Feds Sound New Warning About Marijuana Use

[Shivan]

By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer

Wed May 4, 7:22 AM ET

 

 

 

WASHINGTON - Youngsters who use marijuana are more likely to develop serious mental health problems, the government said Tuesday. A private group said law enforcement increasingly is targeting people who smoke and deal the drug.

 

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Past medical studies have linked marijuana with a greater incidence of mental disorders such as depression or schizophrenia. But questions remain about whether people who smoke marijuana at a young age are already predisposed to mental disorders, or whether the drug caused those disorders.

 

Government officials say recent research makes a stronger case that smoking marijuana is itself a causal agent in psychiatric symptoms, particularly schizophrenia.

 

"A growing body of evidence now demonstrates that smoking marijuana can increase the risk of serious mental health problems," said John P. Walters, director of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy.

 

Administration officials pointed to a handful of studies to make their case. One, from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, found adult marijuana smokers who first began using the drug before age 12 were twice as likely to have suffered a serious mental illness in the past year as those who began smoking after 18.

 

The ratio was 21 percent to 10.5 percent. Those who first started as teens also were at significantly higher risk.

 

Also Tuesday, The Sentencing Project released a report that found the government's "war on drugs" has become the "war on drug" as police agencies increasingly target marijuana.

 

Begun in the 1980s, the war on drugs was aimed at stopping large-scale narcotics traffickers, particularly those selling cocaine. But since 1990 more of the focus has been on catching users and low-level dealers. And more often than ever, the drug targeted is marijuana, according to the group, a national nonprofit organization that works on judicial reform and favors alternatives to jail.

 

Of some 700,000 marijuana arrests in 2002, 88 percent were for possession, it said. And only one of every 18 of those arrests ended in a felony conviction.

 

"Arresting record numbers of low-level marijuana offenders represents a poor investment in public safety" and diverts resources from "more serious crime problems," said Ryan King, co-author of the report.

 

King found that in 1992 arrests for heroin and cocaine comprised 55 percent of all drug arrests and marijuana 28 percent. A decade later heroin and cocaine arrests accounted for less than 30 percent of all arrests, while marijuana's share had risen to 45 percent.

 

Jennifer deVallance, spokeswoman for the White House drug office, said there are many reasons for the greater focus on marijuana. Among them: Marijuana is the single largest drug of abuse in the nation, the strains are more potent than ever and more is known about health dangers.

 

"For the first time, more kids are seeking treatment for marijuana use than alcohol," she said.

 

The Sentencing Project called for renewed national discussion of the war on drugs, an idea echoed by the conservative American Enterprise Institute. The group reported last month that despite spending at about $40 billion a year now and toughening drug sentencing laws, "America continues to experience the Western world's worst drug problems."

 

An epidemic of heroin use more than three decades ago, followed by a 1980s epidemic of cocaine and crack, prompted a massive intensification in drug enforcement while giving short shrift to prevention and treatment, the institute reported. It decried budgeting that spends two-thirds of drug control funds on enforcement, 25 percent on treatment and just 12 percent on prevention.

 

___

 

Associated Press reporter Kevin Freking contributed to this story.

 

From: yahoo news

[quizywig]

King found that in 1992 arrests for heroin and cocaine comprised 55 percent of all drug arrests and marijuana 28 percent. A decade later heroin and cocaine arrests accounted for less than 30 percent of all arrests, while marijuana's share had risen to 45 percent.

i wonder if these figures are due to heroin and cocaine requireing a higher level of criminal to finance and organise the purchase importation and distribution of these drugs at a comercial level, usually people in suits with money, who always know other people with money all the way up.

where as weed even at a comercial level is little more than a very largely distributed cottage industry, i dont think any weed cartel could compare with the cocaine cartel's in money or power.

So its a lot better for various people's profits and graft to keep busting smokers because in the publics eye all drugs are bad, all drug busts are good, and the authorites can say we caught 700,000 drugies so we're making a big difference.

[funkyfungus]

Living in the USA or any of its colonies is bad for your mental health!

 

why stop with a herb

lets get to the root of mental illness

 

sick societies

[Bubble Bags Australia]

Have you seen that anti-marijuana commercial on TV that goes "Marijuana you dont know what it will do to you" and they show a kid in a hospital shaking like he was coming down off crack or something.

 

I really would love to make our own series of commercials with the same title "Marijana you dont know what it will do to you" and then show video clips of Jimmy Hendrix, Carl Sagan, and other famous cannabis users.

[fsagertyaef]

i think i will do that actually thank you ive been trying to think of a theme for my short movie on mj famous users i was going to do cultivation but it wa kinda boring if anyone else has any good ideas pm me or something time to go smoke a joint take a shower and go see my shrink :smoke

[generic_hippie]

Sure, the report was appropriately sourced, etc. but in reality all you are doing is reposting the same misinformation...

 

Why post it if you can't refute it?

[Bubble Bags Australia]

I think that positive drug ads or even anti-drug ads that show the truth would be a great thing to make, and I have a film degree and would love to help with it if were in the same area.

 

 

for positve ads, I was thinking similar to what I posted earlier where instead of showing how drugs can fuck you up, show how they can create great works of art, literature, music, etc... in fact an ad that showed how without marijuana and drugs, almost every piece of music in the average persons library would not exist. All rock and roll and jazz has marijuan histroy, even big band and classical music from the 40s and 50s, alcohol was a very popular drug among the musicians. So even if say a current rock and roll artist is anti drug and drug free, his form of music owes its inspriation and roots to drugs. About the only non-drug straight music is christan rock and britany spears bull shit pop type stuff, and they both probably still have an alcohol influence. And when you think of works of literature like poe and shakespere, well its known that they both drank absenthe and smoked pot, and so on.... lets have some postive drug commmercials...

 

as for postive yet still anti-drug commercials, my favourite one that I always wanted to make is a Canadian one that shows a traffic accident and grieving people and dead teenagers and all that, and says something like "in almost all traffic fatal traffic accidents, marijuana is found in the drivers blood" or somethign like that. But thats all they say, what they dont say is that the driver also had alcohol in their blood as well, lets make a commercial with the full facts

 

I also hate these commercials that talk about someone taking E (which I feel is a very positive drug when it is actually MDMA and not some other shit), but anway the commercial shows the person taking E and then dying or going crazy or something bad. But they dont point out that what the person took was not E, it was speed or horse tranquilizers or some other shit, sold as MDMA. In fact I want to make a commercial that points out that if MDMA was legal, it could be made in government controlled pharmacutical labs, just like asprin and have quality control with strict safety standards and people wouldnt be dying from taking shit that they thought was somethign else. To me this is no different than an anti-beer commercial showing a guy dying from drinking a beer, but never mentioning that there someone put poison in the beer.

 

Lets also make out a commercial that everytime they made a bust of something like 50 million MDMA pills at the border or wherever that they are actually hurting people, because rather than quality MDMA coming in, now it has to be made in some rejects kitchen that doesnt know or care what he is doing and will ultimatly kill more people than you saved by stoppig the incoming MDMA.

 

Lastly how about a commercial that points out that there are always going to be stupid people out there, and just because some kid takes 20 hits of E at rave, doesnt drink water and dances till he dies, does not mean you blame the drug ? No, he was a stupid moron and now his genes are gone from the pool, good ! After all, you dont see them pulling alcohol from the shelf evven though lots of people die from binge drinking and you dont see them pulling tobacco evven though lots of people die from excessive smoking, so why do the same with other drugs, sheesh.

 

And now I will get off my soap box

 

Meerkat

[dicepunk]

Have you seen that anti-marijuana commercial on TV that goes "Marijuana you dont know what it will do to you" and they show a kid in a hospital shaking like he was coming down off crack or something.

I saw this add the other day...pissed myself laughing cause i was holding a bong and laughing while these stupid suckers on tv are shaking and having fits and being told off by their "friends"...i don't know about the majority of you but i have the most sneaking suspicion that ALL stoners are friends with other stoners.

I'd love to see that chick sitting in the gutter go over and smack out her two friends for talking shit. If she is sitting in a gutter she obviously isn't very happy and those two ho's aren't making it any easier by bitching .

 

"Marijuana you don't know what it will do to you!" - sure i do...i'm going to get really happy, watch some movies, maybe mung out at macca d's for a bit, then crawl into bed nicely toasted and sleep easily.

[devus]

I do know what its going to do to me...

 

Is this ad calling me a lier.

 

Well im whacked now smartpants. :angry:

[Luke Skywalker]

Let's face the truth though, cannabis can be damaging to your health, and people can get dependent on it. The proportion of users who do become dependent is tiny when compared to other drugs though, and the health consequences of using cannabis appropriately, or even inappropriately, are far lesser than those of any other recreational drug too.

 

I'd like to see some serious discussion of the bullshit that is cannabis prohibition, rather than the tired old, "won't somebody think of the children!" line they give us all the time.

 

And I'm yet to see anyone definitively link ANY mental illness to cannabis. All they can say is, "it increases the risk". Bullshit. It's more likely that those predisposed to mental illnesses are more inclined to search out conscious altering substances to mitigate their feelings and thoughts.