Today's Rant

Ahh the Drug Warriors. In today's USA Today, one Rita Rubin writes under the headline "Caution: Marijuana May Not Be Lesser Evil.' Sounds pretty provocative. Sounds like we may have some evidence against the evil weed.

Not so.

Here is what the article, and its alarmist headline, admit:

• Most users of highly addictive drugs such as cocaine and heroin smoked pot at one time. There is no evidence supporting a link going the other way-- that marijuana users go on to use harder drugs.
• Adolescents who use marijuana may later use harder drugs. Or they may not.
• Marijuana, like alcohol, affects hand eye coordination and reaction time.
• Heavy marijuana users (users who smoked marijuana an average of 20,000 times), had lower verbal IQ's than non users. This may be due to an unknown toxic affect of marijuana, or it may be related to other factors not controlled for in the study. (Maybe the results are explained by the fact that if you are in the 20,000 Club, you have no time for reading as you are smoking, rolling, buying and de-seeding pot eight hours a day. Why would you do such a study and not control for other factors?)
• Heavy users, (the 20,000 Club) experienced the following withdrawal symptoms when they quit: irritability, loss of appetite and trouble sleeping. The symptoms abated after one week and disappeared after two weeks. Notably, these same symptoms appeared in the same duration among men who just broke up with their girlfriend, got cut from the football team, or demoted at work. That is not withdrawal, it is an inconvenience.
• As to addiction, here is the articles conclusion: "research has clearly provided unequivocal evidence that some people can become addicted to marijuana." "Some people can ...??" We are going to make laws based on the fact that "some people can?"

The point here is that, despite USA Today's scary headline, no scientists has been able to associate marijuana with any serious symptomology. How then, do we justify the headline?

Anecdotal evidence.

Besides the facts cited above, the article also traces the lives of Tyreol Gardren and Rachael Kinsey, who have had hard lives and have smoked marijuana. I guess when you don't have science on your side, you have to find some shocking examples whose lives have been ruined and who have used drugs and hope that readers assume their lives were ruined because they used drugs.

I feel for Tyreol and Rachael. They have had a rough time of it. But I am not sure their sagas are a sound basis for public policy.