Lead story in the comic today is one of those misleading, alarmist pieces on cannabis based on 'research' from some impressively-named institution formed (I always suspect) for the purpose. Not many actual lies, but the whole tone of the piece was designed to whip up hysteria among the ignorant parents of gung-ho teenagers, a disgraceful farrago really for a serious newspaper. It's tempting to blame the bylined news hacks, but they are just obeying orders.
Max Pemberton's Health column on p. 24 goes some way towards redressing the balance with some quite sensible remarks on legal and illegal highs, buried in the middle of the item. Not far enough though. We are being frogmarched around by mean-spirited ignorant puritanical geeks. It probably serves us right for letting so much of that stuff pass without comment.
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Don't know about the Telegraph but the report on the BBC website didn't strike me as misleading or alarmist. The research was conducted at Kings College London .
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-31480234
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Correlation is not causation.
Not clear from BBC report if/how test considered whether those using skunk had any pre-disposition to psychosis.
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My only knowledge of skunk is from a friends family, their early teenage son went from being a well adjusted youngster to a violent psychotic rapidly. This was a mystery until his school pals disclosed that he had been mixing with a bad bunch and had been using skunk heavily. You may be old, bold, been there and done that, AC, but I have seen the possible results and they are not pretty.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Mon 16 Feb 15 at 13:45
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>> I have seen the possible results and they are not pretty.
People, especially young people who are psychologically unformed and fragile, should of course avoid bad company and treat all drugs, including those permitted by society, with great caution.
Obsessive ignorant harping on the dangers of illegal drugs by many parents focuses the young on those substances as rebellious and glamorous, and whets their curiosity. Parental hysteria does more harm than good as any fule kno.
All drugs carry risks which may vary between individuals. There's nothing new about drug casualties. There are bound to be some. It's only a big deal for those directly concerned and isn't society's business. You can understand why distraught parents want to ban everything, but there's no chance of that in a civilized society.
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Possible of course but the results are highly suggestive that there is a link between skunk usage and psychosis and thier publication can hardly be described as alarmist.
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>> Correlation is not causation.
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>> Not clear from BBC report if/how test considered whether those using skunk had any pre-disposition
>> to psychosis.
One assumes they aren't idiots. But the research is as yet unpublished, all we have is the 'press release'.
There is an indication of how big the study was, but it clearly wasn't a controlled trial, neither do we know how other factors were corrected for. There are presumably no quantified data as to the actual strength of the product the psychotics used, and no actual comparison with a similar group using a less concentrated version of the same products - yet the risk of increased psychosis is clearly being laid at the door of "skunk" in the reporting.
I commend to anybody interested in this sort of reporting a reading of Ben Goodacre's "Bad Science". He relates the story of the Independents's conversion in 2007 when it renounced its campaign to legalise cannabis, on the basis that it had discovered that skunk was 25 times stronger than cannabis resin sold a decade earlier. This turned out to be rather misleading.
Herbal cannabis, it turned out, was typically stronger than it had been previously i.e. contained more THC (about twice as much). Resin wasn't much different. Goodacre speculates that this could be related to the intensive indoor cultivation of cannabis producing a more concentrated drug - itself a consequence of illegality, which makes it difficult to import large quantities of a plant that will "grow perfectly well outside". More concentrated drugs are, he says, a natural consequence of illegality. As he puts it, "you can't buy coca leaves in Peckham, although you can buy crack". I don't know whether that's true, as I haven't tried to buy either.
I'm broadly in favour of legalisation. I have no interest in any currently illegal drugs, but there is a good chance that there would be a lot less crime, fewer drug related deaths, and it could be sold with appropriate health warnings and taxed into the bargain.
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The quality of the statistical analysis was questioned (criticised) in an article in either this mornings Guardian or Telegraph by several well known statisticians.
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>> The quality of the statistical analysis was questioned (criticised) in an article in either this
>> mornings Guardian or Telegraph by several well known statisticians.
The slightly more critical commentary from the Guardian - goo.gl/CkJvBW
It mentions that some confounding factors such as gender, race and smoking were adjusted for.
Apart from other confounding attributes, the glaring weakness for me is the anecdotal gathering of the data on what products had been consumed, and that subjects suffering from psychotic disturbances would be quite motivated to look for a cause. The putative link between super skunk and mental illness has been pretty well aired.
That's not a recommendation to use the stuff - I have no idea what is safe and what isn't. Neither of course do many drug users, and they are unlikely ever to know while their supplies come from exclusively from criminals.
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"But the research is as yet unpublished, all we have is the 'press release'."
Here is the full report from the "Lancet'
www.thelancet.com/pb/assets/raw/Lancet/pdfs/14TLP0454_Di%20Forti.pdf
I see nothing in the report or elsewhere to suggest that it authors are either mean-spirited ignorant puritanical geeks or time-serving mercenaries although as is the nature of science I am some of its conclusions may be disproved or amended by further research.
They offer no moral judgement. Just a scientifically argued case.
Now it seems legitimate to argue whether drugs should be legal or otherwise, personally I have no issue with adults being able to take them if they so desire but I do believe people should be in full receipt of the facts regarding the possible consequences. I am not sure why one should be so violently opposed to such a report.
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>> I am not sure why one should be so violently opposed to such a report.
You're right up to a point CGN. I do get hot under the collar about these things.
It isn't the scientific report I mind, it's the use made of such (usually very limited and specific) studies by the mass media and politicians to scream the place down about the square root of damn all. I'm not alone in being irritated and fatigued by such malevolent mischievous faff.
And I would say also that if you really don't have 'an issue with adults being able to take them', you should come out and declare yourself a libertarian in an honest manner. Can't have it both ways. (I'm not accusing you of dishonesty of course).
But hey, forgeddaboudit. Mere internet trivia.
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If you could give me a definition of what a libertarian is I might consider it. It seems to be one of those words that can mean just about whatever you want it to mean.
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>> a definition of what a libertarian is
One who supports complete individual freedom of belief and (within socially imposed limits) behaviour?
I haven't looked it up. But that's what it means to me. And in that sense, I'm one, more or less, most of the time.
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"One who supports complete individual freedom of belief and (within socially imposed limits) behaviour? "
I guess nearly everyone would subscribe to being a libertarian then.
We might all however differ on what we want to see as socially imposed limits of behaviour (often referred to as laws).
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>> The research was conducted at Kings College London .
So it couldn't possibly have been prepared by time-serving mercenaries who know which side their bread is buttered CGN? I'm afraid we differ on this one.
No offence of course to any mean-spirited puritanical geeks out there. 'Think' what you like, but only talk to me about it if it makes proper sense.
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Personally I am all in favour of legalising drug taking..Darwinism in action.
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I fear, AC, that you sound very much like my late grandfather, a mining deputy at Whitwick Colliery in Leicestershire; he smoked like a chimney and drank like a fish as soon as he got out into the air and the light. I can hear him now, railing against the latest research that showed that cigarettes damaged your health; "I've smoked all my life, and it's never done me any harm ....... huh!".
That was in the early 1970s; he died only a couple of years later - not living long enough to see his youngest daughter die a most awful death from lung cancer.
I have my grave concerns about cannabis and its stronger versions and, I would accept, that some people (personalities?) are more susceptible than others. I have seen this in my youngest son, and in others, but I do not want to go into details here.
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Wouldn't touch the stuff myself. Was impressed early on by factual info re opium dens, and saw some of the geezers who were pointed out to me.
I'd prefer drug selling/dealing etc to be controlled, taxed and sold through legal outlets. Then we can all get a cut, the narco-barons would starve. Your own hard luck if it all goes pear shaped due to over indulgence....
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Your own hard luck if it all goes pear shaped due to over indulgence....
Indeed, if one is so minded, it's possible to eat yourself to death on chocolate cake.
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Too true. I'm doing my best to cut that particular intake down, being aware that I am no longer regarded as a racing snake:)
Last edited by: NortonES2 on Mon 16 Feb 15 at 16:38
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>> Your own hard luck if it all goes pear shaped due to over indulgence....
That's all that needs to be said to an adult Nortones. Prohibition infantilizes the population and cynically misleads people into smoking tobacco and drinking both of which are known to be risky and to cause social problems.
I don't recommend people to take drugs, although I used to when younger and more naive. They don't always bring out the best in you. Caveat emptor is a sound principle.
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Old fashioned grass was ok and cool if that what turned you on. This new fangled highy potent skunk is a different kettle of fish.
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I think you're right RP. And AC is trying to defend something as safe that he once used when it is no longer the same strength of stuff that he used years ago.
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>> it is no longer the same strength of stuff that he used years ago.
Not so actually rtj and RP. I am well acquainted with skunk in all its varieties, such as they are. And I'm not 'trying to defend' anything. There are risks. Caveat emptor, OK?
If you want an old connoisseur's view, skunk isn't as good as the very best tropical weed, but that is seldom seen and skunk is usually the most effective cannabis available in this country.
You don't have to be a genius to lay off something if it makes you feel odd and causes you to misbehave. You just need to have rational, well-informed parents, role models and associates. Sadly, millions of our young don't have these things and are randomly influenced by irresponsible toerags on the one hand and superstitious, tabloid-reading hysterics on the other.
It's all very sad and depressingly stupid, but that's the world we are stuck with at the moment.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 16 Feb 15 at 16:59
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>> It's all very sad and depressingly stupid, but that's the world we are stuck with at the moment.
Walking back down the Grove from the nice Leffe pub in Harrow Road a couple of years ago, two old friends and I - old geezers, two in their seventies and the Iraqi in his sixties - spotted a small plastic bag of skunk on the pavement, and picked it up to save others from temptation. A minute later several local black youths came back up the road staring at the pavement and looking annoyed in their usual way. We felt the most polite thing to do would be to ignore them and rush home chortling to dispose of the evidence. It wasn't bad either. We felt guilty, but didn't want to humiliate the poor guys by showing them up, handing it back... they would have been furious, we told each other.
Later my Iraqi buddy said that if I'd given it back he would never have spoken to me again. He was exaggerating as usual. They're like that.
Perhaps cannabis use really does erode one's morality. Tee hee!
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 16 Feb 15 at 17:52
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You don't have to be a genius to lay off something if it makes you feel odd and causes you to misbehave.
Indeed not. But then again addiction is no respecter of intellect
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>> addiction is no respecter of intellect
There's addiction Rob, and then there's addiction. People don't get addicted to cannabis as they do to opiates or speed. When they stop taking cannabis they don't suffer withdrawal symptoms. They may quite want to get some more, but they can function perfectly well without, geddit?
I'm aware there are people here who think they have seen youngsters in the grip of terrible cannabis addiction. Such youngsters aren't addicted, they compulsively seek the ambiguous warmth of drugtaking because their lives are so empty and depressing in most other ways. Parents and associates are most to blame, and it's only human nature for them to want to deflect the blame onto something else, with full support of course from the lying media. Real addiction to dangerous substances then becomes more likely.
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Just listening to a woman on the radio now talking about her addiction to weed and drink. I disagree with you AC on that. Plenty of life experience to back it up.
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>> I disagree with you AC on that. Plenty of life experience to back it up.
How many addictions though Rob? I don't think you know what the term means. There are all sorts of people on the radio and TV, and in the papers, who talk utter balderdash about everything, not just serious matters like this one (addiction I mean, not cannabis which is far from serious except to the deeply ignorant).
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You're talking rubbish now AC :-)
I don't depend on the media for my experiences..
Last edited by: R.P. on Tue 17 Feb 15 at 18:03
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>> You're talking rubbish now
You have a perfect right to think so, but you're wrong. I never talk rubbish about this stuff, which has a serious side after all.
But let's not squabble. I was only correcting you.
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"Parents and associates are most to blame."
Indeed
“.*******
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
.*******
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.â€
― Philip Larkin
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>> Philip Larkin
Unpleasant individual, jolly good poet.
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My comic's silly and misleading campaign against cannabis outdid itself today with a piece quoting the newsreader Jon Snow on the terrifying experience of smoking a joint of skunk weed. Snow claimed the experience, undertaken in the context of a documentary, was 'like having his soul wrenched from his body', and that once stoned he felt bereft, scared, paranoid etc.
I would be willing to lay money that Snow doesn't smoke tobacco, and that the joint he tried consisted largely of that noxious weed. Anyone smoking tobacco for the first time, and inhaling the smoke, is very likely to feel extremely sick and dizzy. Cannabis accentuates many sensations - indeed that's what people like about it - but this can be a mixed blessing if the prevailing sensations are unpleasant.
So Snow's piece was a quite good description of what those who have a bit of experience call 'the horrors'. I had a go of them way back, for exactly the same reason: the tobacco made me feel ill and the cannabis exaggerated the feeling. I too thought I might have gone permanently mad and might even die. The Snow farrago made me howl with laughter despite the misinformation it contained.
You can get horrors for other reasons too. Tobacco isn't the only cause of negative sensations. No one who is easily panicked should try decent cannabis. Better safe than sorry.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Wed 18 Feb 15 at 13:40
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>> Snow's piece
It wasn't of course. It was a shortish piece at the bottom of a news page by some geezer quoting Snow at length, with some other information, most of it erroneous or meaningless, designed to terrify readers about the dangers of cannabis.
A fairly indifferent hurried piece of inside-page news scheiss in the final analysis. Jon Snow himself for example would never turn in such shoddy work.
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The left hand and the right hand - CGNorwich
