1. Marijuana Causes Brain Damage
The most celebrated study that claims to show brain damage is the rhesus monkey study of Dr. Robert Heath, done in the late 1970s.
This study was reviewed by a distinguished panel of scientists sponsored by the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences.
Their results were published under the title, Marijuana and Health in 1982.
Heath's work was sharply criticized for its insufficient sample size (only four monkeys), its failure to control experimental bias, and the misidentification of normal monkey brain structure as "damaged".
Actual studies of human populations of marijuana users have shown no evidence of brain damage.
For example, two studies from 1977, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed no evidence of brain damage in heavy users of marijuana.
That same year, the American Medical Association (AMA) officially came out in favor of decriminalizing marijuana. That's not the sort of thing you'd expect if the AMA thought marijuana damaged the brain. 2. Cannabis Damages The Reproductive System
This claim is based chiefly on the work of Dr. Gabriel Nahas, who experimented with tissue (cells) isolated in petri dishes, and the work of researchers who dosed animals with extreme amounts of cannabinoids (i.e., the intoxicating part of marijuana).
Nahas' generalizations from his petri dishes to human beings have been rejected by the scientific community as being invalid.
In the case of the animal experiments, the animals that survived their ordeal returned to normal within 30 days of the end of the experiment.
Studies of actual human populations have failed to demonstrate that marijuana adversely affects the reproductive system in any way shape or form. 3. Marijuana Is A "Gateway" Drug It Leads To Hard Drugs
This is one of the more persistent myths. A real world example of what happens when marijuana is readily available can be found in Holland.
The Dutch partially legalized marijuana in the 1970s. Since then, hard drug use, heroin and cocaine, have DECLINED substantially.
If marijuana really were a gateway drug, one would have expected use of hard drugs to have gone up, not down.
This apparent "negative gateway" effect has also been observed in the United States.
Studies done in the early 1970s showed a negative correlation between use of marijuana and use of alcohol.
A 1993 Rand Corporation study that compared drug use in states that had decriminalized marijuana versus those that had not, found that where marijuana was more available, the states that had decriminalized, hard drug abuse as measured by emergency room episodes decreased.
In short, what science and actual experience tell us is that cannabis tends to substitute for the much more dangerous hard drugs like alcohol, cocaine, and heroin. 4. Marijuana Suppresses The Immune System
Like the studies claiming to show damage to the reproductive system, this myth is based on studies where animals were given extremely high, in many cases, near-lethal, doses of cannabinoids.
These results have never been duplicated in human beings. Interestingly, two studies done in 1978 and one done in 1988 showed that hashish and marijuana may have actually stimulated the immune system in the people studied, (Google search "Scott Paplowski" for more on the benefits of cannabis to the immune system). 5. Marijuana Is Much More Dangerous Than Tobacco
Smoked marijuana contains about the same amount of carcinogens as does an equivalent amount of tobacco.
It should be remembered, however, that a heavy tobacco smoker consumes much more tobacco than a heavy marijuana smoker consumes marijuana.
This is because smoked tobacco, with a 90% addiction rate, is the most addictive of all drugs while marijuana is less addictive than caffeine.
Two other factors are important. The first is that paraphernalia laws directed against marijuana users make it difficult to smoke safely.
These laws make water pipes and bongs, which filter some of the carcinogens out of the smoke, illegal in some places and, hence, unavailable.
The second is that, if marijuana were legal, it would be more economical to have cannabis drinks like Bhang (a traditional drink in the Middle East) or tea which are totally non-carcinogenic.
This is in stark contrast with "smokeless" tobacco products like snuff which can cause cancer of the mouth and throat.
When all of these facts are taken together, it can be clearly seen that the reverse is true: marijuana is much SAFER than tobacco. Not that government would agree with that for a minute. 6. Legal Marijuana Would Cause Carnage On The Highways
Although marijuana, when used to intoxication, does impair performance in a manner similar to alcohol, actual studies of the effect of marijuana on the automobile accident rate suggest that it poses far LESS of a hazard than alcohol.
When a random sample of fatal accident victims was studied, it was initially found that marijuana was associated with RELATIVELY as many accidents as alcohol.
In other words, the number of accident victims intoxicated on marijuana relative to the number of marijuana users in society gave a ratio similar to that for accident victims intoxicated on alcohol relative to the total number of alcohol users.
However, a closer examination of the victims revealed that around 85% of the people intoxicated on marijuana WERE ALSO INTOXICATED ON ALCOHOL.
For people only intoxicated on marijuana, the rate was much lower than for alcohol alone. This finding has been supported by other research using completely different methods.
For example, an economic analysis of the effects of decriminalization on marijuana usage found that states that had reduced penalties for marijuana possession experienced a rise in marijuana use and a decline in alcohol use with the result that fatal highway accidents decreased.
This would suggest that, far from causing "carnage", legal marijuana might actually save lives. 7. Marijuana "Flattens" Human Brainwaves
This is an out-and-out lie perpetrated by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.
A few years ago, they ran a TV ad that purported to show, first, a normal human brainwave, and second, a flat brainwave from a 14-year-old "on marijuana".
When researchers called up the TV networks to complain about this commercial, the Partnership had to pull it from the air.
It seems that the Partnership faked the flat "marijuana brainwave".
In reality, marijuana has the effect of slightly INCREASING alpha wave activity. Alpha waves are associated with meditative and relaxed states which are, in turn, often associated with human creativity. 8. Marijuana Is More Potent Today Than In The Past
This is not a myth, on average the THC content of marijuana tested from 2000-2005 was about two to three times as high as it was in the late 1960's and early 1970's. It was March 2007 that The Independent, a UK newspaper, propagated the story which told of herbal cannabis today, being 20-30x stronger than it was "back in the day". This has since been proven to be a total and absolute anti-cannabis fabrication. 9. Marijuana Impairs Short Term Memory
This is true but misleading. Any impairment of short-term memory disappears when one is no longer under the influence of marijuana.
Often, the short-term memory effect is paired with a reference to Dr. Heath's poor rhesus monkeys to imply that the condition is permanent. In fact this has been disproven many times. 10. Marijuana Lingers In The Body Like DDT
This is also true but misleading. Cannabinoids are fat soluble as are innumerable nutrients (like Vitamin A) and, yes, some poisons like DDT. But the fact that cannabis leaves trace residue in hair (for instance) has no bearing over whether this trace residue points to prolongued intoxication, unlike alcohol, which can see a user unfit to operate machinery or drive, fully 24 hours after the last drink was consumed. 11. There Are Over A Thousand Chemicals In Marijuana Smoke Clever use of the English language means we change the word "Chemicals" for "compounds".
Again its true but misleading. The 31st August 1990 issue of the magazine 'Science' notes that of the over 800 volatile compounds present in roasted COFFEE, only 21 have actually been tested on animals and 16 of these CAN cause cancer in rodents.
Yet, coffee remains legal and is generally considered fairly safe. 12. No One Has Ever Died Of A Marijuana Overdose
This is true. Animal tests have revealed that extremely high doses of cannabinoids are needed to have lethal effect.
This has led scientists to conclude that the ratio of the amount of cannabinoids necessary to get a person intoxicated (i.e., stoned) relative to the amount necessary to kill them is 1 to 40,000.
In other words, to overdose, you would have to consume 40,000 times as much marijuana as you needed to get stoned. Tough to achieve accidentally, let alone on purpose.
In contrast, the ratio for alcohol varies between 1 to 4 and 1 to 10. It is easy to see how upwards of 700,000 people die from alcohol overdoses every year in the UK and no one EVER dies of marijuana overdoses. The fact is, government has set out its agenda in such a way that cannabis is never likely to get a fair hearing. Down "on the shop floor", on council estates throughout the United Kingdom, people are turning their backs on alcohol, preferring to take their chances using a substances which perhaps friends and family have used for decades with no ill-effect. For the government to implement a workable drugs policy, this is a fact - this "cool by association" which needs taking into account. Simply saying "We'll lock you up" has absolutely no effect on the amounts of people who use illicit drugs. So reclassifying cannabis, and punishing cannabis users harder, is simply a way of boosting the prison population within the UK, by a number which we can forecast quite accurately, 12 months before the event. With almost 9 decades of cannabis prohibition to learn from, isn't it time we looked for a different route for keeping our kids off drugs, whilst still taking into account there is a percentage of the population who choose to use cannabis instead of alcohol? Canna Zine Cannabis Directory - reach out to the world.
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