Reefer
Madness
What’s Reefer Madness? New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd
came to Colorado to write about marijuana. Dowd was in a Denver hotel room when
she tried a “caramel-chocolate flavored candy bar” that she bought at a local
marijuana dispensary. …….After an hour, Dowd felt nothing. Then the marijuana
kicked in as Dowd “felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain. I barely
made it from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory
state for the next eight hours. ……..I was panting and paranoid, sure that when
the room-service waiter knocked and I didn’t answer, he’d call the police and
have me arrested…..” “…... As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I
had died and no one was telling me.”
ABC 7 News reported
that Kristine Kirk called 911, stating that her husband,
Richard, ate marijuana muffins and that he was hallucinating and scaring their
three children. She stated that Richard said the world was coming to an end and
asked her to shoot him. ……..The call ended with Kristine’s scream and a
gunshot. Kristine was dead. ….When Richard was taken into custody, he admitted
to killing his wife.
Can we Canadians learn from
Colorado? Colorado in 2000 allowed a medical patient to possess 2 ounces of
marijuana. In 2012, Colorado legalized recreational marijuana.
Here are some Colorado numbers,
thanks to the Rocky Mountain Drug Trafficking reports:
In 2012, about one-third of the high
school students were under the influence during school hours. Related to this
is the fact that if an individual is a regular user of two to three years of
marijuana, they lose an average of 6 to 8 points in their IQ says Dr. M.H.
Meier of NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse), reducing his/her ability “to
get an education or find or hold a good job”.
In 2012, about 27% of students aged
18 to 25 were regular marijuana users, compared to 19% for the national
average.
There was a 57% increase in
marijuana-related emergency room visits from 2011 to 2013 (about 13,000
visits). Marijuana-related hospitalizations almost doubled from 2008 to 2013.
Traffic fatalities increased 100%
from 2007 to 2012 involving people testing positive for marijuana. (Overall
traffic fatalities decreased by 15%).
About 9% of users became truly
addicted, with withdrawal symptoms when trying to stop. From personal
experience, Lady Gaga says “You can get addicted to pot”.
The delusions and paranoia of Ms.
Dowd and Mr. Kirk were acute reactions to marijuana. However, a major life-long
effect of marijuana is psychosis or schizophrenia. T.H. Moore concludes that
there is “sufficient evidence to warn young people that
using cannabis could increase their risk of developing a psychotic illness
later in life.” For example, cannabis use in the UK increased four-fold
between 1970 and 2002. As feared, it was later found that new cases of
schizophrenia increased by 58% over three years.
In Zurich, Switzerland, when
cannabis use in 15-16-year old boys went up three-fold between 1990 and 2002,
it was followed by a doubling of first hospital admissions for psychosis in
those aged 15 to 24.
Future increases in cannabis-related
cases of schizophrenia would add to the already high psychosis rate in Canada.
M.-J. Dealberto at Queen’s University in Ontario found that the rate of new
cases of schizophrenia in Canada is about 26 per 100,000 per year, which is
twice that in other countries.
While marijuana legalization would
provide tax money to Canadian governments, it would not make up for the high
personal, medical, and life-long costs to Canadians.
…………..
Philip
Seeman, O.C., M.D., Ph.D., is Emeritus Professor of Pharmacology and Psychiatry
at the University of Toronto, and discovered the human brain’s dopamine
receptor for psychosis.
…………………………….
260 Heath Street West, unit 605,
Toronto, Canada M5P 3L6
Tel.: 416-486-3456
E-mail: Philip.Seeman@utoronto.ca
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