Hosted By Liane Hansen
Source: National Public Radio

Liane Hansen…

In the election this past Tuesday a number of Marijuana law reform measures were on the ballots, all were defeated. Federal Drug Czar John Walters called it, “A stunning victory of common sense over pro drug propaganda.” “While I am up to the challenge,”
responded Robert Kampia of the Marijuana Policy Project, “I say we fight.” Marijuana has been a hot button political issue for a while, and a lot of rhetorical smoke continues to be blown by both sides of the debate.

Dr. Mitch Earleywine has taken the analytical approach. In his new book Understanding Marijuana: A New Look at the Scientific Evidence he examines all the available research. His conclusion, is that the drug is more complex than the Eco-friendly miracle substance the hemp advocates claim or the dreaded evil weed of the prohibitionists. Its history goes back thousands of years and Dr. Earleywine says that the way that its been used hasn’t changed all that much over time.

Dr. Earleywine… It all started in 2737 BC when the drug was used more, uh taken orally rather than smoked but at least in the last few hundred years people have been smoking cannabis very much in the same ways they do it now . However, some of the new harm reduction techniques have developed in order to avoid lung damage. Such as using a vaporizer and things like that, have changed the way people smoke cannabis just in the last few years. And these are sort-of gizmos, if you will, that will heat up cannabis in a way that it doesn’t actually smoke but it will provide cannabinoids in a vapor and will allow people to get the drugs effects without exposing them to dangerous tars and carcinogens.

Liane Hansen… The subtitle of your book is A New Look at the Scientific Evidence. First of all, what is that new look? Did you look at new studies that have been done new evidence or are you taking a fresh look at older studies?

Dr. Earleywine… I looked at everything all the way from the 1600’s up to 2002. And to tell the truth there were a few new things that have come out particularly things that were counter to what we all may have learned in health class in junior high. Things like marijuana’s impact on aggression, which seems to be non-existent. The idea that marijuana causes A-motivational Syndrome, which the data also doesn’t support.

Liane Hansen… What is A-motivational Syndrome?

Dr. Earleywine… A-motivational Syndrome was this notion that you would somehow smoke cannabis and suddenly not want to do anything for society not want to contribute not want to hold a job and be incapable of setting goals and obtaining them. In both education and in occupational domains the data just don’t seem to support this. For example, college students who smoke cannabis get grades that are comparable to college students who do not. Cannabis users seem to earn as much money and pay the same amount of taxes. Those sorts of things all seem to kind of defy the idea of A-motivational Syndrome.

Liane Hansen… One of the other arguments put forth is the fact that for decades that marijuana is a gateway drug to harder substances, cocaine, heroin, even some of the designer drugs that are around now. What’s your take on that?

Dr. Earleywine… I grew up learning the exact same thing and I looked very carefully at those data and devoted a whole chapter to that issue. And as it turns out, 76 million Americans have tried marijuana but we have fewer than say 6 million Americans addicted to drugs like heroin. So it doesn’t seem to be much of a gateway under those circumstances. In addition, your chances of tying a drug like heroin if you have tried marijuana are less than 1 in 300. So it doesn’t seem to fit the notion that using cannabis suddenly turns you into some kind of ravenous craver of other drugs. Some of the recent work in an effort to prevent “drug” problems has kind of backfired because we’re
teaching our children that marijuana is a gateway drug then in fact it is counter to their experiences and the experiences of their peers. And then they don’t believe anything else we say. So if I go into a class and say hey, “Marijuana is going to make you do heroin.” Well they all know marijuana users who don’t use heroin and then every single thing that comes out of my mouth after that they are not even going to listen too. And so I feel like in some ways the gateway, the aggression, the impact on motivation as we try to keep battling about these things we are loosing our credibility with our youth. And then when I have to talk about a drug that really is dangerous like MDMA they don’t pay attention to me and they don’t listen.

Liane Hansen… MDMA is Ecstasy?

Dr. Earleywine… MDMA is Ecstasy correct.

Liane Hansen… What about the idea that marijuana affects thought and memory? The old joke is if you remember the 60’s, well you weren’t there, It’s been a point of disagreement. The evidence that you have looked at what does that indicate?

Dr. Earleywine… During intoxication, while people are high, essentially there are definitely some deficits in short memory. So it is very difficult to learn new skills or to memorize material during intoxication. Generally though, long term users, even daily users don’t show meaningful deficits in memory when they are not intoxicated. So we might find studies that show list learning tasks where people have to learn long lists of words. And cannabis users might do slightly worse than non-users if they are daily users for two years or more. But often the difference is say, half a word on average or one word on a long list.

Liane Hansen… You are on the Psychology faculty at the University of Southern California. You focus on personality and addictive behaviors and you are considered an expert on alcohol abuse. Is it possible, I mean it has been done but do you compare marijuana and alcohol use?

Dr. Earleywine… As it turns out alcohol has a lot more negative consequences than cannabis. So alcohol’s impact on aggression is markedly worse, alcohol’s impact on driving is markedly worse, alcohol’s impact on brain function with daily use over time is markedly worse. So in many ways I have to conclude that alcohol is a drug that makes more people suffer more than marijuana does.

Liane Hansen… What do you consider the health risks then concerned with the use of marijuana?

Dr. Earleywine… The biggest health risk associated with cannabis use right now just all has to do with lung function and although there aren’t any documented cases of lung cancer in people who have smoked cannabis and only cannabis not cigarettes. There do seem to be some small changes in the lungs of people who smoke long term say twenty years or more that suggest they might be at risk for developing lung cancer.

Liane Hansen… Much of the attention has been devoted to the medical use of marijuana particularly the political attention. Are there recent medical developments?

Dr. Earleywine… There are some superb research medical developments all supporting the idea that marijuana can help people who need to gain weight because of illnesses like cancer or HIV related wasting. I think the work on Multiple Sclerosis is extremely promising but again we only have a small number of cases. I am very optimistic about that work. The work on cannabis’s impact on migraine headaches seems extremely promising so that people can intervene early on when they first experience some of the symptoms of migraine and seem to cut off a migraine completely. The work on glaucoma is not as promising not because marijuana doesn’t seem to work it’s just that there other drugs that seem to work better.

Liane Hansen… Marijuana has always been dangerous political terrain for decades. How effective do you think the current drug laws that deal with marijuana use are?

Dr. Earleywine… My apprehension about the current drug laws is that essentially by lumping marijuana in with the harder drugs, we connect them in the underground market. So people who go to someone to purchase cannabis end up getting exposed to drugs with more negative consequences like Ecstasy, like cocaine, like heroin. Whereas, if marijuana was separated from that, was decriminalized, or legalized or in another domain, suddenly people would be able to purchase this drug in a setting where perhaps, it wouldn’t be connected to these harder drugs and they would be much less likely to be exposed to them.

Liane Hansen… Do you think that decriminalization is a good thing, a bad thing, or a little of both?

Dr. Earleywine… I think it is going to save law enforcement tons and tons of time money and effort. Right now in Australia two territories have essentially decriminalized. And the law enforcement officers really like this because they don’t waste half a day taking somebody down to the court, getting them fingerprinted, getting them booked, getting them completes arrested only to find out later that the prosecuting attorney has decided that it is not worth prosecuting. Instead they whip out a ticket, take the cannabis and they are on their way.

Liane Hansen… What do you make of the recent commercials that connect the idea of buying a dime bag of marijuana to the killing of a young girl in Latin America?

Dr. Earleywine… Well I am looking forward to the commercials that equate gassing up your SUV to supporting Middle Eastern countries that harbor terrorism. The logic just doesn’t follow as far as I am concerned. A lot of cannabis is grown here domestically so I think that clearly disputes the idea that somehow buying cannabis here is going to have an impact on any other nation. It is very much comparable to how things were handled in alcohol prohibition. So slowly but surely people will start to think about what is the cost to have these drug policies the way they are and what are the potential benefits of changing them. Lets make small steps and try each new policy and see how it turns out.

Liane Hansen… Closing comments plugging the book.

Complete Title: Text of Dr. Mitch Earleywine Interview on NPR – Understand Marijuana
Transcribed by Patrick
Source: National Public Radio (US)
Host: Liane Hansen
Published: November 10, 2002
Copyright: 2002 National Public Radio
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COMMENTS – MEMBERS OF DRUG WATCH INTERNATIONAL

Subj:DWI mail list - FW: NPR - Downplaying Dangers of Pot?
Date:11/18/02 4:42:26 PM Pacific Standard Time
From:Dave Taylor
Sent from the Internet

This sure ticked me off. Hey, let me share an interesting experiment I’d do every time I spoke to high school kids (about 35 or 40 classrooms a year). I’d ask the class to picture in their minds how many people were enrolled in school last September who are not in school now because they dropped out, flunked out, got kicked out, etc. Most of them knew four, five or six. Then I’d ask them how many of the departed students smoked pot. Try it with a bunch of teens in your community. You will get the same answers. Usually it is all of them. Sometimes 80 or 90 percent. Sure, there’s exceptions, but it means more to teens to come to their own conclusions than for me to dump facts on them all the time. Earleywine must be smoking a bit of the stuff himself…quite a bit.

Dave Taylor, MN DWI delegate

In a message dated 11/19/02 8:06:57 AM Pacific Standard Time, Ed Moses, law enforcement specialist, writes:

I have used something similar and I agree it is a good teaching moment. I have asked the students what percent of the honor role students smoking pot?? C students?? Then the percent of dropouts?? and then ask them what that tells them. You are right in that you can see it is connecting with them, the light comes on for some.

I also have had a lot of success with a take off on Jeff Foxworthy’s (not sure of spelling on name) “You might be a red neck if…..” I set it up by asking the single largest reason for drug related crimes. Even police officers will answer stealing to get money to buy drugs. WRONG! Missouri estimates 17% of our inmates are there for stealing to buy drugs. I recently read an article where California estimated 14%. The number one reason for a drug related crime is Stupidity ! Then I go through several “World’s Dumbest Criminal” stories, starting it with “you might of had help to be that stupid if…” Some examples are the guys using a log chain on their back bumper to pull over an ATM machine leaving their bumper (with license plate) behind, filling out an application for employment at the bank and leaving it behind with the correct information on it, after the robbery and there are thousands of others. From my experience I would say most criminals are under the influence of something at the time of the crime, either somewhat intoxicated or a residual effect, but a tiny few are really that dumb without any help.

I then get serious and point out actual tragedies cause by faulty thinking, such as parents getting their babies high on pot, LSD, etc. Child neglect where our undercover agents have witnessed cockroaches running in and out a babies dirty diaper and the parents completely ignored it. From there I point out the frequency impaired behavior is involved in child abuse, assaults, vandalism, deaths from driving, suicide, drownings, failed goals, etc. The number one common denominator of all crime and suffering is substance abuse. Legalization will only increase the suffering, just like legal tobacco and alcohol has. Or as each DWI mailing from Sandra says, “There is not one ailment of society that isn’t caused or worsened by the use of psychoactive and addictive drugs”

Thanks, Ed Moses, Drug Watch International, Missouri

Source: Northwest Center for Health & Safety