Marijuana

[auspamp]

You may hear some things you may not like.....

 

The truth is the truth. We have to realise that our hobby is not the safest thing in the world and there are dangers associated, albeit limited. I mean you have more chance of dying driving your car, skiing, screwing etc. And more people die from peanut allergies, but that is not the point. The point is that the truth is finally being told, and we need to encourage public debate.

 

The audio version can be downloaded from this link for those who missed it.

 

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/cur...ia_20070114.mp3

[auspamp]

All I can say is .........

 

 

WOW

 

Seriously guys/girls, this is some of the most up to date/relavent research that we stoners can actually come across. Our Australian Polititians have to listen to this because it is up to date scientific opinion because it is amazing to finally hear the truth.(although this audio was recorded in about Aug 2006, about the same time as the magazone report was released. And.... the moderator is a fellow editor of COSMOS magazine, and the two other commentators were both contributing members of the article). I should not have commented before listening to the audio, but after listening to it, all I can say is.......

 

WOW

 

 

 

 

The information is basically the same as what is in the aug/sep edition of COSMOS magazine, but actually listening to the people speaking (as opposed to reading) is an amazing experience. They are people (with scientific background, I mean professors at leading universities in Australia), that actually agree with us.

 

It finally dispells my worst fears (that I come up with excuses to condone my cannabis usage) by letting people with experience voice their official opinion. These guys are total academics in their own rights, and have opinions that are relavent to our fight. (and by the way, check out Elizabeth Finkle, what a hottie (http://www.elizabethfinkel.blogspot.com/ ))

 

I downloaded the audio and it is 26MB and goes for about 54 minutes. Not too long for anyone opposed to cannabis would endure, let alone a cannabis consumer. So I say it is your duty as a consumer, to download this mp3 track and listen to it. Listen to it twice or thrice or more, study it to know the truth about cannabis, so that when confronted you have the facts.

 

"No one who smokes cannabis has the right to condone prohibition, and it is their unwritten, solemn duty to make it an obligation, to stand up for their beliefs and condone cannabis laws as they exist in todays society." Says auspamp.

 

Anyway, prohibition is ony 70 odd years old, lets make sure it does not make it's centruy. We need to act quickly and honestly, and we need to act now. Finally we have respected Australian resources to back up our stoner statements. People should remember this file for their court cases, at least it can be usefull in proving prosecutors full of shit.

 

 

sorry.....

 

 

rambling

Edited January 15, 2007 by auspamp

[mull]

I agree, well worth the time to download and hava listen

[freddie]

I couldn't agree more auspamp. This is an absolute MUST. Am amazed this hasn't generated huge interest amongst the mj community. It puts some of the worst propaganda of recent years into perspective and shows the current laws are driven by urban myth and politics. I have also realised just how small the link between cannabis and mental health is. Listen closely to this argument. It's really informative.

 

This program also tackles the debate about whether cannabis potency has increased and whether hydro is more dangerous or not.

 

This should be compulsory listening. So much here! If there is a transcript it should be pinned some where very prominent.

[bufo marinus]

Excellent stuff !

And You don't need pod cast software to listen either, being an mp3 file, Windows Media Player played it.

Hooray for the ABC radio. If it wasn't for Aunty or SBS Australian media would only be useful for sports coverage.

I am going to burn a cd and post it off to my poor long suffering mother.

For over 20 years she has been lied to and worried and stressed and sought information on the evil weed.

Now I can send her some REAL SCIENCE, NOT BLOODY LIES from MISINFORMED POLITICIANS only interested in winning elections.

I thought those nerds were quite hip actually hehe, especially the guy who sounded like Billy Connelly, his joke at the end I'd say he has enjoyed a choof as he should

Edited January 17, 2007 by bufo marinus

[DownUnderDoper]

I couldn't agree more auspamp. This is an absolute MUST. Am amazed this hasn't generated huge interest amongst the mj community. It puts some of the worst propaganda of recent years into perspective and shows the current laws are driven by urban myth and politics. I have also realised just how small the link between cannabis and mental health is. Listen closely to this argument. It's really informative.

 

This program also tackles the debate about whether cannabis potency has increased and whether hydro is more dangerous or not.

 

This should be compulsory listening. So much here! If there is a transcript it should be pinned some where very prominent.

 

Unfortunately, it didn't really do much except tell us that the research hasn't been done (in Australia at least) and just said that potency is variable both in Hydro and Outdoor.. but hey at least showing that all the anti-hydro scaremongering is exactly that and has no basis in fact is a start. (The comment from the NSW Police to Dr Finkel was very telling)

 

On a level playing field, genetics (ie what strain) is the single biggest determining factor in the potency of cannabis and always has been

 

And from David Castle on the population attributable fraction in regard to schizophrenia.. that if Cannabis was to disappear off the face of the Earth tomorrow.. the incidence of schizophrenia in the population is likely to go down by less than 5% and the other 95% were going to get it anyway.

[BentBuddha]

I heard this on radio national yesturday. It's my fav radio station. 75% of the time it has stuff that i'm not quite interested in, but that other 25% makes up for it. Unfortuneately i don't believe even info like this will make the slightest difference to those who have made up their minds about the evils of pot. Fantasitic info never the less.

[freddie]

The most telling statistic for me was the fact that the incidence of schizophrenia in the general population has remained consistent despite the use of cannabis becoming popular since the 60s in the west. Also Liz Finkel seemed to be saying that in the study of sweedish soldiers the total percentage of schizophrenics was not greater than the general population, suggesting perhaps that those with schizophrenia were drawn to using cannabis rather than the weed causing the problem. I had thought that the 5% decrease that was talked about was a decrease in the scihzophrenic population not the general population! I may have misunderstood.

 

It was interesting that the cannabis blocking drug that they talked about had a side effect of depression. Wouldn't that make cannabis an anti depressant? Yet it is always associated with depression.

 

 

The program probably wont change anything but i'd rather hear this than the usual uninformed crap.

[DownUnderDoper]

The most telling statistic for me was the fact that the incidence of schizophrenia in the general population has remained consistent despite the use of cannabis becoming popular since the 60s in the west.

 

Does kinda go against Chris Pynes 6 times more likely to develop theory doesn't it?

 

I had thought that the 5% decrease that was talked about was a decrease in the scihzophrenic population not the general population! I may have misunderstood.

 

I'll go back and listen again, in case I got it wrong, maybe I just worded my comment wrong

 

It was interesting that the cannabis blocking drug that they talked about had a side effect of depression. Wouldn't that make cannabis an anti depressant? Yet it is always associated with depression.

The program probably wont change anything but i'd rather hear this than the usual uninformed crap.

 

Yeah that was interesting.. I suppose as with so many drugs, it's a lot to do with dosage and frequency of use

[DownUnderDoper]

ok at timestamp 27:20 is where the population attributable fraction is talked about

 

Dr David Castle

"if you obliterated marijuana from the face of the globe, how many cases of schizophrenia would you prevent? And the estimates which have been done, crude as they are at the moment, because of the limitations of the data. Are that probably we would save 1 in 20, people from actually developing schizophrenia, umm, so the population attributable fraction is then about 5%. I think it's worth looking at it in that context, some people might never develop schizophrenia if there was no marijuana, but the vast majority of people who develop schizophrenia would develop it anyway."

 

 

So for every 20 schizophrenics in the world today there would still be 19 if cannabis did not exist