The Mainstream Media's 5 Favorite Marijuana Myths

[Innocent criminal]

http://www.opposingviews.com/articles/opin...hs-r-1254094668

 

The Mainstream Media's 5 Favorite Marijuana Myths

By National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws , Working to Reform Marijuana Laws

 

Writing in the journal Science nearly four decades ago, New York State University sociologist Erich Goode documented the media's complicity in maintaining cannabis prohibition.

 

He observed: "[T]ests and experiments purporting to demonstrate the ravages of marijuana consumption receive enormous attention from the media, and their findings become accepted as fact by the public. But when careful refutations of such research are published, or when later findings contradict the original pathological findings, they tend to be ignored or dismissed."

 

A glimpse of today's mainstream media landscape indicates that little has changed -- with news outlets continuing to, at best, underreport the publication of scientific studies that undermine the federal government's longstanding pot propaganda and, at worst, ignore them all together.

 

Here are five recent stories the mainstream media doesn't want you to know about pot:

 

1. Marijuana Use Is Not Associated With a Rise in Incidences of Schizophrenia

Over the past few years, the worldwide media, as well as federal officials in the United Kingdom, Canada and the U.S. have earnestly promoted the notion that smoking pot induces mental illness.

 

Perhaps most notably, in 2007 the MSM reported that cannabis "could boost the risk of developing a psychotic illness later in life by about 40 percent" -- a talking point that was also actively promoted by U.S. anti-drug officials. So, is there any truth to the claim that pot smoking is sparking a dramatic rise in mental illness? Not at all, according to the findings of a study published in July in the journal Schizophrenia Research.

 

Investigators at the Keele University Medical School in Britain compared trends in marijuana use and incidences of schizophrenia in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 2005. Researchers reported that the "incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia and psychoses were either stable or declining" during this period, even the use of cannabis among the general population was rising.

 

"[T]he expected rise in diagnoses of schizophrenia and psychoses did not occur over a 10-year period," the authors concluded. "This study does not therefore support the specific causal link between cannabis use and incidence of psychotic disorders. ... This concurs with other reports indicating that increases in population cannabis use have not been followed by increases in psychotic incidence."

 

As of this writing, a handful of news wire reports in Australia, Canada, and the U.K. have reported on the Keele University study. Notably, no American media outlets covered the story.

 

2. Marijuana Smoke Doesn't Damage the Lungs Like Tobacco

 

Everyone knows that smoking pot is as damaging, if not more damaging, to the lungs than puffing cigarettes, right? Wrong, according to a team of New Zealand investigators writing in the European Respiratory Journal in August. Researchers at the University of Otago in New Zealand compared the effects of cannabis and tobacco smoke on lung function in over 1,000 adults.

 

They reported: "Cumulative cannabis use was associated with higher forced vital capacity [the volume of air that can forcibly be blown out after full inspiration], total lung capacity, functional residual capacity [the volume of air present in the lungs at the end of passive expiration] and residual volume.

 

"Cannabis was also associated with higher airways resistance but not with forced expiratory volume in one second [the maximum volume of air that can be forcibly blown out in the first second during the FVC test], forced expiratory ratio, or transfer factor. These findings were similar amongst those who did not smoke tobacco... By contrast, tobacco use was associated with lower forced expiratory volume in one second, lower forced expiratory ratio, lower transfer factor and higher static lung volumes, but not with airways resistance."

 

They concluded, "Cannabis appears to have different effects on lung function to those of tobacco." Predictably, the scientists' "inconvenient truth" was not reported in a single media outlet.

 

3. Cannabis Use Potentially Protects, Rather Than Harms, the Brain

Does smoking pot kill brain cells? Drinking alcohol most certainly does, and many opponents of marijuana-law reform claim that marijuana's adverse effects on the brain are even worse. Are they correct? Not according to recent findings published this summer in the journal Neurotoxicology and Teratology.

 

Investigators at the University of California at San Diego examined white matter integrity in adolescents with histories of binge drinking and marijuana use. They reported that binge drinkers ( defined as boys who consumed five or more drinks in one sitting, or girls who consumed four or more drinks at one time ) showed signs of white matter damage in eight regions of the brain.

 

By contrast, the binge drinkers who also used marijuana experienced less damage in 7 out of the 8 brain regions. "Binge drinkers who also use marijuana did not show as consistent a divergence from non-users as did the binge drink-only group," authors concluded. "[it is] possible that marijuana may have some neuroprotective properties in mitigating alcohol-related oxidative stress or excitotoxic cell death."

 

To date, only a handful of U.S. media outlets -- almost exclusively college newspapers -- have reported the story.

 

4. Marijuana Is a Terminus, Not a 'Gateway,' to Hard Drug Use

Alarmist claims that experimenting with cannabis will inevitably lead to the use of other illicit drugs persist in the media despite statistical data indicating that the overwhelming majority of those who try pot never go on to use cocaine or heroin.

 

Moreover, recent research is emerging that indicates that pot may also suppress one's desire to use so-called hard drugs. In June, Paris researchers writing in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology concluded that the administration of oral THC in animals suppressed sensitivity to opiate dependence.

 

Also this summer, investigators at the New York State Psychiatric Institute reported in the American Journal on Addictions that drug-treatment subjects who use cannabis intermittently were more likely to adhere to treatment for opioid dependence.

 

Although a press release for the former study appeared on the Web site physorg.com on July 7, neither study ever gained any traction in the mainstream media.

 

5. Government's Anti-Pot Ads Encourage, Rather Than Discourage, Marijuana Use

Sure, many of us already knew that the federal government's $2 billion ad campaign targeting pot was failing to dissuade viewers from toking up, but who knew it was this bad?

 

According to a new study posted online in the journal Health Communication, survey data published by investigators at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania found that many of the government's public-service announcements actually encouraged pot use.

 

Researchers assessed the attitudes of over 600 adolescents, age 12 to 18, after viewing 60 government-funded anti-marijuana television spots. Specifically, researchers evaluated whether the presence of marijuana-related imagery in the ads ( e.g., the handling of marijuana cigarettes or the depiction of marijuana-smoking behavior ) were more likely or less likely to discourage viewers' use of cannabis.

 

Messages that depict teens associating with cannabis are "significantly less effective than others," the researchers found. "This negative impact of marijuana scenes is not reversed in the presence of strong anti-marijuana arguments in the ads and is mainly present for the group of adolescents who are often targets of such anti-marijuana ads ( i.e., high-risk adolescents )," the authors determined. "For this segment of adolescents, including marijuana scenes in anti-marijuana ( public-service announcements ) may not be a good strategy."

 

Needless to say, no outlets in the mainstream media -- many of which donated air time to several of the beleaguered ads in question -- have yet to report on the story.

 

We need to work to change this imbalance, politicians may set drug policy, but its the media who have the most influence over which policies are publicized, therefore skewing the political process by manipulating public opinion.

[Crunchy]

we need a rich media tycoon who owns a couple of television networks and loves pot... problem solved

[Cactus]

we need a rich media tycoon who owns a couple of television networks and loves pot... problem solved

 

Sir Richard Branson?

[Bazza]

this was a great post.

hope to see more like it, this is after all a form of media.

[Innocent criminal]

this is after all a form of media.

 

True true Bazza, however we are far from 'mainstream', I would consider this site grassroots media, a lot of information is available here but you need to be looking for it.

What we need is forms of media with wide consumer bases to be at least impartial, or better still onside.

Ending the news media's obsession with minor busts would be a good start I reckon, doesn't achieve anything for anyone (except the media companies peddling the stories and maybe the LEO who get added attention) and makes it very hard to keep any kind of positive publicity going.

 

[bufo marinus]

Yes true THC.

One thing that really shits me is the way the judges comments are selectively plucked out of judgements and then broadcast to the world yet hardly ever does anyone's comments surrounding the use of Cannabis get aired that make any sense, we usually get stuff like 'The Cannabis made me walk past the police station with no clothes on but I'm now in rehab and being a good boy'

grrrr

[The Green Dragon]

On point 5. "Government's Anti-Pot Ads Encourage, Rather Than Discourage, Marijuana Use." We studied marijuana at my school, with the intent of turning us kiddies off of it. I'm just outta school now, but seriously, all it ever did was turn me on to marijuana. every-time we did something on it at school in health class, i wanned to try it some more. Til eventually..well, you can guess. In a way, it was a good thing

[Nooby]

hey Green Dragon,

 

Enjoy da weed dude, but don't let it control you.

[elwood]

Hey green dragon im only a few years outta school too and i found the same thing. The teachers in particular seemed to present the info on pot with such little conviction that it made it seem like nothing more than government outlined propaganda that was included in the curriculum to appease some political party (most likely family first, i hate those fuckers).

 

This is exactly how the info was presented to us:

 

Anything that alters the way your body works is a drug.

 

Alcohol and tobacco are the only 2 legal recreational drugs that are available, as young australians you should look forward to your 18th birthday so that you may purchase these poisons and consume them as much as you like, despite the fact that there is proven, definitive medical research that tells us these 2 drugs are extremely toxic and dangerous, not to mention addictive and alcohol in particular has the propensity to make people violent and overly emotional. Despite this, we are simply going to provide you with the info and let you make up your own mind.

 

Marijuana is a common drug that makes you go crazy (no real proof of this and modern research is actually starting to refute this old-school claim), makes you lazy, makes you enjoy music and gives you the munchies. We can't tell you exact reasons as to why you can't use this drug, so we'll simply say that if you do take it, it can make you want to do heroin or cocaine, which are addictive and will ruin your life. One thing the teachers never wanted to touch on in much detail was the fact that there has never, ever been a death caused entirely by cannabis, no overdose, nothing.

 

I think it's time we start providing our youth with facts about drugs, rather than training on how to handle peer group pressure and shit like that.

 

Personally i have never had a good night out drinking, whether it be a crying girl, a fight, vomiting, feeling ill, the expense of it all ($7 - $11 a beer??? i mean come on!!!), all i need for a good time these days is a few friends, some music, a nice tasty, healthy meal to share and some cool tv to watch or some video games to play. No overly emotional drunk girls, no aggressive dudes who can only express their emotions through random violent attacks, no taxi driver bashings, no domestic violence, no hangover, no ridiculous costs associated with the evening and believe it or not, no alcohol.

 

Oh and i should also say that out of the 800 smoking sessions i have had over the past 3 years, not once have i felt like shooting heroin or snorting cocaine.

[Fibrofeend]

Yes alcohol does seem to create a lot of " Drama " and that's what a lot of people feed off. Drama , power, manipulation, trying to control "things"

 

In regard to this topic, its very true, MEDIA - TV in a big part is how a lot of main stream people's form there opinions on subjects they otherwise know nothing about, and then skew these opinions in conversion as " facts "

 

TV is our ruler and GOD, and like said earlier in the piece unless your a rich media tycoon, there stuff all chance of getting anything on the BOX that is not driven by propaganda in regards to cannabis.

 

I watch TV sometimes if there's something of particular interest on, but otherwise a lot of the time i feel like smashing it to pieces.