Health Risks of Cannabis 'Probably Overstated'

DdC · 09-18-2003, 08:09 PM

Cannabis may be safer than was thought - but only if it remains illegal, a report by a health expert suggests.

Recent estimates that cannabis causes up to 30,000 deaths a year - a quarter of the number caused by smoking tobacco - are likely to be exaggerated, Stephen Sidney, associate director of clinical research at the California health maintenance organisation Kaiser Permanente, said.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, Dr Sidney said that two long-term studies of the drug, involving a total of more than 100,000 people in Sweden and the US, found no increase in deaths. Furthermore, unlike other drugs both legal and illegal, there has been no known lethal overdose from cannabis.

The harmful effects of tobacco, with which cannabis is often compared, are long term. Smoking is known to contribute to heart disease, one of the Western world's biggest killers. Nicotine has a damaging impact on the heart but there is no nicotine in cannabis.

Cannabis was also exonerated as a cause of heart disease by a study that showed no increase in calcium deposits in the coronary arteries of young adult users of the drug - an indicator of thickening of the arteries that can lead to heart attacks.

"Although the use of cannabis is not harmless, the current knowledge base does not support the assertion that it has any notable adverse public health impact in relation to mortality," Dr Sidney said.

But he said the long-term effects of cannabis were not known because users had not been followed into middle and old age. Most give up the drug in their twenties and thirties and this is likely to minimise harmful effects. But if the drug were legalised it is possible that more people would continue using it for longer. "We cannot assume that smoking cannabis would continue to have the same small impact on mortality ... if its use were to be decriminalised or legalised," Dr Sidney said.

Health Risks of Cannabis 'Probably Overstated'
Source: Independent (UK)
Author: Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Published: September 19, 2003
Contact: letters@independent. co.uk * Website

Related Articles

Cannabis 'Could Kill 30,000 a Year'

Cannabis May Become Aspirin of the 21st Century
.................... ..............
Link Between Cannabis and Death Still Not Established
Public Release Date: 18-Sep-2003
BMJ-British Medical Journal
Contact: Emma Dickinson edickinson@bmj.com 44-207-383-6529
.................... ..............
Dr. Grinspoon: Well, in 1997, Kaiser Permanente did a large- scale study which included more than 65,000 admitted marijuana users, and they could not demonstrate any impact of marijuana use on mortality. If marijuana use really was a significant risk factor for heart attack, it is hard to believe that it didn't turn up there. Again, I'm not saying that there is absolutely no risk demonstrated here. But given the history of the research since 1967, I'd be surprised if these findings don't go down the same chute as all of the other front-page scare stories.

D.E.A.th Lies: Ganja vs U.S.Tobacco
http://boards.marihemp.com/boards/cu...dia/4/4385.gif

Cannabis Shrinks Tumors: Government Knew in 74
Prenatal Cannabis Exposure and Neonatal Outcomes in Jamaica: An Ethnographic Study

Long-Term Pot-Use Study: No Ill Health Effects
Patients Out of Time

Missoula Chronic Cannabis Use Research Study
Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics
CannabisNews Search - Ethan Russo M.D.

Marijuana Doesn't Cause Lung Cancer
Dr. Grinspoon: To Smoke Or Not To Smoke

"One of marijuana's greatest advantages as a medicine is its remarkable safety"

It'll kill you -- wait, no it won't

Let us consider the case of Dr. George Ricaurte, still a "member in good standing" of the faculty of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine despite recent events.

Ricaurte has long been a fighter in the War Against Some Drugs. Much the way some universities are able to find positive things to say about a drug in studies funded by the manufacturer of that drug, so is Ricaurte able to say negative things about recreational drugs in studies funded by the WASD. Science is a lot easier when you know your conclusions ahead of time.

Last year, Ricaurte issued a study saying that the amount of ecstasy commonly taken by a user in one night could lead to permanent brain damage and symptoms resembling those of Parkinson's disease.

The study was met with some skepticism even when it was released. According to Donald J. McNeil, writing in the New York Times, "the study was ridiculed at the time by other scientists working on the drug, who said the primates (used in the study) must have been injected with massive overdoses. Two of the 10 primates died of heatstroke, they pointed out, and another two were in such distress that they were not given all the doses. If a typical ecstasy dose killed 20 percent of those who used it, critics said, no one would use it recreationally."

Yeah, word would get around. Thirty or so dead bodies at a rave -- people would talk.

It was noted that Ricaurte's study was published just in time for him to testify to Congress in favor of a proposed law called the Anti-Rave Act. (Thank God there's no Anti-Rant Act, or I'd be out of a job.)

Well, now it turns out that the drug Ricaurte gave to his baboons was not ecstasy but a powerful amphetamine called d-methamphetamine. The admission of error was published in the journal Science.

Ricaurte called the mistake "a simple human error."

"We're scientists, not politicians," he said, and later: "We're not chemists. We get hundreds of chemicals here. It is not customary to check them. "

OK, slow down. Read that again. We get hundreds of chemicals in here, in this scientific laboratory where we analyze the effect of chemicals on primate subjects, and we do not bother to check the chemicals. Nope, we just read the labels, get out the syringes, and hello monkey want some whatever-this-is?

Doesn't that give you faith in science? I mean, I knew a guy in London like that once, he'd pretty much inject anything into his body, but he died a long time ago. Maybe there's a lesson there.

The whole thing is so loony. The government takes its usual moralistic approach to drug research, funding projects to prove that bad drugs are bad, and it prevents the funding of studies that do not start with any conclusions.

It may be that drugs like ecstasy and marijuana have some medical uses. There is already some evidence that this is true, but there's been no follow- up because the government will not allow it. The government is afraid of the answers, so it refuses to ask the questions.

Meantime, lapdogs like this Ricaurte dude get gazillions of dollars to injure monkeys in various ways to prove that the people who think they are having a good time aren't. This is medieval science, intellectually bankrupt and breathtakingly stupid.

Why do we allow it? Because it's never the top priority. There is poverty and hunger and disease and pollution and the death of the oceans, and a malign administration in Washington wishing to ignore all those problems, and there are so many hours in the day. This convulsion of superstition could last centuries. Just say, "Oh, noooo . . ."

This work of commentary is in violation of Section 12 of the Anti-Rant Act.

Draw a line from Malta to Lampedusa; call it jcarroll@sfchronicle .com

It'll kill you -- wait, no it won't
Jon Carroll Monday, September 15, 2003

Results Retracted On Ecstasy Study
Report of Ecstasy Drug's Great Risks

about ashcroft

Drug Deaths Per Year

Tobacco+............ .............435,175
Alcohol*............ .............100.000
Secondhand smoke**............. ....3,800
Overdoses illegal hard drugs*......3,600
Overdoses legal drugs*............21 ,000
Cocaine/crack overdoses*.......... .1,969
Heroin overdoses*.......... ........1,046
Aspirin overdoses*.......... .......1,000
Marijuana overdoses*.......... .........0
Sources; + Federal Center for Disease Control, 1990.
*US Public Health Service
**Environmental Protection Agency 1990.

DdC · 09-18-2003, 08:11 PM

Tommy Chong Will Be Free in Prison (Excerpted) * Discussion

When Operations Pipe Dreams and Headhunter swooped down from the DEA at outrageous taxpayer expense last winter, 55 of the more prominent paraphernalia company owners were arrested and Chong was not spared.

The details of Tommy Chong's court date were all over the Internet by September 12th, the day after his sentencing. Guilty. Nine months‚ imprisonment, a $20K fine, and $100K in forfeited assets.

Because of the court's refusal to accept this devil's bargain to turn Tommy Chong into another horrible Just Say No advertising shill for the Partnership for a Drug Free America, Chong is a free man. For the mere price of nine months in jail, he can spend the rest of his life as a hero for libertarian ideals. He doesn't have to kiss John Ashcroft's ass. He doesn't have to be a liar and a hypocrite. Like those who went to jail and endured the blacklist during the McCarthy Era, Chong can maintain his integrity in these increasingly right-wing Big Brother times. He can use this imprisonment to publicize the punishment inflicted by our government for a non-violent crime which has harmed no one.

Henry David Thoreau said that those who are in prison are in essence the most free.

Face the future with grace and courage, Tommy. Your jail sentence will only add to the authenticity of the beloved character you have delighted us with for decades.

The youth of America are depending on you to tell the truth about marijuana.
Do the right thing for all of us.

U.S. law enforcement spends $7.5 to $10 billion annually enforcing marijuana laws. According to the FBI, 720,000 Americans were arrested on marijuana charges in 2001.
Keith Stroup, (NORML)

In 2000, there were 1,579,566 drug arrests in the US. Of those, 46.5 percent -- 734,497 arrests -- were for marijuana. There were 646,042 arrests for simple possession of marijuana in 2000. drugwarfacts.org

09-18-2003, 08:09 PM	#1 (permalink)
DdC Decade Yahookan Join Date: Feb 1999 Location: Santa Cruz,CA,USA Posts: 2,117 Blog Entries: 5 Thanks: 51 Thanked 607 Times in 399 Posts	Health Risks of Cannabis 'Probably Overstated' Cannabis may be safer than was thought - but only if it remains illegal, a report by a health expert suggests. Recent estimates that cannabis causes up to 30,000 deaths a year - a quarter of the number caused by smoking tobacco - are likely to be exaggerated, Stephen Sidney, associate director of clinical research at the California health maintenance organisation Kaiser Permanente, said. Writing in the British Medical Journal, Dr Sidney said that two long-term studies of the drug, involving a total of more than 100,000 people in Sweden and the US, found no increase in deaths. Furthermore, unlike other drugs both legal and illegal, there has been no known lethal overdose from cannabis. The harmful effects of tobacco, with which cannabis is often compared, are long term. Smoking is known to contribute to heart disease, one of the Western world's biggest killers. Nicotine has a damaging impact on the heart but there is no nicotine in cannabis. Cannabis was also exonerated as a cause of heart disease by a study that showed no increase in calcium deposits in the coronary arteries of young adult users of the drug - an indicator of thickening of the arteries that can lead to heart attacks. "Although the use of cannabis is not harmless, the current knowledge base does not support the assertion that it has any notable adverse public health impact in relation to mortality," Dr Sidney said. But he said the long-term effects of cannabis were not known because users had not been followed into middle and old age. Most give up the drug in their twenties and thirties and this is likely to minimise harmful effects. But if the drug were legalised it is possible that more people would continue using it for longer. "We cannot assume that smoking cannabis would continue to have the same small impact on mortality ... if its use were to be decriminalised or legalised," Dr Sidney said. Health Risks of Cannabis 'Probably Overstated' Source: Independent (UK) Author: Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor Published: September 19, 2003 Contact: letters@independent. co.uk * Website Related Articles Cannabis 'Could Kill 30,000 a Year' Cannabis May Become Aspirin of the 21st Century .................... .............. Link Between Cannabis and Death Still Not Established Public Release Date: 18-Sep-2003 BMJ-British Medical Journal Contact: Emma Dickinson edickinson@bmj.com 44-207-383-6529 .................... .............. Dr. Grinspoon: Well, in 1997, Kaiser Permanente did a large- scale study which included more than 65,000 admitted marijuana users, and they could not demonstrate any impact of marijuana use on mortality. If marijuana use really was a significant risk factor for heart attack, it is hard to believe that it didn't turn up there. Again, I'm not saying that there is absolutely no risk demonstrated here. But given the history of the research since 1967, I'd be surprised if these findings don't go down the same chute as all of the other front-page scare stories. D.E.A.th Lies: Ganja vs U.S.Tobacco http://boards.marihemp.com/boards/cu...dia/4/4385.gif Cannabis Shrinks Tumors: Government Knew in 74 Prenatal Cannabis Exposure and Neonatal Outcomes in Jamaica: An Ethnographic Study Long-Term Pot-Use Study: No Ill Health Effects Patients Out of Time Missoula Chronic Cannabis Use Research Study Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics CannabisNews Search - Ethan Russo M.D. Marijuana Doesn't Cause Lung Cancer Dr. Grinspoon: To Smoke Or Not To Smoke "One of marijuana's greatest advantages as a medicine is its remarkable safety" It'll kill you -- wait, no it won't Let us consider the case of Dr. George Ricaurte, still a "member in good standing" of the faculty of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine despite recent events. Ricaurte has long been a fighter in the War Against Some Drugs. Much the way some universities are able to find positive things to say about a drug in studies funded by the manufacturer of that drug, so is Ricaurte able to say negative things about recreational drugs in studies funded by the WASD. Science is a lot easier when you know your conclusions ahead of time. Last year, Ricaurte issued a study saying that the amount of ecstasy commonly taken by a user in one night could lead to permanent brain damage and symptoms resembling those of Parkinson's disease. The study was met with some skepticism even when it was released. According to Donald J. McNeil, writing in the New York Times, "the study was ridiculed at the time by other scientists working on the drug, who said the primates (used in the study) must have been injected with massive overdoses. Two of the 10 primates died of heatstroke, they pointed out, and another two were in such distress that they were not given all the doses. If a typical ecstasy dose killed 20 percent of those who used it, critics said, no one would use it recreationally." Yeah, word would get around. Thirty or so dead bodies at a rave -- people would talk. It was noted that Ricaurte's study was published just in time for him to testify to Congress in favor of a proposed law called the Anti-Rave Act. (Thank God there's no Anti-Rant Act, or I'd be out of a job.) Well, now it turns out that the drug Ricaurte gave to his baboons was not ecstasy but a powerful amphetamine called d-methamphetamine. The admission of error was published in the journal Science. Ricaurte called the mistake "a simple human error." "We're scientists, not politicians," he said, and later: "We're not chemists. We get hundreds of chemicals here. It is not customary to check them. " OK, slow down. Read that again. We get hundreds of chemicals in here, in this scientific laboratory where we analyze the effect of chemicals on primate subjects, and we do not bother to check the chemicals. Nope, we just read the labels, get out the syringes, and hello monkey want some whatever-this-is? Doesn't that give you faith in science? I mean, I knew a guy in London like that once, he'd pretty much inject anything into his body, but he died a long time ago. Maybe there's a lesson there. The whole thing is so loony. The government takes its usual moralistic approach to drug research, funding projects to prove that bad drugs are bad, and it prevents the funding of studies that do not start with any conclusions. It may be that drugs like ecstasy and marijuana have some medical uses. There is already some evidence that this is true, but there's been no follow- up because the government will not allow it. The government is afraid of the answers, so it refuses to ask the questions. Meantime, lapdogs like this Ricaurte dude get gazillions of dollars to injure monkeys in various ways to prove that the people who think they are having a good time aren't. This is medieval science, intellectually bankrupt and breathtakingly stupid. Why do we allow it? Because it's never the top priority. There is poverty and hunger and disease and pollution and the death of the oceans, and a malign administration in Washington wishing to ignore all those problems, and there are so many hours in the day. This convulsion of superstition could last centuries. Just say, "Oh, noooo . . ." This work of commentary is in violation of Section 12 of the Anti-Rant Act. Draw a line from Malta to Lampedusa; call it jcarroll@sfchronicle .com It'll kill you -- wait, no it won't Jon Carroll Monday, September 15, 2003 Results Retracted On Ecstasy Study Report of Ecstasy Drug's Great Risks about ashcroft Drug Deaths Per Year Tobacco+............ .............435,175 Alcohol............ .............100.000 Secondhand smoke............. ....3,800 Overdoses illegal hard drugs......3,600 Overdoses legal drugs............21 ,000 Cocaine/crack overdoses.......... .1,969 Heroin overdoses.......... ........1,046 Aspirin overdoses.......... .......1,000 Marijuana overdoses.......... .........0 Sources; + Federal Center for Disease Control, 1990. US Public Health Service **Environmental Protection Agency 1990. __________________ Al Capone and Watergate were red herrings to divert the countries attention from the Fascist acts of eliminating competition. Booze/Ethanol then Ganja//Hemp.

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

09-18-2003, 08:11 PM	#2 (permalink)
DdC Decade Yahookan Join Date: Feb 1999 Location: Santa Cruz,CA,USA Posts: 2,117 Blog Entries: 5 Thanks: 51 Thanked 607 Times in 399 Posts	Tommy Chong Will Be Free in Prison (Excerpted) * Discussion When Operations Pipe Dreams and Headhunter swooped down from the DEA at outrageous taxpayer expense last winter, 55 of the more prominent paraphernalia company owners were arrested and Chong was not spared. The details of Tommy Chong's court date were all over the Internet by September 12th, the day after his sentencing. Guilty. Nine months‚ imprisonment, a $20K fine, and $100K in forfeited assets. Because of the court's refusal to accept this devil's bargain to turn Tommy Chong into another horrible Just Say No advertising shill for the Partnership for a Drug Free America, Chong is a free man. For the mere price of nine months in jail, he can spend the rest of his life as a hero for libertarian ideals. He doesn't have to kiss John Ashcroft's ass. He doesn't have to be a liar and a hypocrite. Like those who went to jail and endured the blacklist during the McCarthy Era, Chong can maintain his integrity in these increasingly right-wing Big Brother times. He can use this imprisonment to publicize the punishment inflicted by our government for a non-violent crime which has harmed no one. Henry David Thoreau said that those who are in prison are in essence the most free. Face the future with grace and courage, Tommy. Your jail sentence will only add to the authenticity of the beloved character you have delighted us with for decades. The youth of America are depending on you to tell the truth about marijuana. Do the right thing for all of us. U.S. law enforcement spends $7.5 to $10 billion annually enforcing marijuana laws. According to the FBI, 720,000 Americans were arrested on marijuana charges in 2001. Keith Stroup, (NORML) In 2000, there were 1,579,566 drug arrests in the US. Of those, 46.5 percent -- 734,497 arrests -- were for marijuana. There were 646,042 arrests for simple possession of marijuana in 2000. drugwarfacts.org

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)