New Warning About Marijuana Use

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Macfistowannabe

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New Warning About Marijuana Use
http://cbs2chicago.com/health/health_story_124003813.html

Pot Smoking Youngsters Could Develop Serious Mental Health Problems

May 3, 2005 11:33 pm US/Central
WASHINGTON (AP) Youngsters who use marijuana are more likely to develop serious mental health problems, the government said Tuesday. A private group said law enforcement increasingly is targeting people who smoke and deal the drug.

Past medical studies have linked marijuana with a greater incidence of mental disorders such as depression or schizophrenia. But questions remain about whether people who smoke marijuana at a young age are already predisposed to mental disorders, or whether the drug caused those disorders.

Government officials say recent research makes a stronger case that smoking marijuana is itself a causal agent in psychiatric symptoms, particularly schizophrenia.

"A growing body of evidence now demonstrates that smoking marijuana can increase the risk of serious mental health problems," said John P. Walters, director of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy.

Administration officials pointed to a handful of studies to make their case. One, from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, found adult marijuana smokers who first began using the drug before age 12 were twice as likely to have suffered a serious mental illness in the past year as those who began smoking after 18.

The ratio was 21 percent to 10.5 percent. Those who first started as teens also were at significantly higher risk.

Also Tuesday, The Sentencing Project released a report that found the government's "war on drugs" has become the "war on drug" as police agencies increasingly target marijuana.

Begun in the 1980s, the war on drugs was aimed at stopping large-scale narcotics traffickers, particularly those selling cocaine. But since 1990 more of the focus has been on catching users and low-level dealers. And more often than ever, the drug targeted is marijuana, according to the group, a national nonprofit organization that works on judicial reform and favors alternatives to jail.

Of some 700,000 marijuana arrests in 2002, 88 percent were for possession, it said. And only one of every 18 of those arrests ended in a felony conviction.

"Arresting record numbers of low-level marijuana offenders represents a poor investment in public safety" and diverts resources from "more serious crime problems," said Ryan King, co-author of the report.

King found that in 1992 arrests for heroin and cocaine comprised 55 percent of all drug arrests and marijuana 28 percent. A decade later heroin and cocaine arrests accounted for less than 30 percent of all arrests, while marijuana's share had risen to 45 percent.

Jennifer deVallance, spokeswoman for the White House drug office, said there are many reasons for the greater focus on marijuana. Among them: Marijuana is the single largest drug of abuse in the nation, the strains are more potent than ever and more is known about health dangers.

"For the first time, more kids are seeking treatment for marijuana use than alcohol," she said.

The Sentencing Project called for renewed national discussion of the war on drugs, an idea echoed by the conservative American Enterprise Institute. The group reported last month that despite spending at about $40 billion a year now and toughening drug sentencing laws, "America continues to experience the Western world's worst drug problems."

An epidemic of heroin use more than three decades ago, followed by a 1980s epidemic of cocaine and crack, prompted a massive intensification in drug enforcement while giving short shrift to prevention and treatment, the institute reported. It decried budgeting that spends two-thirds of drug control funds on enforcement, 25 percent on treatment and just 12 percent on prevention.
 
does marijuana "cause" mental problems, or are people with mental problems drawn to the use and abuse of even generally harmless drugs like marijuana? the article doesn't answer that question except to have a quotation from a member of the Bush White House (who certainly has a stake in ratcheting up fear and paranoia around pot so they can implement such social right wing poliices as federal drug testing in schools and ever-widen the Right Wing Nanny State) asserting "yes," with no evidence to back it up.
 
There is considerable evidence that marijuana use can trigger severe mental problems in teenagers and long term use can ruin the mind. I have an uncle who has smoked dope for decades and it hasn't done him any favours. Minor use of this stuff is fine in 99% of cases sure, but when used heavily or used by the wrong person it can cause problems, not worth dismissing it all as a pack of Bush WH lies.

Just with a quick google I found these.

http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/update0503c.shtml

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg18524921.300

I think that conservative nanny state may be a more apt description than right wing nanny state.
 
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I think alot of emotionally unstable people are attracted to marijuana, but it has destabilizing qualities to it. People must want to go to rehab to stop, so I wouldn't write it off as harmless.
 
remember, this is a White House that doesn't believe in Global Warming and has a difficult relationship with science, to say the least. that's all i'm saying.

i'm also saying that there's no way that marijuana is necessarily good -- except for glaucoma, cancer patients, and some people use it for anxiety -- but i don't think it's any worse than alcohol. in fact, stoners tend not to get into fights after football games or commit date rape, and while one obviously shouldn't drive while stoned, you'd have a tough time equivocating that with drinking and driving.

though it does seem logical that doing a drug, or drinking, before the age of 12 will severely impair thinking and mental stability long term ... why, just look at that adorable but utterly crazy Drew Barrymore ... ;)
 
Pot has been smoked for a long time now. Some people may get this or that problem, but maybe they would anyway. I don't see how it's all connected, people who don't smoke it have problems like that too.
 
Well....some people die eating peanuts. Perhaps we should bust all those mom peanut butter pushers. :wink:

I just don't think it's a big enough problem to get so many shorts in a twist over. The vast majority of post smokers have few or no problems with it.
 
Seabird said:
I have heard some people say they'd have mental problems if they didn't have a joint once in awhile :shifty:
People go nuts when they're addicted to something. Tobacco demonstrates that constantly.
 
Ahhh weed, the thing your drug czar is so scared of.

I seen a news report the other day on how he is saying that if Canada ever de-criminalized weed there would be big back ups at the border!

It really is funny, how a drug that is so harmless when compared to anything else invokes so much emotion from some people.

My prediction, 15 years from now, weed will be something that can be smoked freely, grown by gov'ts. sold in 7/11's for the simple fact that there wont be many people who give a shit anymore!
 
Irvine511 said:
remember, this is a White House that doesn't believe in Global Warming and has a difficult relationship with science, to say the least. that's all i'm saying.

i'm also saying that there's no way that marijuana is necessarily good -- except for glaucoma, cancer patients, and some people use it for anxiety -- but i don't think it's any worse than alcohol. in fact, stoners tend not to get into fights after football games or commit date rape, and while one obviously shouldn't drive while stoned, you'd have a tough time equivocating that with drinking and driving.

though it does seem logical that doing a drug, or drinking, before the age of 12 will severely impair thinking and mental stability long term ... why, just look at that adorable but utterly crazy Drew Barrymore ... ;)
My main objection to this post is that it seems to imply that the White House has one man inside it who does all the research or, more accurately said, jumps to conclusions. As listed in the article, it is in fact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration that works in this field, not particularly the "White House that doesn't believe in global warming."
 
My father is a doctor, and his opinion on pot is simple. It's no good, but a joint is far, far, far better than 10 beers and half a pack of cigarettes.
 
Macfistowannabe said:
My main objection to this post is that it seems to imply that the White House has one man inside it who does all the research or, more accurately said, jumps to conclusions. As listed in the article, it is in fact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration that works in this field, not particularly the "White House that doesn't believe in global warming."



all Administrations manipulate science to further their own political goals. this Administration is slowly but surely creating a socially conservative Nanny State in order to regulate how we live our lives -- from everything to what we watch on TV, what we put into our body, and what we do in the bedroom. and, on a state level, we're seeing this to an even greater degree as has been seen with banning books having anything to do with homosexuality to who can adopt children to cheerleaders and their sexy dance moves.

all i'm saying is that a finding like this helps the WH further their political goals. all administrations do this, only this one more than others, and i only need to point to their laughable claims that global warming needs more study.

you also don't think that any research organization, depenent upon government grants and private contributions for survival, doesn't have an interest in giving the administration exactly the "evidence" it needs to wrap around whatever policy they've already decided they want to push forward because it will please an impatient portion of the people who elected them?
 
AAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

:banghead:

WHY, WHY, WHY!?!?!?!!

don't we have, you know, *real* drugs to worry about, like crystal meth? oh well, i suppose marijuana people are slower, easier to catch, and really indecisive, so the government can make it seem like it's doing something?

what a big, fat waste of resources.



Marijuana Becomes Focus of Drug War
Less Emphasis on Heroin and Cocaine

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 4, 2005; A01



The focus of the drug war in the United States has shifted significantly over the past decade from hard drugs to marijuana, which now accounts for nearly half of all drug arrests nationwide, according to an analysis of federal crime statistics released yesterday.

The study of FBI data by a Washington-based think tank, the Sentencing Project, found that the proportion of heroin and cocaine cases plummeted from 55 percent of all drug arrests in 1992 to less than 30 percent 10 years later. During the same period, marijuana arrests rose from 28 percent of the total to 45 percent.

Coming in the wake of the focus on crack cocaine in the late 1980s, the increasing emphasis on marijuana enforcement was accompanied by a dramatic rise in overall drug arrests, from fewer than 1.1 million in 1990 to more than 1.5 million a decade later. Eighty percent of that increase came from marijuana arrests, the study found.

The rapid increase has not had a significant impact on prisons, however, because just 6 percent of the arrests resulted in felony convictions, the study found. The most widely quoted household survey on the topic has shown relatively little change in the overall rate of marijuana use over the same time period, experts said.

"In reality, the war on drugs as pursued in the 1990s was to a large degree a war on marijuana," said Ryan S. King, the study's co-author and a research associate at the Sentencing Project. "Marijuana is the most widely used illegal substance, but that doesn't explain this level of growth over time. . . . The question is, is this really where we want to be spending all our money?"

The think tank is a left-leaning group that advocates alternatives to traditional imprisonment. Criminologists and government officials confirmed the trend, which in some ways marks a return to a previous era. In 1982, marijuana arrests accounted for 72 percent of all drug arrests, according to the study.

Bush administration officials attribute the rise in marijuana arrests to a variety of factors: increased use among teenagers during parts of the 1990s; efforts by local police departments to focus more on street-level offenses; and growing concerns over the danger posed by modern, more potent versions of marijuana. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy released a study yesterday showing that youth who use marijuana are more likely to develop serious mental health problems, including depression and schizophrenia.

"This is not Cheech and Chong marijuana," said David Murray, a policy analyst for the anti-drug office. "It's a qualitatively different drug, and that's reflected in the numbers."

The new statistics come amid signs of a renewed debate in political circles over the efficacy of U.S. drug policies, which have received less attention recently amid historically low crime rates and a focus on terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, for example, has formed a national committee to oversee prosecution of violent drug gangs and has vowed to focus more resources on the fight against methamphetamine manufacturers and other drug traffickers.

But increasingly, some experts have begun to argue that the U.S. drug war, which costs an estimated $35 billion a year, has had a minimal impact on consumption of illicit substances. The conservative American Enterprise Institute published a report in March titled "Are We Losing the War on Drugs?" Its authors argue that, among other things, "criminal punishment of marijuana use does not appear to be justified."

The study released yesterday by the Sentencing Project found that arrests for marijuana account for nearly all of the increase in drug arrests seen during the 1990s. The report also found that one in four people in state prisons for marijuana offenses can be classified as a "low-level offender," and it estimated that $4 billion a year is spent on arresting and prosecuting marijuana crimes.

In addition, the study showed that although African Americans make up 14 percent of marijuana users generally, they account for nearly a third of all marijuana arrests.

Among the most striking findings was the researchers' examination of arrest trends in New York City, which focused intently on "zero tolerance" policies during Rudolph W. Giuliani's mayoral administration. Marijuana arrests in the city increased tenfold from 1990 to 2002, from 5,100 to more than 50,000, the report said. Nine of 10 of arrests in 2002 were for possession rather than dealing.

The study also found a wide disparity in the growth of marijuana arrests in some of the United States' largest counties, from a 20 percent increase in San Diego to a 418 percent spike in King County, Wash. (The only decrease in the sample came in Northern Virginia's Fairfax County, where marijuana arrests declined by 37 percent.)

"There's been a major change in what's going on in drug enforcement, but it clearly isn't something that someone set out to do," said Jonathan Caulkins, a criminology professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "It's not like anyone said, 'We don't care about cocaine and heroin anymore.' . . . The simple answer may be that police are now taking opportunities to make more marijuana arrests than they were when they were focused on crack cocaine in the 1980s."



:banghead:
 
It's stupid to de-emphasize cocaine and heroin. Those are both lethal, addicting drugs. They kill. Marijuana might not be harmless but it's not lethal, it doesn't kill people.
 
I don't know.... my bf smokes pot and he's a very smart and equilibrated guy, he does very good in college and he doesn't have emotional problems.

I remember an interview with a model that is.. let's say... a little stupid (not saying that all models are stupid, but this one just have to keep her mouth shut). The magazine asked her if she had smoked pot and she said "no,,, cuz pot causes celulitis and you will look awfull and fat!!!!" ... That warning would be more effective :lol: hahahahaha...
 
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