From: [p--r--h] at [fuck.spammers.anally] (Pierre Honeyman)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs.pot,rec.drugs.cannabis,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Re: So called "gateway drug" study
Date: Thu, 03 Jul 1997 18:56:28 GMT

On 2 Jul 1997 02:57:50 GMT, [j--od--r] at [unlgrad1.unl.edu] (Jeffrey N
Woodford) wrote:
>The conclusions they reached were quite general.  Read the article.

Unlike the NIDA media advisory "Effects of Long-Term Marijuana Use on
the Brain Shown Similar To Other Addicting Drugs", which intentionally
leads the media to report that "proof" now exists of the gateway
theory in spite of all the studies and even the statistics of use
themselves which show differently.

>Then why did one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the
>world accept it for publication?

The actual study itself was probably done quite correctly and is quite
useful for studying the effects of HU-210 and SR 141716A in rats (were
these Lewis rats, BTW?)

>- The research project was an INTERNATIONAL one, done both in the US
>and Spain.  I suppose you're already assuming that the Evil Government
>has bought off the entire US research community.  Are you going to
>suggest that the US government has bought off the entire Spanish
>scientific community as well?

"NIDA supports more than 85 percent of the world's research on the
health aspects of drug abuse and addiction..."

>- The research was published in Science, one of the most prestigious
>journals for the biological sciences (if not THE most prestigious).
>Ask any researcher in this field where he would most like to publish
>his work, and he will say either Science or Nature.  The journal
>Science is NOT a governmental entity.  Are you suggesting then that
>the editors of Science were willing to sacrifice their excellent
>reputation to publish a paper which they knew to be bogus?

Like I said, the research is genuine, the conclusions being drawn by
NIDA ("Dr. Alan I. Leshner says...") are the ones that are bogus.  The
crud being printed by the media is bogus.

>Of course it is not "proven".  NOTHING in science is "proven", in the
>sense of being true forever.  It is simply the best conclusions we can
>draw with the information given.  Your comments show an incredible
>amount of ignorance about the scientific process, and science in
>general.  "Oh my God, it's not 'proven' so it can't possibly be
>true"...

Unfortunately so do yours.  You, of all people on this group, should
know about the difficulties of extrapolating animal BEHAVIOUR to human
BEHAVIOUR.  Since addiction and addiction potential are much more than
just the physical, showing certain physical changes means nothing.  

Riddle me this Jeffrey, why did the researchers have to use SR 141716A
at all?  Why did they have to specifically BLOCK the HU 210 receptors
in the rats to induce withdrawal?  Heroin addicts quite readily
undergo heroin withdrawal without the benefit of opioid antagonists.
Last time I checked, a  heroin addict didn't have to be on Naloxone
(TM) in order to be jonesing.

So, what this research really showed was that rats, injected daily for
14 days (which is a far cry from long-term use, BTW) with HU 210, a
drug which mimics THC but isn't, and in the absence of any other
cannabinoids synthetic or otherwise, can be shown to have increased
stress levels after being injected with an HU 210 antagonist in order
to induce HU 210 withdrawal.  From this the conclusion is drawn that
marijuana use "primes" the brain to later addiction to other drugs.
Somehow, this conclusion is accepted and that it shows a "gateway"
effect.  Studies done on real people have not shown this effect, and
the statistics themselves do not back up a "gateway" theory.

>: Because marijuana has little inherent badness in and of itself.
>Not according to our current scientific understanding.

And you're wrong again, showing your bias.  Our current scientific
understanding is still that marijuana is safer than alcohol, and safer
than aspirin.  If there is such a thing as marijuana withdrawal in
humans, then it is mild enough to be unnoticed in most users (and thus
unreported) or only apparent in the heaviest users.

Pierre