The dope on drug use: 200 million cannabis users

[Frazz]

"CANNABIS is kidstakes when it comes to the overall health damage drugs do" according to Wayne Hall, a substance abuse specialist at the University of Queensland's Centre for Clinical Research.

 

Professor Hall’s new paper on the global pattern of drug consumption written with Louisa Degenhardt from the Burnet Institute, attracted media attention during the week for its finding that cannabis is the world’s most widely used illicit drug.

 

On the basis of UN figures they argue between 125 and 203 million people across the planet used cannabis in 2009. This compared to a maximum of 21 million injecting drug users.

The reason for its popularity, they argue in the new edition of The Lancet, is the drug is easily produced.

 

But the good news is while the drug is a real problem among heavy-using adolescents overall it does a tiny fraction of the health damage heroin does. “Cannabis is at the bottom of the list of drugs causing disease, behind tobacco, alcohol and opiods,” they write.

 

That’s excluding the drug we don’t call a drug – caffeine, Professor Hall tells The Australian.

 

Certainly illicit drugs destroy lives. Hall and Degenhardt write 2.1 million years of life are lost due to drugs compared to 1.2 million attributable to alcohol. But this because drugs kill young people while the drink and tobacco ends lives early among the already middle aged and elderly.

 

Even among the young alcohol is the issue, because of binge drinking.

According to Professor Hall alcohol consumption is not dropping as widely assumed with anomalies in Australia Bureau of Statistics data disguising the real rate. And while he acknowledges “cultivation of potent forms of cannabis has increased” the common idea that marijuana in general is much stronger than in the past is “spurious.”

 

So if cannabis is much less commonly consumed than legal drugs and a great deal less dangerous than cocaine, amphetamines and opiods why leave it illegal?

 

Professor Hall says one major reason is Australia has signed international agreements forbidding it.

Another is cannabis is effectively decriminalised already and there is no public support for going any further. “The law is rigorously enforced selectively; the only people who are rigorously prosecuted are ones society does not approve of for other reasons.”

 

“I am ambivalent about creating another legal drug industry – imagine if cannabis promoted sport!”

 

Date: January 14, 2012 12:00AM

Source: The Australian, Stephen Matchett

Copyright: News Corporation,News.com.au

http://www.theaustra...x-1226243704158

 

Unusual, someone actually telling the truth about Cannabis , well apart from the comment "cannabis is effectively decriminalised already" dont know what he means there? ... but on the whole a most welcome report aye

[The Hash Nibbler]

Cool Frazz , Cheers =) , Dont see this report being used by the NCPIC....... ......... but it bloody should be!

I for one would love to see Cannabis sponsor the golf......it's farkin mind numbingly boring to watch and a few doobies in between

shots on the golf course could make for a pleasant 18 holes =) .

PGA golf tour bought to you by Barneys Farm and Son-T Agro....if it aint Son-T,.....it aint growin....... , would be classic.

peace. Hopper.

[Frazz]

further news on our freind Mary ...

 

Smoke clears over marijuana lung risks

• January 12, 2012 12:00AM
  

 

PEOPLE who occasionally smoke marijuana do not suffer long-term lung damage the way cigarette smokers do and may actually experience a slight improvement, a new study says.

 

Since the research included more than 5000 people older than 20, the authors said it should help clear up some of the confusion about the risks of marijuana smoking.

However, they warned that the danger of heavy marijuana use was difficult to assess and cautioned against regular or frequent smoking.

 

"Marijuana is still an illegal drug and it has many complicated effects on the human body and its function," said Stefan Kertesz, senior author of the research published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"In our findings we see hints of harm in pulmonary function with heavy use and other studies have shown that marijuana use increases a user's likelihood of a heart attack . . . and impairs the immune system's ability to fight disease."

 

Researchers recruited subjects between the ages of 18-30 in four US cities and followed them from 1985 to 2006.

They measured "joint-years" in which one joint-year of exposure would be the equivalent of smoking 365 joints or pipe bowls.

For those who reported smoking an average of one joint a day for seven years, or one joint a week for 49 years, the study found no harmful lung effects resulted.

 

Researchers at the University of Alabama division of preventive medicine and at the Veterans Affairs Medical Centre in Birmingham, measured lung function by assessing the force and volume of each person's exhale.

Those who smoked cigarettes tended to have much higher lifetime exposure to smoking than marijuana users, but when researchers adjusted the data for current and lifetime exposure, they found smokers' lung function got worse over time while pot smokers' lung function actually improved slightly.

"However, the gains . . . were so small that most people would likely not notice at all," he said.

 

Date: January 12, 2012 12:00AM

Source: The Australian online News

Copyright: News Corporation , News.com.au

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/smoke-clears-over-marijuana-lung-risks/story-e6frg8y6-1226242125009

 

[buzz lighthead]

I really get the shits when people justify the legal prohibition on weed with things like sports sponsorship. If weed was legal as if that would happen! They took Marlborough off the side of F1 cars a long long time ago. Society has (in some ways) evolved. I shouldn't be complaining though, I'm surprised to see something like this in the Australian.

Good find!

[Cerberus]

Journalism in Australia is not what it used to be. Even "back in the day" it wasn't that good