Pubdate: Wed, 01 Aug 2007
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2007 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Author: Joseph Hall, Health Reporter
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

TOUGHER CONTROLS NOT NEEDED, EXPERTS SAY

Insist Stiff Penalties Fail To Curb Marijuana Use

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 say.

Canadian researchers say stiffer penalties here have traditionally 
failed to curb marijuana use in a country that has one of the highest 
per capita number 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 British Columbia 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 
than jail terms in curbing marijuana use. He also says the increased 
potency of modern marijuana, noted in the study published last week 
in The Lancet medical journal, does in itself cry out for tougher controls.

Most marijuana users, he says, smoke to a desired high. He says 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 marijuana is likely only one of many potential causes of 
psychosis, including genetics, and would not by itself lead to such 
things as schizophrenia.

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 1 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, she adds.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman