The truth about marijuana | Opinion

A file photo of marijuana leaves. (Courtesy photo)

By Ken Wolski
The article, "Under the influence" (Times of Trenton, 9/27/15) is full of misinformation about marijuana.  It is a good example of why we are not making any progress in reducing the harms that are associated with drug use.

Dr. Singh is quoted as saying that marijuana can lead "users to be at higher risk for developing psychosis."  This is nonsense. There has never been a cause/effect relationship proven between marijuana and mental illness in over 100 years of scientific study. It may well be one of the most studied issues of all, going back to the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report of the Nineteenth Century.

The rate of schizophrenia worldwide is remarkably stable, regardless of whether you look at a country with a high rate of marijuana use or a low rate of marijuana use. Moreover, marijuana use in the general population in the U.S. soared between 1949 and 1995, while the schizophrenia rate remained stable.

Even the DEA acknowledged (in the Federal Register, Vol. 76, #131, 7/8/11), "Extensive research has been conducted recently to investigate whether exposure to marijuana is associated with schizophrenia or other psychoses...At present, the data do not suggest a causative link between marijuana use and the development of psychosis."

Dr. Singh also repeated the myth that marijuana is a "gateway drug" and then he admits that marijuana is "not necessarily itself a problem (but it) can open the door to the use of other, more dangerous narcotics."

The Gateway Theory was popularized in the early 1970's when there was a general cultural realization in America that the government was lying about marijuana. Since 1937 the federal government had been insisting that the use of marijuana inevitably led to "insanity, criminality and death." But millions of young Americans used marijuana in the 1960's and they found that marijuana was more likely to lead to peace, love and happiness.

The Gateway Theory was an acknowledgement that previous information about marijuana was inaccurate: "Maybe marijuana isn't as dangerous as we said it was, but it can lead to more dangerous things."

Still, it is difficult to understand what "more dangerous" drug marijuana can possibly lead to when the federal government has resisted all attempts to change marijuana from its Schedule I status. From 1970 to today, marijuana remains a Schedule I drug, in the same class as heroin, i.e., equally as dangerous as heroin.

Schedule I drugs are MORE dangerous than all drugs in Schedules II – V, including cocaine, methamphetamine and all prescription drugs.  According to the federal government, there simply is no more dangerous drug in the world than marijuana.

But let's be real.  There are more dangerous drugs than marijuana and marijuana can help individuals who are addicted to these drugs.  Marijuana is actually a "reverse gateway" or "exit" drug.  A recent study by the Berkeley Patients Group of 350 medical marijuana users in California found that 40% used marijuana to control alcohol craving, 66% used it as a replacement for prescription drugs, and 26% used it as a replacement for other, more potent illegal drugs. 

Indeed, a study published in the 2014 Journal of the American Medical Association noted that "States with medical cannabis (marijuana) laws had a 24.8% lower mean annual opioid overdose mortality rate compared with states without medical cannabis laws."

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who was President Obama's original choice to be U.S. Surgeon General, said, "We have been terribly and systematically misled (about marijuana) for nearly 70 years in the United States."  This misinformation, fed by decades of junk science, continues.

NIDA, which refuses to allow research into the benefits of medical marijuana, and only permits research into its harms, is an important part of this misinformation.  The federal government still insists that there are no accepted medical benefits of marijuana.  This, despite the fact that 23 states have passed laws recognizing marijuana as medicine, over a million Americans use marijuana with a physician's recommendation, scores of healthcare organizations endorse medical marijuana, and an entirely new field of science, based on the discovery of how marijuana actually works in the human body--the Endocannabinoid system--is emerging.

No drug is completely safe and marijuana is no exception.  But exaggerating the dangers of marijuana does a disservice to honest educational efforts about drug abuse.  The Times article "Under the influence" seems greatly concerned about the diminishing perception among high school students that there is a "great risk" from smoking marijuana regularly. 

This is simply a reflection of a dawning cultural awareness of marijuana's relative dangers.  Rather than drag out tired, old, and thoroughly repudiated Reefer Madness scare stories to oppose this, the Times should instead focus on the public health dangers that are associated with marijuana prohibition.  The criminal and civil penalties that are associated with marijuana use do far more harm to students and adults than marijuana could ever do.