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Lilli
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 12 Dec 2003
Posts: 4218
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 Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 7:21 am Post subject: White House shift focus in research from "hard" dr |
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Alarmed by reports that marijuana is becoming more potent than ever and that children are trying it at younger and younger ages, U.S. officials are changing their drug policies.
Pot is no longer the gentle weed of the 1960s and may pose a greater threat than cocaine or even heroin because so many more people use it. So officials at the National Institutes of Health and at the White House are hoping to shift some of the focus in research and enforcement from "hard" drugs such as cocaine and heroin to marijuana.
While drug use overall is falling among children and teenagers, the officials worry that the children who are trying pot are doing so at ever-younger ages, when their brains and bodies are vulnerable to dangerous side effects.
"Most people have been led to believe that marijuana is a soft drug, not a drug that causes serious problems," John Walters, head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said in an interview.
"(But) marijuana today is a much more serious problem than the vast majority of Americans understand. If you told people that one in five of 12- to 17-year-olds who ever used marijuana in their lives need treatment, I don't think people would remotely understand it."
Jump in pot-related detox
The number of children and teenagers in treatment for marijuana dependence and abuse has jumped 142 percent since 1992, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University reported in April.
According to the report, children and teenagers are three times more likely to be in treatment for marijuana abuse than for alcohol, and six times likelier to be in treatment for marijuana than for all other illegal drugs combined.
And it found the age of youths using marijuana is falling. The teenagers aged 12 to 17 said on average they started trying marijuana at 13 1/2. The same survey found that adults aged 18 to 25 had first tried it at 16.
For National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) director Dr Nora Volkow the final straw was a report her institute published in May in the Journal of the American Medical Association showing the steady growth in the potency of cannabis seized in raids.
According to the University of Mississippi's Marijuana Potency Project, average levels of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, rose steadily from 3.5 percent in 1988 to more than 7 percent in 2003.
Volkow said many studies have shown the brain has its own so-called endogenous cannabinoids. These molecules are similar in structure to the active ingredients in marijuana and are involved in a range of activities and emotions ranging from eye function to pain regulation and anxiety.
Brain cells have receptors -- molecular doorways -- designed specifically to interact with these cannabinoids.
The cannabinoids in marijuana may use these ready-made doorways into brain cells and this is why they cause a high and reduce pain sensations. But Volkow believes the effects may go beyond the general feeling of well-being that most marijuana users seek.
Stronger pot's effect on younger brains
"I would predict that stronger pot makes the brain less likely to respond to endogenous cannabinoids," Volkow said in an interview. The effects could be especially marked in young brains still growing and learning how to respond to stimuli, she said.
While the research so far is inconclusive, Volkow believes that cannabinoids affect the developing brain and that stronger pot, combined with earlier use, could make children and teenagers anxious, unmotivated or perhaps even psychotic.
As an analogy, Volkow said opiate addicts are more sensitive to pain, as their overuse of drugs have raised the threshold at which the body responds and their own bodies produce fewer natural opiates.
NIDA is seeking proposals from researchers who want to investigate such possibilities for cannabis, she said.
Proponents of legalizing marijuana disagree with the official line. Krissy Oechslin of the Marijuana Policy Project disputes the finding that cannabis products are stronger.
"They make it sound like the THC levels in marijuana were almost nonexistent, but no one would have smoked it then if that was true," she said.
"And there's evidence that the stronger the THC, the less of it a person smokes. I don't want to say it's good for you, but I'll say (more potent marijuana) is less bad for you."
While Walters stresses that drug abusers are patients and not criminals, he hopes to crack down more on producers. And he says, there is a way to go in getting cooperation from local law enforcement officials. "For many in enforcement, marijuana is still 'kiddie dope'," Walters said.
He is quick to stress he does not want to overreact.
"We shouldn't be victims of reefer madness," he said, referring to the 1930s propaganda film "Reefer Madness" that became a 1970s cult classic for its over-the-top scenes of marijuana turning teenagers into homicidal maniacs. |
_________________
I pass to you the torch that Christ once passed to me.
Others are still in the dark and need
the light to see.
"I AM"
"Gathering the fragments so that
none are lost"
His Shepherdess
http://missouri.thcministry.org/ |
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sibannac
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 02 Jun 2004
Posts: 456
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| Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 7:56 am Post subject: |
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I wonder how much money the big pharmicuetical companies are paying for this load of Rubbish how much of a backhander is G DUBYA taking?
They'd better watch out after over 20yrs use i'm a homicidal maniac suffering madness of reefer. MY ARSE!!
What planet do these idiots come from, the trouble is Their policies have an effect worldwide, un-educated, un-intelligent and un-proven theories are a dangerous thing hell G DUBYA'S just a mass of Dangerous it now looks like he got the name wrong for the 9/11 connection it should have been Iran not Iraq. Yo G Dubya go back to school moron!!
 
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Lilli
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 12 Dec 2003
Posts: 4218
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| Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 8:06 am Post subject: |
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maddening isnt it. 
_________________
I pass to you the torch that Christ once passed to me.
Others are still in the dark and need
the light to see.
"I AM"
"Gathering the fragments so that
none are lost"
His Shepherdess
http://missouri.thcministry.org/ |
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Slide
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 11 Mar 2004
Posts: 339
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| Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 11:54 am Post subject: |
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It makes me sick.
As I was growing up we had a culture that celebrated cigarrettes and alcohol. We still celebrate alcohol.
I was drinking at 10 years of age or so. (can't remember the exact age as I was drunk) An alcoholic by age 15 and crashed and burned by 21. Cannabis saved my life.
Then comes anti-depressants. The one that worked for me was harming my liver. People have died from this drug but you can still buy it. Cannabis is more effective for me than the medicine ever was.
I have never heard of anyone dying from cannabis, with the exception of being shot by the cops or denied cannabis as medicine.
I was about to go off on a rant. But I would be preaching to the choir wouldn't I?
Ooops...I guess I did rant a little  |
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sibannac
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 02 Jun 2004
Posts: 456
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| Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2004 12:08 pm Post subject: |
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I noticed on one of the U.S. freebie give away site's they are GIVING AWAY FOR FREE WHOLE PACKS OF CIGARETTES, come on whats going on, roll up roll up free killer sticks>
Slide i know excactly how you feel is was also an alchoholic from age 14 til 40yrs old absolutely ruined my life but i'm glad to say i am NO-LONGER an alcholic as i no longer have a problem i dont crave a drink i dont miss the drink i dont even like the smell anymore, i am therefore not an alcholic Hurrah.
We have a problem in this country of drunken yob culture fighting in the street's EVERY friday night in EVERY town and city so what does dear ole Tony Blair propose? A loosening of the drinking hours, he is a dip dap our Prime minister, and I detest the man. (not that you'd notice lol )
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Lilli
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 12 Dec 2003
Posts: 4218
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| Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 6:05 am Post subject: |
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Why in times of supposed terrorism is cannabis the enemy. While the Opium trade in Afghanistan booms?
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Opium trade booms in 'basket-case' Afghanistan
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor and Andrew Clennell
28 July 2004
The opium harvest in Afghanistan this year will be one of the biggest on record, the Foreign Office said yesterday, and it has triggered a flood of heroin on Britain's streets.
The revelation will prove highly embarrassing for Tony Blair, who cited cutting the supply of heroin as one of the main reasons for the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, in addition to removing the Taliban regime and rooting out al-Qa'ida from the training camps run by Osama bin Laden.
The Taliban had cracked down on drugs cultivators but the regime's fall led to an increase in production and this year's harvest will be the largest since the invasion.
Health workers warned yesterday that the consequences of the rise were already evident: cheaper, better quality heroin was arriving in Britain, luring thousands more youngsters into addiction than ever before.
At the time of the invasion, Mr Blair said: "We act because the al-Qa'ida network and the Taliban regime are funded in large parts on the drugs trade 90 per cent of all heroin sold in Britain originates from Afghanistan. Stopping that trade is directly in our interests."
He also told the Labour Party conference on 2 October: "The arms the Taliban are buying today are paid for with the lives of young British people buying their drugs on British streets. That is another part of their regime that we should seek to destroy."
The Foreign Office revelation about the heroin crop, on the eve of the publication of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee's long-awaited report on Afghanistan, underscores the failure to meet a crucial policy objective. It is a severe embarrassment to the Prime Minister, who has long faced criticism over his professed grounds for war in the subsequent invasion of Iraq.
The Foreign Affairs Select Committee will record its fears over the rising heroin production tomorrow. As The Independent reported two months ago, members of the committee returned from a fact-finding mission to the country dismayed at what they had witnessed. Eric Illsley, a Labour member of the select committee, described Afghanistan as "a basket case".
Members believe that large areas of Afghanistan are back under the rule of warlords, controlling militias of up to 10,000 men, which are paid for by the profits of the illegal heroin trade.
MPs from all sides last night accused the Government of complacency and said the Prime Minister was betraying his clear promises to reduce opium production after the invasion of Afghanistan.
David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, said: "British youngsters are dying for Blair's incompetence. If we cannot do the job, we should not have undertaken the task.''
David Chidgey, a Liberal Democrat MP and a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said: "This is scandalous. This is a key fact that we picked up on our visit to Afghanistan.
"Nato is not coming across with the resources it promised. It is a great concern to me that the poppy harvest has increased. They must find a way of persuading the farmers to switch back to wheat or cereal, but they earn five times as much by growing the poppy."
Details of the rise in opium production emerged in a parliamentary written reply to the Labour MP Harry Cohen from the Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell.
Mr Rammell said: "The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is in the process of assessing the 2004 harvest in conjunction with the Afghan government. Its report will be published in the autumn. We expect to see a rise in levels of cultivation.
"This is unwelcome but experience of counter-narcotics policies in Pakistan and Thailand, which both had much lower initial levels of production and were more stable countries, shows that cultivation tends to increase before declining."
Mr Cohen said: "The rise in cultivation and production of opium poppies in Afghanistan has horrendous portents for us in the UK bearing in mind the PM's statement that 90 per cent of heroin sold on British streets comes from Afghanistan.
"The claim that cultivation tends to increase before declining gives no comfort and ... is not necessarily the case. It seems to me a hope more akin to peeing in the wind."
Sue Clark, manager of the team that tackles substance abuse for the London homeless charity, St Mungo's, said last night: "Our concern is that more drugs on the streets will create more problems for the vulnerable people who we work with daily.
"It makes our job to get them further away from the streets and to get them help much harder."
David Chater, a spokesman for the social care charity Turning Point, said an increase in poppy production could mean lower heroin prices and make life tougher for people trying to treat addicts.
"From a treatment point of view it's obviously a bad thing if much more heroin is available," he said.
"Both police activities and treatment programmes have to be going well to make an impact. The Government's invested quite a lot in the treatment side, [but] this is going to pose problems for them on the supply side, the police activity side."
In June, Nato agreed to deploy an extra 1,200 troops to Afghanistan after its summit in Istanbul. The troops were deployed to help provide security for the forthcoming elections in September.
The country is struggling to maintain a democratic veneer, amid sporadic violence, but meanwhile, the strength of the heroin trade shows no sign of being cut back.
28 July 2004 23:58 |
_________________
I pass to you the torch that Christ once passed to me.
Others are still in the dark and need
the light to see.
"I AM"
"Gathering the fragments so that
none are lost"
His Shepherdess
http://missouri.thcministry.org/ |
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Romadon
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 20 Jun 2004
Posts: 870
Location: Indiana - USA
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| Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 11:34 am Post subject: |
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"The world's religions have done more to harm humankind than to help it."
('ELOHIM 'AH_VAH)
Last edited by Romadon on Tue Aug 17, 2004 4:04 pm; edited 6 times in total |
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Urbanhog
moderator
Joined: 22 Apr 2003
Posts: 338
Location: Tropical Queensland, Australia
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| Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Slide wrote: |
| Ooops...I guess I did rant a little |
No you didn't, it's OK, I think ranting now and then is good, and sometimes can make the topic/conversations interesting. 
Keep on ranting Slide 
Cheers,
Urbie 
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"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."
--Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869) |
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Romadon
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 20 Jun 2004
Posts: 870
Location: Indiana - USA
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| Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 5:19 pm Post subject: |
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_________________
"The world's religions have done more to harm humankind than to help it."
('ELOHIM 'AH_VAH)
Last edited by Romadon on Tue Aug 17, 2004 4:04 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Echo
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 14 Apr 2003
Posts: 1899
Location: England
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| Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 7:36 pm Post subject: |
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As parents we don't want our children to abuse anything at all. Abuse is always unhealthy particularly so at a young age. BUT banning something doesn't make it less available to children. It makes it more interesting.
We all have been teenagers and we know how easy it was if we only wanted to. In the end it's down to personal choice, always been, always will be that way. To concerned parents I would say, make the most of
the time you have with your children, have a healthy and balanced life, give them challange and responsibilities, praise them when they achieve something good in their life, make them feel good about themselves. Surround yourself and your family with good friends, help others and don't be afraid of accepting help. Be an example. When some problems arise, be there with your children to help them through, don't be judgemental. Don't ever over-react. Every single day, be sure is a good day for all. Smile. When something goes wrong, still smile, we all have a second chance, there's always a solution. Work on it.
To the politicians I would say, invest more of the tax money into education, art, entartainment, culture and programs directed to make our youngsters socialize and improve their skills. Spend far less in military and war actions. We learned from the past war never helps culture to flourish and giving people stricter rules never makes them better people.
Are we all doing what it takes?
And NO, I NEVER GOT "ADDICTED" TO CANNABIS. I think cannabis addiction is an invention of our times.
_________________
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In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around
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