Friday, February 20, 1998
Study finding cannabis safer than alcohol 'suppressed'
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Science/Health: A major study into the harmful effects of cannabis, which found it to be safer than alcohol or tobacco, has been suppressed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), it was claimed yesterday.
Details of the comparison between cannabis and legal substances were to have been made public at the end of last year, New Scientist magazine reports. The two-year study determined that in the long-term, cannabis has fewer effects on health than either tobacco or alcohol in five out of seven categories, and carries only a marginally higher risk in the other two.
For example, while heavy drinking leads to cirrhosis, severe brain injury and an increased risk of accidents and suicide, the report concludes that there is only "suggestive evidence that chronic cannabis use may produce subtle defects in cognitive functioning".
But that section was removed from the report at the last minute, following a dispute between WHO officials, the cannabis experts who drafted it and a group of external advisers.
The official explanation for excluding the comparison was that "the reliability and public health significance of such comparisons are doubtful".
In a special investigation into cannabis, the magazine claims the WHO "caved in" to political pressure from the US National Institute on Drug Abuse and the UN International Drug Control Programme warned the study would play into the hands of groups campaigning to legalise marijuana.
Dr Billy Martin, of the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, a member of the expert panel, said WHO officials "went nuts" when they saw the draft report. Another panel member said: "In the eyes of some, any such comparison is tantamount to an argument for marijuana legalisation."
The magazine concludes that decriminalisation would not lead to an increase in cannabis use and could lead to a reduction of hard drug users, based on surveys by the Centre for Drug Research at the University of Amsterdam since marijuana was legalised in the Netherlands in 1976. It found: no immediate increase in cannabis use after legalisation;
although most people tried it, they did not continue using it;
the percentage of cannabis users and hard drug addicts is lower than in many other European countries, including Britain;
the number of hard drug addicts has not increased for a decade, while their average age is rising.
In an editorial, the magazine says that, "despite the anti-dope propaganda that circulates in the US, most people are thankfully well aware that no great social disaster has befallen the Netherlands, where cannabis has been sold openly in coffee shops for years."
It adds: "Only the politicians still seem irrationally terrified by the idea of any relaxation of the law: they think they can continue lumping all drugs together".
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