Pubdate: Wed, 01 Aug 2007
Source: Guelph Mercury (CN ON)
Copyright: 2007 Guelph Mercury Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.guelphmercury.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1418
Author: Joseph Hall, The Toronto Star
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Marijuana - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/psychosis (psychosis)

CRIMINALIZATION FALLS SHORT: RESEARCH

A British study claiming pot smokers have a 40 per cent  higher risk
of developing psychotic illnesses does not  prove tougher Canadian
drug laws are needed, experts in  this country say.

Canadian researchers say that stiffer penalties here  have
traditionally failed to curb marijuana use in a  country that has one
of the highest per capita numbers  of pot smokers on earth.

As well, they say questions about the harmful effects  of the drug
have in no way been put to rest by the new  study, which is an
analysis of past research that may  well have contained significant
flaws.

"Marijuana, like all drugs, is not completely  harmless," says Dr.
Scott Macdonald, assistant director  of the Centre for Addictions
Research of B.C. at the  University of Victoria.

"But criminalization has its harms as well, it's very  costly to
process cases and marijuana is widely used,"  Macdonald says.

He says that by many important health and public safety  standards,
alcohol is a far more dangerous drug than  pot and yet drinking is
perfectly legal here.

"It's a matter of weighing the public health  consequences versus the
consequences of  criminalization," Macdonald says.

"And in Canada it's my sense that the public is seeing  that
criminalization has not really achieved much."

Macdonald says education programs would likely be much  more effective
that jail terms in curbing marijuana  use. He also says the increased
potency of modern  marijuana, noted in the study, does in itself cry
out  for tougher controls.

Most marijuana users, he says, smoke to a desired high  and that the
more potent weed simply allows them to  achieve that level with fewer
puffs.

Wende Wood, a psychiatric pharmacist at Toronto's  Centre for
Addiction and Mental Health, questioned the  study's conclusions, some
of which she feels were hyped  in a Lancet press release that many
media outlets  picked up on.

"It's being sort of stated or implied by Lancet that  this (harm) is a
done deal and this proves it finally,"  Wood says.

"And from reading the study I don't see that it adds  that much to the
already confusing discussion on this."

Wood says there is definitely "some kind of a link"  between pot and
psychosis.

"But I still don't think this answers the question of  causality or
why," she says.

Wood says that marijuana is likely only one of many  potential causes
of psychosis, including genetics, and  would not by itself lead to
such things as  schizophrenia.

Wood says that even if the 40 per cent increase in  psychotic outcomes
from cannabis was true, it might  only push the actual number of cases
up to one per cent  of the general population, raising the issue of
criminalizing its use for millions of users who are in  no danger of
such neurological catastrophes.
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