The northlondonhippy

I’m an expert on cannabis, mainly through many years of per­sonal expe­ri­ence. While that cer­tainly makes me qual­i­fied to share my thoughts and opin­ions, there are other experts worth lis­ten­ing to as well.

The Lancet report last week and the ques­tion­able meth­ods used in its prepa­ra­tion need to be redressed.

My friends at the Guardian news­pa­per have been very good at find­ing experts who want the truth to be known and are not look­ing at scor­ing polit­i­cal points based on some twisted agenda.

Here’s an exam­ple of that sort of report­ing, I’ll pro­vide a link back to the orig­i­nal, plus the full text of the arti­cle. If the Guardian has any objec­tions to this, please get in touch and I will remove the full text, but main­tain the link.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/Story/0„2136450,00.html

“Experts dis­miss case for cannabis reclassification

David Batty and agencies

Fri­day July 27, 2007

Drug experts today said there was still insuf­fi­cient evi­dence to reclas­sify cannabis, after a report sug­gested the drug could increase the risk of schiz­o­phre­nia by at least 40%.

The Labour MP Brian Iddon and Pro­fes­sor Robin Mur­ray, of the Insti­tute of Psy­chi­a­try, said there would be no ben­e­fit gained by restor­ing cannabis to a class B drug.

Their com­ments came after a report pub­lished today in med­ical jour­nal the Lancet esti­mated there were at least 800 peo­ple suf­fer­ing seri­ous psy­chosis in the UK as a result of smok­ing cannabis.

The Home Office said last night that the report’s find­ings would be con­sid­ered in a review of the 2004 deci­sion to down­grade cannabis to a class C drug.

The review was prompted by fears that the potent “skunk” form of cannabis was trig­ger­ing schizophrenia.

Prof Mur­ray, an expert on cannabis-induced psy­chosis, said the Lancet study added “very lit­tle” to the under­stand­ing of the health risks asso­ci­ated with smok­ing the drug.

He said: “Politi­cians tend to think reclas­si­fi­ca­tion is impor­tant. It isn’t. Fourteen-year-olds smok­ing spliffs have no idea of the dif­fer­ence between B and C. If it were reclas­si­fied to B, it wouldn’t affect 14-year-olds because it’s already ille­gal for them any­way. What is needed is edu­ca­tion about the risks.”

The study, which is an analy­sis of pre­vi­ous research, esti­mated that 14% of 15–34-year-olds cur­rently suf­fer­ing from schiz­o­phre­nia were ill because they smoked cannabis

Prof Mur­ray said: “Indi­vid­u­als who — per­haps with some mild pre­dis­po­si­tion — would not oth­er­wise have devel­oped schiz­o­phre­nia will do so because of tak­ing cannabis. It’s a bit like how peo­ple with only a min­i­mal pre­dis­po­si­tion to dia­betes will develop it if they eat too much.”

Dr Iddon, the chair­man of the all-party par­lia­men­tary group on drugs mis­use, said the study did not con­vince him it was time to return cannabis to class B.

“I don’t think the causal link has been proved. I think cannabis might — pos­si­bly for genetic rea­sons — trig­ger psy­chosis at an ear­lier age.”

The MP, who is also a mem­ber of the sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy select com­mit­tee, said there was a dan­ger of crim­i­nal­is­ing “hun­dreds of thou­sands of young peo­ple” if the sta­tus of the drug was changed.

“If Gor­don Brown changes the class of the drug, it won’t be evidence-based but for polit­i­cal rea­sons,” he said.

“Since we reduced the clas­si­fi­ca­tion of cannabis from B to C the usage is going down, so what’s the point of mud­dy­ing the debate again by this yo-yo polit­i­cal policy?”

The drugs char­ity DrugScope also chal­lenged the calls to reclas­sify cannabis, say­ing there was no evi­dence that it would cut use of the drug.

The DrugScope chief exec­u­tive, Mar­tin Barnes, said: “The chal­lenge is to ensure that infor­ma­tion on cannabis use and the asso­ci­ated risks is under­stood by teach­ers and health pro­fes­sion­als work­ing with young peo­ple and con­veyed in ways that young peo­ple will lis­ten to.

“Shock tac­tics alone rarely work, but we need to get across that just because you know peo­ple who appear to be OK using cannabis, it doesn’t mean that they are, or that it will be OK for you.“
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To sum­marise, in bul­let points:

- Labour MP Brian Iddon and Pro­fes­sor Robin Mur­ray, of the Insti­tute of Psy­chi­a­try, said there would be no ben­e­fit gained by restor­ing cannabis to a class B drug.

- Prof Mur­ray said the Lancet study added “very lit­tle” to the under­stand­ing of the health risks asso­ci­ated with smok­ing the drug.

- Dr Iddon, chair­man of the all-party par­lia­men­tary group on drugs mis­use, said the Lancet study did not con­vince him to return cannabis to class B. He went on to say said there was a dan­ger of crim­i­nal­is­ing “hun­dreds of thou­sands of young peo­ple” if the sta­tus of the drug was changed.

- The drugs char­ity DrugScope also chal­lenged the calls to reclas­sify cannabis, say­ing there was no evi­dence that it would cut use of the drug.

The truth is out there, you just need to delve deeper. It’s hid­ing being the shock head­lines and badly researched data. I’ll always bring you the truth, for the truth deserves to be heard!

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