By Christopher Kennedy
In a pretty pathetic ‘exclusive’ in today’s Guardian we hear the same old rubbish about cannabis. From people trying to make a living out of making cannabis sound like an evil drug came forth the surprising statistic that 200 people a year have adverse affects. No deaths, but adverse affects.
In the last five years there have been over a million prescriptions of cannabis in Australia, and if only a couple of hundred have adverse affects (and still no spike in the dreaded number of schizophrenics), we are talking about a very successful medical revolution.
The major complaint of the article was that cannabis being sold was too high in THC. Also, that there was no medical evidence that in many cases it works.
There was no comment in the Guardian as to why people prefer the higher THC. There was no credence given to the vast numbers of people who have come off more dangerous drugs. There was no mention of the amount of money not going to the drug companies (research in the States suggests that 1 to 2 billion dollars was wiped off the drug companies worth for every state in America that legalized).
All we have is the words ‘exclusive’. Why not try to be exclusive and face the facts, the people you are interviewing have a vested interest to cannabis looking bad.
It is this type of intellectualizing that is a product of the isolation doctors in Australia enjoy. Same as in Singapore where one freak of a doctor didn’t like vaping so that whole island isn’t allowed to.
In England and America, with borders close by, people are offered choice of provider and no silly nonsense about pricing, as it will just go to the black market.
It’s time these doctors of medicine understood they are not God, with cannabis being made equal for everyone.
Keep Independent Journalism Alive – Support The AIMN
Dear Reader,
Since 2013, The Australian Independent Media Network has been a fearless independent voice – holding power to account and delivering journalism that matters.
Running this site isn’t cheap. Rising costs mean we need your support now more than ever. Every donation, big or small, keeps our servers running, our writers working, and our stories free for everyone.
Donate here:
PayPal or credit card – just click on the Donate button below
Direct bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
We’ve also set up a GoFundMe as a dedicated reserve fund for hosting and future improvements.
Thank you for standing with us. We couldn’t do this without you.
With gratitude,
The AIMN Team
In this “fear of dementia” age here is something of interest, note that it comes from a highly regarded source:
Among adults aged 40 to 70, lifetime cannabis use is actually associated with greater brain volume, according to research published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs using UK Biobank data.
That was particularly true in areas of the brain dense with receptors for cannabinoids, the active compounds in cannabis that modulate things such as pain, mood and appetite. Lifetime use was positively associated with regional volume in CB1-rich regions, including the caudate, putamen, hippocampus, and amygdala, and greater lifetime use was also linked to better performance in learning, processing speed, and short-term memory. Notably, even people whose use was confined to their teens and early twenties — those who had stopped by about age 25 — showed larger regional volumes and better cognitive performance than non-users decades later. Sex differences were also observed. The authors suggest this may reflect potentially protective effects of cannabis in older age, at a stage of life when brain atrophy is common and is linked to cognitive decline and lower quality of life.
https://www.jsad.com/doi/10.15288/jsad.25-00346
“Worth noting: the study defined this group only by when they stopped (by ~25), not when they started — and the broader literature on adolescent use is contested, with several re-analyses finding the harm signals shrink once tobacco use and family circumstances are accounted for.”
The only drugs/medications that have had adverse effects, which also put me in A&E are the ones prescribed by my GP, the same prescribed and used by a large number of the population on a regular basis, yet approved by the government regulator. We don’t hear about these, yet there must be many more than 200!
If some of our so called”leaders”,inhaled, rather than pretended (thanks ‘Slick Willy’),we may not be in this ‘money trashes everything’ situation.Who knows, maybe some of them may even rediscover imagination, which is AWOL.