> Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 09:49:35 -0700
> From: R Givens <rlgivens@...>
> Subject: MAP: Hitting Back- Marijuana May Increase
> Psychosis Risk
>
> British drug crusaders desperate to reinstall Class
> B status for MJ
> are cranking out pseudo-scientific "studies" on a
> daily basis.
> Characters like Robin Murray remind me of Nazi
> scientists endorsing
> the Aryan Master Race myth.
>
> These guys are going to end like Gabriel Nahas-
> kicked out of
> Columbia U in disgrace - later confessed that his
> "marijuana science"
> was worthless.
>
> Phony "researchers" should be exposed, ridiculed and
> run out of the
> "science" business
>
> Here's my response to these drug crusading
> scientists-
>
> *****************
>
> Re: THE SCARY SCIENCE OF MARIJUANA
>
> Accusations of cannabis induced insanity were the
> basis for outlawing
> marijuana-
>
> "Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in
> its users insanity,
> criminality and death."
>
> "Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the
> history of mankind."
>
> "[Smoking] one [marihuana] cigarette might develop a
> homicidal mania,
> probably to kill his brother." (see US Government
> Propaganda To
> Outlaw Marijuana -
>
>
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/t3.htm)
>
> Common sense tells us that none of these claims has
> a shred of proof.
> If marijuana caused insanity, we would have millions
> of incurably mad
> pot heads. Every citizen would know a dozen
> marijuana psychos.
>
> If Professor Robin Murray's claims of cannabis
> induced psychosis had
> a shred of truth to them the daily news would be
> saturated with
> stories of Reefer Madness mayhem and murder.
> Psychotic behavior
> connected to marijuana use is unheard-of. If Mr
> Murray wants to find
> psychotic behavior connected with drug use he need
> look no further
> than alcohol. (Psychoactive Substances and Violence
>
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/GOVPUBS/psycviol.htm)
>
> "Professor" Murray's cannabis "research" will end up
> in the same file
> with Gabriel Nahas's discredited and irreproducible
> marijuana
> studies. (Professor Nahas's Crusade.. October 1993
> http://www.cannabislegal.de/argumente/nahas2.htm)
> R Givens
>
> *****************
>
> Everyone should take a shot at these charlatans. I
> recommend hitting
> them with all of the lies they swore to in the past
> that are now
> rejected. Feel free to use any of the ideas above.
> R Givens
>
> *****************
>
> Pubdate: Thu, 26 Jul 2007
> Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
> Copyright: 2007 The Ottawa Citizen
> Contact: letters@...
> Website: http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/
> Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326
> Author: Margret Kopala, The Ottawa Citizen
> Note: Margret Kopala is a longtime Conservative
> Party activist in the
> National Capital Region
> Cited: 2007 World Drug Report
>
> THE SCARY SCIENCE OF MARIJUANA
>
> Scientific developments have established that as
> many as one in four
> cannabis users is genetically at risk for developing
> schizophrenia or
> a related psychotic disorder.
>
> Given recent statistics from the United Nations
> citing Canada as the
> industrial world's leading consumer of cannabis,
> this information
> should set alarm bells ringing. Instead, Canada's
> mainstream media
> responded as if someone had passed out The Happy
> Hippy Hymn Book that
> no one noticed is 10 years out of date.
>
> "Legalizing pot makes sense," intoned a National
> Post editorial.
> Comparing cannabis with alcohol and tobacco, it
> asked where's the
> "health footprint of our love for the weed?" A Globe
> and Mail article
> titled "The True North Stoned and Free" giggled
> about Canada's
> "little pot habit." Then there were the columnists.
> Suffice to say,
> only one mentioned the word "psychosis" and that,
> only in passing.
>
> Schizophrenia is a devastating brain disorder that
> typically produces
> delusions, hallucinations, disturbances in problem
> solving, memory
> and concentration, along with depressed mood,
> anxiety, and social withdrawal.
>
> The causes of schizophrenia are not fully
> understood, though
> environmental stressors (childhood trauma, neglect)
> are thought to
> interact with genes to produce disruptions in brain
> chemistry.
> Studies conducted in Europe, New Zealand and the
> United Kingdom have
> demonstrated that cannabis is one of those stressors
> and that with
> their rapidly developing brains, the young are
> particularly
> vulnerable. The younger the user and the higher the
> potency of
> marijuana's active ingredient, tetrahydrocannibol
> (THC), the greater the risk.
>
> This information is causing headline news in the
> United Kingdom, but
> on this side of the Atlantic no one seems to have
> noticed.
>
> In a column two years ago I described how genes and
> marijuana could
> interact to increase risk of developing psychosis.
> The COMT gene,
> consisting of a MET type and a VAL type, metabolizes
> dopamine, a
> brain chemical that produces the "highs"
> characteristic of drug and
> alcohol use. A MET/VAL mixture increases risk of
> psychosis from
> cannabis twofold. A VAL/VAL mixture increases the
> risk 10 times.
> Since a quarter of the population is VAL/VAL, a
> quarter is MET/MET
> and the rest a mixture, the assessment that 25 per
> cent of youth are
> at risk is probably conservative.
>
> That column resulted from an interview I had
> conducted with the
> world's pre-eminent authority on marijuana and
> psychosis, Professor
> Robin Murray. Lead and co-author of countless
> studies on the subject,
> he is also professor of psychiatry at King's College
> Institute of
> Psychiatry in London and co-author of the standard
> textbook on this
> issue, Marijuana and Madness. He also led criticism
> of British
> government policy that ignored the mental health
> issues associated
> with marijuana use.
>
> To its credit, Paul Martin's Liberal government
> quietly withdrew its
> marijuana decriminalization bill shortly after
> publication of my 2005
> column. I like to think that someone in that
> government had finally
> managed to do their homework. But did anyone else?
>
> Apparently not, even though the Canadian Journal of
> Psychiatry
> featured marijuana and psychosis as the cover story
> of its summer
> 2006 issue. Recently, Addiction magazine predicted
> that a quarter of
> new cases of schizophrenia by 2010 will result from
> cannabis smoking.
> In March of this year, the Independent -- a major
> British newspaper
> -- retracted and apologized for its stand on
> decriminalizing
> marijuana: "Record numbers of teenagers are
> requiring drug treatment
> as a result of smoking skunk, the highly potent
> cannabis strain that
> is 25 times stronger than resin sold a decade ago."
>
> At least 10 per cent of that nation's schizophrenics
> could have
> avoided the illness if they had not used cannabis,
> Mr. Murray
> believes, while British rapper J-Rock, a
> rehabilitated skunk addict,
> told the Independent that "if you're on skunk and
> you have a
> confrontation with somebody, you feel almost
> untouchable."
>
> "Skunk induced paranoia," the Independent concluded,
> "is behind the
> surge in violent crime." Remember, once you are
> psychotic, you don't
> need continued hits of marijuana to behave
> aggressively or to
> experience paranoia. The illness has been triggered.
> Canada has yet
> to adopt the skunk moniker. "B.C. Bud," "weed" and
> "pot" are much
> less threatening words. But make no mistake, with
> today's growing
> technologies, all the above are just as potent as
> European skunk.
>
> A UN spokesperson recently observed that countries
> get the drug
> problems they deserve. So by all means, let us
> discuss the relative
> merits of legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana
> use. One scientist
> has suggested it could be regulated according to
> potencies. Others
> are finding possible benefits for psychosis that is
> drowned out by
> high THC levels. But so long as that discussion
> ignores the overall
> health effects of marijuana, Canada will get the
> drug problem it
> deserves. Indeed, it's probably already arrived.
>
> Margret Kopala's bi-weekly column returns on Aug.
> 25.
>
__________________________________________________________________________
> Distributed without profit to those who have
> expressed a prior interest in
> receiving the included information for research and
> educational purposes.
> ---
> MAP posted-by: Richard Lake
>
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