Drug Czar's Latest B.S. Claim: Pot Makes Teens Crazy and Suicidal
http://www.addictioninfo.org/articles/2715/1/Drug-Czars-Latest-BS-Claim-Pot-Makes-Teens-Crazy-and-Suicidal/Page1.html
Misc Author
Miscellaneous authors not listed elsewhere.
By Misc Author
Published on 05/20/2008
Ironically, just two days prior to the Drug Czar’s much ballyhooed
press conference, Britain’s Advisory Panel on the Misuse of Drugs
refuted the notion that pot use causes mental illness, stating, “The
evidence for the existence of an association between frequency of
cannabis use and the development of psychosis is, on the available
evidence, weak.”
Ironically, just two days prior to the Drug Czar’s much ballyhooed
press conference, Britain’s Advisory Panel on the Misuse of Drugs
refuted the notion that pot use causes mental illness, stating, “The
evidence for the existence of an association between frequency of
cannabis use and the development of psychosis is, on the available
evidence, weak.”By Paul Armentano, NORML
How can you tell if the drug czar is lying? If his lips are moving.
AlterNet Editor's note: NORML deputy director Paul Armentano catches the latest insanity from the drug czar.
Feds: Teen use of pot can lead to mental illness
via The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Depression, teens and marijuana are a dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report released Friday.
A teen who has been depressed at some point in the past year is more than twice as likely to have used marijuana as teens who have not reported being depressed -- 25 percent compared with 12 percent, said the report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
“Marijuana is a more consequential substance of abuse than our culture has treated it in the last 20 years,” said John Walters, director of the office. “This is not just youthful experimentation that they’ll get over as we used to think in the past.” …
“It’s not something you look the other way about when your teen starts appearing careless about their grooming, withdrawing from the family, losing interest in daily activities,” Walters said. “Find out what’s wrong.”
Gotta love Walters’ remark about hygiene — which he appears to have taken almost verbatim from Above The Influence’s hateful propaganda film, Stoners In The Mist.
Seriously though, it goes without saying that this so-called White House ‘report‘ (I use the term euphemistically here, given that said ‘report’ is under five pages and consists mostly of bar charts rather than text) is much ado about nothing.
In fact, the only newsworthy aspect of this supposed ’study’ is that the lapdog mainstream media gave it any coverage at all.
In short, there’s nothing to the Drug Czar’s marijuana and mental health claims that NORML Advisory Board member Dr. Mitch Earleywine and I haven’t previously addressed in our essay here:
Pot Smoking Won’t Make You Crazy, But Dealing With The Lies About It Will
via Alternet
Perhaps the most impressive evidence against the cause-and-effect relationship concerns the unvarying rate of psychoses across different eras and different countries. People are no more likely to be psychotic in Canada or the United States (two nations where large percentages of citizens use cannabis) than they are in Sweden or Japan (where self-reported marijuana use is extremely low). Even after the enormous popularity of cannabis in the 1960s and 1970s, rates of psychotic disorders haven’t increased.
Ironically, just two days prior to the Drug Czar’s much ballyhooed press conference, Britain’s Advisory Panel on the Misuse of Drugs refuted the notion that pot use causes mental illness, stating, “The evidence for the existence of an association between frequency of cannabis use and the development of psychosis is, on the available evidence, weak.”
Article continued on AlterNet May 13, 2008
How can you tell if the drug czar is lying? If his lips are moving.
AlterNet Editor's note: NORML deputy director Paul Armentano catches the latest insanity from the drug czar.
Feds: Teen use of pot can lead to mental illness
via The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Depression, teens and marijuana are a dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report released Friday.
A teen who has been depressed at some point in the past year is more than twice as likely to have used marijuana as teens who have not reported being depressed -- 25 percent compared with 12 percent, said the report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
“Marijuana is a more consequential substance of abuse than our culture has treated it in the last 20 years,” said John Walters, director of the office. “This is not just youthful experimentation that they’ll get over as we used to think in the past.” …
“It’s not something you look the other way about when your teen starts appearing careless about their grooming, withdrawing from the family, losing interest in daily activities,” Walters said. “Find out what’s wrong.”
Gotta love Walters’ remark about hygiene — which he appears to have taken almost verbatim from Above The Influence’s hateful propaganda film, Stoners In The Mist.
Seriously though, it goes without saying that this so-called White House ‘report‘ (I use the term euphemistically here, given that said ‘report’ is under five pages and consists mostly of bar charts rather than text) is much ado about nothing. In fact, the only newsworthy aspect of this supposed ’study’ is that the lapdog mainstream media gave it any coverage at all.
In short, there’s nothing to the Drug Czar’s marijuana and mental health claims that NORML Advisory Board member Dr. Mitch Earleywine and I haven’t previously addressed in our essay here:
Pot Smoking Won’t Make You Crazy, But Dealing With The Lies About It Will
via Alternet
Perhaps the most impressive evidence against the cause-and-effect relationship concerns the unvarying rate of psychoses across different eras and different countries. People are no more likely to be psychotic in Canada or the United States (two nations where large percentages of citizens use cannabis) than they are in Sweden or Japan (where self-reported marijuana use is extremely low). Even after the enormous popularity of cannabis in the 1960s and 1970s, rates of psychotic disorders haven’t increased.
Ironically, just two days prior to the Drug Czar’s much ballyhooed press conference, Britain’s Advisory Panel on the Misuse of Drugs refuted the notion that pot use causes mental illness, stating, “The evidence for the existence of an association between frequency of cannabis use and the development of psychosis is, on the available evidence, weak.”
Article continued on AlterNet May 13, 2008