Marijuana propaganda distorts public policy debate. It has been doing so for decades. It has been doing so from both ends of the spectrum — from the side that would have us believe that it is among the most dangerous of all drugs, a gateway drug and from the side that tells us that it is a harmless one.
Just because many who go on to use ‘hard’ drugs used marijuana before the heroin or the cocaine does not mean that is any more a gateway drug than alcohol or nicotine. For most patients with severe addictions whom I have treated in inpatient, residential and outpatient settings, the first substance used or misused in childhood or adolescence was either alcohol or nicotine. Most people underestimate how often it was alcohol.
Just because there has never been a death reported from marijuana overdose — even the DEA acknowledges this — doesn’t mean that it is safe. Potential death is not the only measure of harm from a drug. And even when it is shown that the overall harm from marijuana is significantly lower than that from at least six different classes of addictive drugs, it doesn’t mean it is harmless.
One kind of propaganda feeds the other kind of propaganda. The more propaganda those experts and those who know better engage in, the more mistrust it breeds and feeds propaganda that minimizes the harm from marijuana. A study, Risks and Benefits of Marijuana Use: A National Survey of U.S. Adults, was published yesterday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Reuters reports the lead author of the study Dr. Salomeh Keyhani as saying,“The American public has a much more favorable point of view than is warranted by the evidence. Perhaps most concerning is that they think that it prevents health problems.”
Most findings of their own study don’t appear to justify such a statement. Their study of US adults found the following that fraction of US adults who believe:
- Marijuana has some risks is about 9 out of 10
- It has addiction risk: 1 in 2
- It is either somewhat or very addictive: 3 out 4
- It impairs memory: 1 in 2
- It causes relationship problems: 1 in 3
- It decreases IQ: 1 in 4
- It increases creativity: 1 in 500
- Prevents health problems: about 1 in 3
- Secondhand marijuana smoke is harmless for adults: about 1 in 6
- Secondhand marijuana smoke is harmless for kids: 1 in 13
In essence, majority of Americans think marijuana has some risks and majority believe it is at least somewhat addictive and only a minority believe it prevents health problems. I am almost certain that if the survey had asked these same questions about “daily marijuana use,” these fractions would have been even higher. This hardly justifies the statement by the lead author reported by Reuters.
When one exaggerates to supports one’s argument, one can hardly fairly complain when the other side does it. Had it not been for exaggeration of the harms of marijuana relative to other substances of abuse to support prohibition, the pro-legalization side would not have had to rely on legalization of medical marijuana as the first step. That first step ends up distorting the debate and were it not for that step, the number of American adults believing that marijuana prevents health problems would have been even less than 1 in 3 in the study above.
