recently reported in the American Journal of Public Health that they had looked at more than 65,000 patients over an entire decade and found that pot smokers had no higher a death rate than abstainers. The investigators also noted that “few adverse clinical health effects from the chronic use of marijuana have been documented in humans.” Imagine the news coverage if similar findings emerged about tobacco or saturated fat.

Because it is usually set on fire and smoked, marijuana has long been assumed to be no friend of the respiratory system. But a study by doctors at the UCLA medical school, published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, discovered that even heavy, chronic smoking of pot doesn’t damage lung function.

Australia’s National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, in yet another survey, found that career potheads are no more unhealthy than the rest of the population–with the exception of mild respiratory problems that could be the result of tobacco use. “The exceptional thing is that the respondents are unexceptional,” the chief investigator told the Sydney Morning Herald, in news you won’t get from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

Among scientists who have examined the real consequences of pot use, these discoveries came as no great surprise. Two years ago, the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet concluded, with a remarkable lack of tact, “The smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health.”

When pressed, drug warriors fall back on the claim that even if pot is not so bad by itself, it serves as a “gateway” to hard drug use. But 80 million Americans have tried cannabis. Most of them have never tried any other illicit substance, and few of the rest have become addicted to cocaine or heroin. While the percentage of teenagers using pot has risen in recent years, the number of those who go on to try cocaine has fallen by more than half. The gateway looks more like the eye of a needle.

None of this means that pot is good for kids–any more than alcohol, tobacco or sex is good for kids. Marijuana use can retard their emotional development and interfere with their academic achievement at a vital stage of their lives. But teen pregnancy isn’t grounds for locking up anyone guilty of fornication. So why do we think that draconian criminal law enforcement is the only possible way to deter adolescent drug use?

Supporters of the drug war prefer to suppress the reassuring evidence about marijuana because it doesn’t serve their cause. But the rest of us should be ready to confront the truth, remembering that it shall make us free.

As a disabled American, and having lived with a sometimes very physically daunting and painful neurological disorder, known as Spastic Diapalegic Cerebral Palsy, I deal with muscle spasms and I use mobility aids. (walker and wheelchair)

I have perservered this condition for almost 25 years now, and as a staunch supporter and advocate for bill HR 5843, one in which I wrote about in my Social Work Chemical Dependency class this last semester. ( I am studying to be a social worker) In my reports and 10 + page essay, I discuss alcohols failed prohibition, but also the negatives since 75 years ago. If anyone would like to read it, let me know! I will continue in the fight.

Marijuana is my only medicine…. END PROHIBITION!

The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) monitors drug-related emergency department (ED) visits for the nation and for selected metropolitan areas. DAWN also collects data on drug-related deaths investigated by medical examiners and coroners in selected metropolitan areas and States.

In 2005, DAWN estimates that nearly 1.4 million emergency department visits nationwide were associated with drug misuse or abuse.

An estimated 816,696 drug-related emergency department visits involved a major substance of abuse. DAWN estimates that:

Cocaine was involved in 448,481 ED visits.
Marijuana was involved in 242,200 ED visits.
Heroin was involved in 164,572 ED visits.
Stimulants, included amphetamines and methamphetamine, were involved in 138,950 ED visits.
Other illicit drugs, such as PCP, Ecstasy, and GHB, were much less frequent than any of the above.
Source: U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, SAMHSA, Office of Applied Studies, Drug Abuse Warning Network, 2005: National Estimates of Drug-Related Emergency Department Visits. DAWN Series D-29, DHHS Publication No. (SMA) 07-4256, Rockville, MD, 2007.

In 2003, 122 jurisdictions in 35 metropolitan areas and 6 States submitted mortality data to DAWN. The States, which are all new to DAWN, are Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Utah, and Vermont. DAWN cannot provide national estimates of drug-related deaths.

In the metropolitan areas, nearly half of drug misuse deaths, on average, involved a major substance of abuse (cocaine, heroin, marijuana, stimulants, club drugs, hallucinogens, or non-pharmaceutical inhalants). Across the 6 States, major substances were reported in about a third of misuse deaths. Still, major substances were reported in 40% to 45% of drug misuse deaths in Maryland, New Mexico, and Utah. Descriptions of drug abuse deaths in the participating metropolitan areas are available in the Mortality Data from the DAWN, 2003 report.

According to data from the 2003 Mortality Data from DAWN — Cocaine was the most frequently reported illicit drug. In the drug misuse deaths, cocaine was among the top 5 drugs in 28 of the 32 metropolitan areas and all of the 6 States. On average, cocaine alone or in combination with other drugs was reported in 39% of drug misuse deaths (range 8% to 70%). Alcohol was one of the 5 most comment drugs in 30 of the 32 metropolitan areas and 5 of the 6 States. In 29 of the 32 metropolitan areas, more drug misuse deaths involved an opiate/opioid than any other drug.

Source: U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, SAMHSA, Office of Applied Studies, Drug Abuse Warning Network, 2003: Area Profiles of Drug-Related Mortality. DAWN Series D-27, DHHS Publication No. (SMA) 05-4023, Rockville, MD, 2005.

From the U.S. Department of justice…did you notice that cannabis wasn’t responsible for one single fatality…just saying..

In my upbringing, my parents taught me how to be self-sufficient. I have experienced many life’s hardships and have never asked government to help me (Even though “Social Security” insists that I need their help). They should be on the forefront of NORML.

If I had strayed from my parents teaching, I would expect others to help me in my life. I believe in me and the power of my existence. I do voluntarily give to charities, I don’t need the gubberment to force me to give.

I am a “capitalist” – not a “socialist”.
But in my capitalist mind, I wonder why my “Republican” “Representatives” can’t figure out that there is no reason for criminalizing marijuana.
The marijuana prohibition began after the 18th Amendment failed.

The marijuana prohibition began when Congress created an unexpected and unreasonable tax act.

Since the tax act is unreasonable, the act is “illegal”.

I’m off my soapbox.