Newsgroups: alt.drugs,talk.politics.drugs,alt.hemp
From: "Paul Hager" <[h--ge--p] at [cs.indiana.edu]>
Subject: Updated version of "Marijuana Myths"
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1993 10:56:41 -0500
I have finally gotten around to updating "Marijuana Myths" --
archivists, take note. This version will be printed and
distributed at the ICLU booth at this year's Monroe County
Fair.
-----------------------------cut here----------------------------
MARIJUANA MYTHS
by Paul Hager
Chair, ICLU Drug Task Force
1. Marijuana causes brain damage
The most celebrated study that claims to show brain damage
is the rhesus monkey study of Dr. Robert Heath, done in the late
1970s. This study was reviewed by a distinguished panel of
scientists sponsored by the Institute of Medicine and the
National Academy of Sciences. Their results were published under
the title, Marijuana and Health in 1982. Heath's work was
sharply criticized for its insufficient sample size (only four
monkeys), its failure to control experimental bias, and the
misidentification of normal monkey brain structure as "damaged".
Actual studies of human populations of marijuana users have shown
no evidence of brain damage. For example, two studies from 1977,
published in the Journal of the American Medical Association
(JAMA) showed no evidence of brain damage in heavy users of
marijuana. That same year, the American Medical Association
(AMA) officially came out in favor of decriminalizing marijuana.
That's not the sort of thing you'd expect if the AMA thought
marijuana damaged the brain.
2. Marijuana damages the reproductive system
This claim is based chiefly on the work of Dr. Gabriel
Nahas, who experimented with tissue (cells) isolated in petri
dishes, and with researchers who dosed animals with near-lethal
amounts of cannabinoids (i.e., the intoxicating part of
marijuana). Nahas' generalizations from his petri dishes to
human beings have been rejected by the scientific community as
being invalid. In the case of the animal experiments, the
animals that survived their ordeal returned to normal within 30
days of the end of the experiment. Studies of actual human
populations have failed to demonstrate that marijuana adversely
affects the reproductive system.
3. Marijuana is a "gateway" drug -- it leads to hard drugs
This is one of the more persistent myths. A real world
example of what happens when marijuana is readily available can
be found in Holland. The Dutch partially legalized marijuana in
the 1970s. Since then, hard drug use -- heroin and cocaine --
have DECLINED substantially. If marijuana really were a gateway
drug, one would have expected use of hard drugs to have gone up,
not down. This apparent "negative gateway" effect has also been
observed in the United States. Studies done in the early 1970s
showed a negative correlation between use of marijuana and use of
alcohol. A 1993 Rand Corporation study that compared drug use in
states that had decriminalized marijuana versus those that had
not, found that where marijuana was more available -- the states
that had decriminalized -- hard drug abuse as measured by
emergency room episodes decreased. In short, what science and
actual experience tell us is that marijuana tends to substitute
for the much more dangerous hard drugs like alcohol, cocaine, and
heroin.
4. Marijuana suppresses the immune system
Like the studies claiming to show damage to the reproductive
system, this myth is based on studies where animals were given
extremely high -- in many cases, near-lethal -- doses of
cannabinoids. These results have never been duplicated in human
beings. Interestingly, two studies done in 1978 and one done in
1988 showed that hashish and marijuana may have actually
stimulated the immune system in the people studied.
5. Marijuana is much more dangerous than tobacco
Smoked marijuana contains about the same amount of
carcinogens as does an equivalent amount of tobacco. It should
be remembered, however, that a heavy tobacco smoker consumes much
more tobacco than a heavy marijuana smoker consumes marijuana.
This is because smoked tobacco, with a 90% addiction rate, is the
most addictive of all drugs while marijuana is less addictive
than caffeine. Two other factors are important. The first is
that paraphernalia laws directed against marijuana users make it
difficult to smoke safely. These laws make water pipes and
bongs, which filter some of the carcinogens out of the smoke,
illegal and, hence, unavailable. The second is that, if
marijuana were legal, it would be more economical to have
cannabis drinks like bhang (a traditional drink in the Middle
East) or tea which are totally non-carcinogenic. This is in
stark contrast with "smokeless" tobacco products like snuff which
can cause cancer of the mouth and throat. When all of these
facts are taken together, it can be clearly seen that the reverse
is true: marijuana is much SAFER than tobacco.
6. Legal marijuana would cause carnage on the highways
Although marijuana, when used to intoxication, does impair
performance in a manner similar to alcohol, actual studies of the
effect of marijuana on the automobile accident rate suggest that
it poses LESS of a hazard than alcohol. When a random sample of
fatal accident victims was studied, it was initially found that
marijuana was associated with RELATIVELY as many accidents as
alcohol. In other words, the number of accident victims
intoxicated on marijuana relative to the number of marijuana
users in society gave a ratio similar to that for accident
victims intoxicated on alcohol relative to the total number of
alcohol users. However, a closer examination of the victims
revealed that around 85% of the people intoxicated on marijuana
WERE ALSO INTOXICATED ON ALCOHOL. For people only intoxicated on
marijuana, the rate was much lower than for alcohol alone. This
finding has been supported by other research using completely
different methods. For example, an economic analysis of the
effects of decriminalization on marijuana usage found that states
that had reduced penalties for marijuana possession experienced a
rise in marijuana use and a decline in alcohol use with the
result that fatal highway accidents decreased. This would
suggest that, far from causing "carnage", legal marijuana might
actually save lives.
7. Marijuana "flattens" human brainwaves
This is an out-and-out lie perpetrated by the Partnership
for a Drug-Free America. A few years ago, they ran a TV ad that
purported to show, first, a normal human brainwave, and second, a
flat brainwave from a 14-year-old "on marijuana". When
researchers called up the TV networks to complain about this
commercial, the Partnership had to pull it from the air. It
seems that the Partnership faked the flat "marijuana brainwave".
In reality, marijuana has the effect of slightly INCREASING alpha
wave activity. Alpha waves are associated with meditative and
relaxed states which are, in turn, often associated with human
creativity.
8. Marijuana is more potent today than in the past
This myth is the result of bad data. The researchers who
made the claim of increased potency used as their baseline the
THC content of marijuana seized by police in the early 1970s.
Poor storage of this marijuana in un-air conditioned evidence
rooms caused it to deteriorate and decline in potency before any
chemical assay was performed. Contemporaneous, independent
assays of unseized "street" marijuana from the early 1970s showed
a potency equivalent to that of modern "street" marijuana.
Actually, the most potent form of this drug that was generally
available was sold legally in the 1920s and 1930s by the
pharmaceutical company Smith-Klein under the name, "American
Cannabis".
9. Marijuana impairs short-term memory
This is true but misleading. When one is intoxicated on
alcohol, one's motor control is affected. When one is
intoxicated on marijuana, one's concentration is affected. Any
impairment of short-term memory disappears when one is no longer
intoxicated. Often, the short-term memory effect is paired with
a reference to Dr. Heath's poor rhesus monkeys to imply that the
condition is permanent.
10. Marijuana lingers in the body like DDT
This is also true but misleading. Cannabinoids are fat
soluble as are innumerable nutrients and, yes, some poisons like
DDT. For example, the essential nutrient, Vitamin A, is fat
soluble but one never hears people who favor marijuana
prohibition making this comparison.
11. There are over a thousand chemicals in marijuana smoke
Again, true but misleading. The 31 August 1990 issue of the
magazine Science notes that of the over 800 volatile chemicals
present in roasted COFFEE, only 21 have actually been tested on
animals and 16 of these cause cancer in rodents. Yet, coffee
remains legal and is generally considered fairly safe.
12. No one has ever died of a marijuana overdose
This is true. It was put in to see if you are paying
attention. Animal tests have revealed that extremely high doses
of cannabinoids are needed to have lethal effect. This has led
scientists to conclude that the ratio of the amount of
cannabinoids necessary to get a person intoxicated (i.e., stoned)
relative to the amount necessary to kill them is 1 to 40,000. In
other words, to overdose, you would have to consume 40,000 times
as much marijuana as you needed to get stoned. In contrast, the
ratio for alcohol varies between 1 to 4 and 1 to 10. It is easy
to see how upwards of 5000 people die from alcohol overdoses
every year and no one EVER dies of marijuana overdoses.
WHAT IS THE ICLU DRUG TASK FORCE?
The Indiana Civil Liberties Union (ICLU) Drug Task Force is
involved in education and lobbying efforts directed toward
reforming drug policy. Specifically, we support ACLU Policy
Statement number 210 which calls for the legalization of
marijuana. We also support an end to the drug war. In its
place, we favor "harm reduction" strategies which treat drug
abuse as what it is -- a medical problem -- rather than a
criminal justice problem.
The Drug Task Force also works to end urine and hair testing
of workers by private industry. These kinds of tests violate
worker privacy to no good purpose because they detect past use of
certain drugs (mostly marijuana) while ignoring others (e.g.,
LSD) and cannot detect current impairment. In situations where
public and worker safety is a legitimate concern, we advocate
impairment testing devices which reliably detect degradation of
performance without infringing upon worker privacy.
For more information about the activities of the Drug Task
Force, call the ICLU at (317) 635-4059 or call Paul Hager at
(812) 333-1384 or e-mail to [h--ge--p] at [cs.indiana.edu] on the
InterNet.
SOURCES
1) Marijuana and Health, Institute of Medicine, National
Academy of Sciences, 1982. Note: the Committee on Substance
Abuse and Habitual Behavior of the "Marijuana and Health"
study had its part of the final report suppressed when it
reviewed the evidence and recommended that possession of
small amounts of marijuana should no longer be a crime (TIME
magazine, July 19, 1982). The two JAMA studies are: Co,
B.T., Goodwin, D.W., Gado, M., Mikhael, M., and Hill, S.Y.:
"Absence of cerebral atrophy in chronic cannabis users",
JAMA, 237:1229-1230, 1977; and, Kuehnle, J., Mendelson,
J.H., Davis, K.R., and New, P.F.J.: "Computed tomographic
examination of heavy marijuana smokers", JAMA, 237:1231-
1232, 1977.
2) See Marijuana and Health, ibid., for information on this
research. See also, Marijuana Reconsidered (1978) by Dr.
Lester Grinspoon.
3) An article about the Dutch experience is written up in "The
Economics of Legalizing Drugs", by Richard J. Dennis, The
Atlantic Monthly, Vol 266, No. 5, Nov 1990, p. 130. See "A
Comparison of Marijuana Users and Non-users" by Norman
Zinberg and Andrew Weil (1971) for the negative correlation
between use of marijuana and use of alcohol. The 1993 Rand
Corporation study is "The Effect of Marijuana
Decriminalization on Hospital Emergency Room Episodes:
1975 - 1978" by Karyn E. Model.
4) See a review of studies and their methodology in "Marijuana
and Immunity", Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Vol 20(1),
Jan-Mar 1988. Studies showing stimulation of the immune
system: Kaklamani, et al., "Hashish smoking and T-
lymphocytes", 1978; Kalofoutis et al., "The significance of
lymphocyte lipid changes after smoking hashish", 1978. The
1988 study: Wallace, J.M., Tashkin, D.P., Oishi, J.S.,
Barbers, R.G., "Peripheral Blood Lymphocyte Subpopulations
and Mitogen Responsiveness in Tobacco and Marijuana
Smokers", 1988, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, ibid.
5) The 90% figure comes from Health Consequences of Smoking:
Nicotine Addiction, Surgeon General's Report, 1988. In
Health magazine in an article entitled, "Hooked, Not Hooked"
by Deborah Franklin (pp. 39-52), compares the addictives of
various drugs and ranks marijuana below coffeine. For
current information on cannabis drinks see Working Men and
Ganja: Marijuana Use in Rural Jamaica by M. C. Dreher,
Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1982, ISBN 0-89727-
025-8. For information on cannabis and actual cancer risk,
see Marijuana and Health, ibid.
6) For a survey of studies relating to cannabis and highway
accidents see "Marijuana, Driving and Accident Safety", by
Dale Gieringer, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, ibid. The
effect of decriminalization on highway accidents is analyzed
in "Do Youths Substitute Alcohol and Marijuana? Some
Econometric Evidence" by Frank J. Chaloupka and Adit
Laixuthai, Nov. 1992, University of Illinois at Chicago.
7) For information about the Partnership ad, see Jack Herer's
book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, 1990, p. 74. See also
"Hard Sell in the Drug War", The Nation, March 9, 1992, by
Cynthia Cotts, which reveals that the Partnership receives a
large percentage of its advertizing budget from alcohol,
tobacco, and pharmaceutical companies and is thus disposed
toward exaggerating the risks of marijuana while downplaying
the risks of legal drugs. For information on memory and the
alpha brainwave enhancement effect, see "Marijuana, Memory,
and Perception", by R. L. Dornbush, M.D., M. Fink, M.D., and
A. M. Freedman, M.D., presented at the 124th annual meeting
of the American Psychiatric Association, May 3-7, 1971.
8) See "Cannabis 1988, Old Drug New Dangers, The Potency
Question" by Tod H Mikuriya, M.D. and Michael Aldrich,
Ph.D., Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, ibid.
9) See Marijuana and Health, ibid. Also see "Marijuana,
Memory, and Perception", ibid.
10) The fat solubility of cannabinoids and certain vitamins is
well known. See Marijuana and Health, ibid. For some
information on vitamin A, see "The A Team" in Scientific
American, Vol 264, No. 2, February 1991, p. 16.
11) See "Too Many Rodent Carcinogens: Mitogenesis Increases
Mutagenesis", Bruce N. Ames and Lois Swirsky Gold, Science,
Vol 249, 31 August 1990, p. 971.
12) Cannabis and alcohol toxicity is compared in Marijuana
Reconsidered, ibid., p. 227. Yearly alcohol overdoses was
taken from "Drug Prohibition in the United States: Costs,
Consequences, and Alternatives" by Ethan A. Nadelmann,
Science, Vol 245, 1 September 1989, p. 943.
--
paul hager [h--ge--p] at [moose.cs.indiana.edu]
"If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change
its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety
with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to
combat it." --Thomas Jefferson, 1st Inaugural, 4-Mar-1801