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TEEN SOUL POWER
CANNABIS IS A DESTRUCTIVE DRUG
A major study in Great Britain published in the prestigious medical journal Lancet in November of 2010, compared 20 different drugs against 16 categories of harm – either as harm to self or to society.
The study, "Drug Harms in the UK: A Multicriteria Decision Analysis" by Professors David J Nutt, FMedSci, Leslie A. King, PhD, and Lawrence D. Phillips, PhD. on behalf of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, sought to demonstrate that the proper assessment of the harms caused by the misuse of drugs can inform policy makers in health, policing, and social care. For the study, a multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) model was applied to a range of drug harms in the UK.
Cannabis use was found to be ranked as the
8th of the twenty drugs studied,
for drug harm to self and to society.
The study found that cannabis was associated
with some 15 of the 16 criteria of harm.
The strongest negative findings for cannabis were the economic costs to self and society, marijuana related crime, drug related impairment of mental functioning, drug specific impairment of mental functioning, drug dependency, and drug related damage. Cannabis was also found associated with family adversity, loss of relationships, injury, and drug related mortality (accidents, cancers, etc.)
A secondary finding from this study is that cannabis was found to be harmful not just to self - but also to others. This finding directly contradicts marijuana folklore that cannabis use does not interfere with the rights, health, or quality of life of others.
While the study acknowledged that several drugs were definitely more harmful than cannabis, it clearly demonstrated that cannabis is not a benign substance and is one that has negative results across the spectrum of criteria used for measuring harm, i.e., reducing the quality of life for self, family or society.
No matter what you hear from your friends, the "news" media
or the pro-drug organizations....
know for sure that marijuana (as all drugs)
is harmful to your health and well-being!
MARIJUANA and SUICIDE:
A SPECIAL CASE OF MARIJUANA RELATED HARM
EDITOR's NOTE:
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He was a very popular youth all through high school. Graduated as an A+ student. Excellent musician. Full scholarship to college. Many friends. A Loving family. A happy person overall.
He left to attend college in California. He left as a proud son would. After several months, he used marijuana for some vague reason. He became depressed. He purchased some medicla marijuana. The depression deepened. He fell into a dark place.... a place that did not have a light at the end of the tunnel - as long as he continued to smoke.... but he couldn't stop. Two months later - this bright, achieving youth with his entire future ahead of him died - by suicide. His family - his friends.... are all devastated. They still have not been able to have closure on it. But they know now - that marijuana can certainly be a deadly drug. |
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When pro-marijuana organizations claim that marijuana "never killed anyone", they show a selective and conscious disregard for the numerous ways that drugs affect people, for instance, in admitting the relationship of marijuana use to cancer, or in fatal DWAI accidents.
A related harm that many do not know, is the relationship between marijuana use and depression - and suicide. This relationship is much stronger than most realize. A new study found that youth who smoke marijuana before age 17 are 3.5 times more likely to attempt suicide as those who started smoking marijuana later in life. In addition, people who are dependent on marijuana have a higher risk of experiencing major depression and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. The researchers who discovered these relationships, Dr. Michael Lynskey and colleagues at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, gathered data from four groups of same-sex twin pairs. They found that among the 311 pairs discordant for early marijuana initiation (just one twin in each pair smoked marijuana before age 17), the early initiators were 3.5 times as likely as their twins to attempt suicide. Another study found that teenagers who start smoking cannabis daily before the age of 17 are seven times more likely to commit suicide (and also 60% less likely to finish high school.) And other studies have also found that cannabis use is a relevant risk factor associated with both suicidal attempts, depression, and associated behaviors in psychotic and non-psychotic people. |
