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Study: To minimize harm from marijuana, legalize it for recreational
use
"Despite the undoubted dangers associated with marijuana, the Beckley
report concludes that it is far less harmful to users and to society
in
general than other illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine, and
far less
damaging than the legal drugs tobacco and alcohol."
The New Scientist
December 30, 2008
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126885.100-radical-alternatives-proposed-for-cannabis-controls.html
Radical
alternatives proposed for cannabis controls
Bby Andy Coghlan
WHAT
should we do to minimise the harm cannabis can cause to the
health and
welfare of users and to society at large? The answer,
according to a report
by a group of prominent academics and
government advisers, is to change the
law to allow the state to
prepare and distribute the drug for recreational
use.
This controversial proposal comes from a commission assembled by the
Beckley Foundation, a British charity dedicated to exploring the
science
of psychoactive substances. "The damage done by prohibition
is worse than
from the substance itself," says Amanda Feilding, the
founder of the Beckley
Foundation.
The Beckley commission's ideas will be aired in March at a
meeting in
Vienna, Austria, of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs. The
UNCND
will report to a meeting of the UN general assembly later this year
that will set international policy on drug control for the decade to
come.
Marijuana is now the world's most widely used illicit drug. The
latest figures from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) indicate
that in 2006-7 some 166 million people aged 15 or above, or 3.9 per
cent
of this age group, used it regularly. Just 1 per cent of the
world
population uses other illegal drugs. Cannabis use is
particularly widespread
in rich countries. Around 40 per cent of
Americans and one-third of
Australians say they have tried it.
The evidence assembled by the Beckley
commission left it in no doubt
that cannabis damages the health of heavy
users, especially those who
start as teenagers. Such users are at increased
risk of suffering
from psychosis, and lung and heart disorders. They are
also more
likely to drop out of school early, be involved in traffic
accidents,
and be poor parents (see "How bad is it?"). The report also found
evidence that cannabis may act as a "gateway drug", increasing the
likelihood that users will go on to try more damaging drugs such as
heroin or cocaine.
The report details a sharp rise in the potency of
marijuana, with
levels of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - the chemical
that gets
cannabis users "stoned" - typically double to treble what they
were a
decade ago. This, it says, is partly the result of a switch to
growing the plant indoors under continuous lighting.
Potent
varieties, sometimes known as "skunk" or "sinsemilla", now
make up 80 per
cent of the market in the UK and the Netherlands
according to a report
published by the UK home office. These
varieties also lack a compound called
cannabidiol found in other
cannabis strains, which when present may help
prevent THC triggering
psychotic episodes. About 9 per cent of regular
cannabis users become
dependent - experiencing withdrawal if they stop using
- and suffer
ill health as a result of their drug use, the Beckley authors
say.
Despite the undoubted dangers associated with marijuana, the Beckley
report concludes that it is far less harmful to users and to society
in
general than other illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine, and
far less
damaging than the legal drugs tobacco and alcohol. There
have been only two
documented deaths from marijuana overdose, the
report notes. This contrasts
with 200,000 deaths from all causes each
year attributed to other illegal
drugs, 2.5 million deaths annually
related to alcohol and 5 million to
smoking.
Because possession of cannabis is illegal, its harmful
consequences
extend beyond possible damage to immediate health, the Beckley
report
points out. In particular, users are at risk of punishment and
acquiring a criminal record. "If you don't think being arrested is a
harm, you are unpersuadable," says criminologist Peter Reuter of the
University of Maryland, a co-author of the report. "In the US,
750,000
people were arrested in 2006, and I think that's a
substantial
harm."
The report recommends that marijuana should be sold legally,
subject
to strict standards to ensure it is not strong enough to cause
psychological problems. This, it says, would allow a strict age bar
to
be imposed that would prevent children from buying it, and put the
criminal
gangs who peddle it out of business. Cannabis buyers would
not be offered
other drugs by the licensed dealers, removing this as
a possible route of
progression from cannabis to other drugs.
The framework for drug laws
worldwide is now set by the 1961 Single
Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which
has been signed by the
overwhelming majority of nations. Though the
convention requires that
all signatories make possession of cannabis
illegal, some have
experimented with decriminalisation. The Netherlands, for
example, no
longer arrests and punishes people found to have small amounts
of
cannabis, though large-scale supply remains illegal and in the hands
of criminal gangs.
The legalisation proposed by the Beckley group is
likely to face
strong opposition in Vienna both from the UN Office on Drugs
and
Crime and from many governments. The fear is that easing up on
cannabis will undermine the whole international effort to combat
recreational drug use. "Cannabis is the most vulnerable point of the
whole multilateral edifice," Antonio Maria Costa, executive director
of
the UNODC, said in a speech in March 2008.
The US has set its face firmly
against any move towards legalisation,
fearing that this would produce a
nation of dope-heads. A document
launched in July 2008 by the US Office of
National Drug Control
Policy (ONDCP) declared marijuana to be "the greatest
cause of
illegal drug abuse".
Dave Murray, head of research at the
ONDCP, told New Scientist that
strict enforcement of anti-drug laws had
helped cut teenage use of
marijuana by 25 per cent between 2001 and 2008. In
the absence of
prohibition, it would have been difficult to achieve that,"
he says.
By contrast, the Beckley authors, among others, argue that
punishment
does not reduce cannabis use and itself causes harm. Their view
is
backed by a study in 2000 by Simon Lenton of the National Drug
Research Institute in Perth, Western Australia, which compared what
happened to people in Western Australia, where cannabis possession
attracts a criminal conviction and penalty, with those in South
Australia who were given non-punitive infringement notices. He found
that 32 per cent of those "criminalised" reported adverse employment
consequences compared with 2 per cent of "infringers". The
criminalised
users were also far more likely to be involved in crime
again, and to suffer
housing and relationship problems.
Feilding accepts that there may be few
takers in Vienna for her
group's proposals. But the mere fact that an
alternative to the
strict prohibition of cannabis will even be considered is
a
breakthrough in itself, she says.
How bad is it?
The most
damaging of the possible ill effects of cannabis use is
psychosis. "You're
40 per cent more likely to get psychotic
disturbances if you're a user from
early life," says Les Iverson at
the University of Oxford, who is a member
of the UK government's
Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). He
points out,
however, that cannabis is not necessarily the cause in all these
cases.
Dave Murray, head of research at the US Office of National
Drug
Control Policy, says that in the US the rise in strength and market
dominance of potent marijuana strains has paralleled a rise in
emergency
hospital admissions of people suffering psychoses after
cannabis
use.
Another worry with cannabis is that it is a "gateway" drug
encouraging use of more damaging substances. Murray says that
cannabis
users who start young are between 9 and 15 times as likely
to become heroin
or cocaine users. "We can't say one causes the
other, but there's a strong
correlation," he notes.
There is also the danger of traffic accidents:
cannabis intoxication
raises a driver's risk of crashing by 1.3 to 3 times.
By contrast,
alcohol intoxication raises the accident risk by up to 15
times.
About 9 per cent of regular cannabis users become dependent,
compared
with 32 per cent of tobacco smokers, 23 per cent of heroin users,
17
per cent of cocaine users and 15 per cent of those drinking alcohol.
Respiratory and lung cancer risks are also raised for cannabis users,
and they can sustain damage to verbal learning ability, memory and
attention. According to the Beckley report, permanent changes in
receptors of the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and cerebellum have
been
seen in heavy cannabis users. There are also links between early
cannabis
use and poor school performance. Whether this is a result of
cannabis
itself, or because they share some other common cause, such
as poverty, is
not known. Overall, an analysis of 20 drugs by David
Nutt at the University
of Bristol, UK, who chairs the ACMD, rated
cannabis as the 11th most harmful
drug, well behind alcohol and
tobacco.
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