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MARIJUANA, THE DECEPTIVE DRUG

Beliefs About Marijuana Are Confused

January 5--Marijuana is very deceptive because it is extremely slow acting. 

Very little of its active ingredient, THC, has reached the brain at the time of the "high." Hence the drug appears to the user to be mild. 

However, the user does not realize that it has an appreciable effect on his body for over a month. 

About 40% of the THC is stored in the body fat and is then slowly released into the blood over many weeks.  Each joint adds to the supply of THC that the body is storing, thereby increasing the level of it in the blood.  When a person smokes regularly, the THC in his blood is sufficient to sedate him all the time. 

Not Like Alcohol

As they experiment, kids play with pot because they hear from many sources that it is no more harmful than alcohol.  Therefore, they reason, "If my parents can drink alcohol, I can smoke pot." As they experiment, the pot appears to be mild, and so they try it again and again.  The THC builds up in their bodies and it steadily drags them into a state of continual sedation.  Their minds become confused, and their drug use escalates.  They usually start drinking alcohol heavily also.  In time their brains become so confused that many graduate to the use of cocaine and heroin, drugs they would never have taken before being caught in the marijuana trap. 

It is often claimed that marijuana is not harmful because it is not an "addictive drug." The basis for this claim is that physical withdrawal symptoms are mild when one abruptly stops smoking it.  However, the reason for mild withdrawal symptoms is that the body has been storing the THC in the body fat and has its own supply of THC. 

Prior to 1970, most of the pot had about 1% THC or less, and the best stuff had 3%.  Because of the enormous demand for marijuana since the 1960's, a strong effort was expended to develop new varieties.  Today, practically all of the street pot has about 12%, and some has as much as 25%.  Thus the marijuana available today is about ten times as potent as in the 1960's. 

Brain is Damaged

Dr.  Robert Heath of Tulane Medical School did extensive studies of the effect of marijuana on the brains of monkeys.  He was world-renowned for his research on the brain, and he was the head of the departments of psychiatry and neurology at five hospitals in the New Orleans area. 

A typical experiment performed by Dr.  Heath was to allow a monkey to smoke the equivalent of a human's smoking two joints of pot per day containing 2.5% THC, five days per week for six months.  The monkey was allowed to recover for six months and then was killed.  Brain waves were measured from electrodes embedded in the brain.  The brain waves had become severely distorted after two months of smoking, and remained severely distorted until the monkey was killed. 

The cells in the brain, which were examined under an electron microscope, showed serious damage, particularly in a deep part of the brain called the limbic system, which is the center of emotion.  All of the brain cells of the limbic region showed strong structural changes.  For monkeys that smoked only 40% of this amount, the damage was much less but was still observable. 

The level of marijuana use by the monkey is equivalent to the smoking of two joints per week of modern pot with 12% THC, by a teenager weighing 130 pounds.  We can expect serious long-term brain damage from this level of marijuana use.  We can also expect detectable brain damage in a teenager smoking half this level, i.e., one joint of 12% THC per week. 

About 1980, this monumental research was cancelled by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, which is the U.S.  federal agency that sponsors research on drugs.  It buried the results of this research. 

Other Damage to the Body

Regular marijuana use at levels generally assumed to be moderate can seriously damage the chromosomes, the immune system, the hormones, the reproductive system, the sex organs, the sex drive, the lungs, and, as we have seen, the brain.  Some of it is as follows. 

- - It causes severe damage to the T-lymphocytes, which are the primary white blood cells associated with the immune defenses of the body, according to studies performed in the early 1970's.  The damage to these cells caused by other drugs such as alcohol, cocaine, and heroin is insignificant in comparison to marijuana.  These are the blood cells of the immune system that are primarily damaged by AIDS. 

- - The chromosomes of mice are also severely damaged, according to studies performed by Dr.  Susan Dalterio of the University of Texas.  Severe abnormalities were caused in newborn mice from use by the grandfather, even with no marijuana use by the grandmother, father or mother. 

- - The effect on the reproductive system can be severe.  Regular use of the drug by children who have not reached puberty can retard and even permanently inhibit sexual maturity.  Its use can destroy the sperm and egg cells and thereby cause sterility.  Pot smoking is particularly harmful to girls because their ovaries do not produce new egg cells. 

Why Are Beliefs About Marijuana So Confused?

If the scientific case against marijuana is so strong, why are there such strong beliefs that it is relatively harmless? The primary answer is that powerful economic forces are working to keep the marijuana issue confused. 

Hundreds of billions of dollars are being made from cocaine and heroin each year.  We can expect that much of this money is being spent every year in disguised advertising and influence to help support the trade.  As long as the kids believe that marijuana is relatively harmless, many of them will play around with it, and this generates a steady supply of cocaine and heroin addicts. 

We were making progress when the National Institute of Drug Abuse supported excellent research on marijuana in the 1970's.  However, new leadership took control about 1980, and all of this was cancelled.  Since then, the Institute has not supported any significant responsible research on marijuana.  In 1988 the United States government sponsored the White House Conference for a Drug-Free America which recommended that an independent evaluation of the National Institute on Drug Abuse be conducted. 

No action was ever taken on this recommendation.  Nevertheless our federal government spends billions of dollars every year in a fruitless War on Drugs, which attempts to keep drugs from entering our country. 

Medical Use of Marijuana

The attempts to legalize it for medicinal purposes are an indirect means of achieving the total legalization of the drug.  Even more important, the message that is being spread concerning the medical use of marijuana is very effective advertising to convince kids that marijuana is not very harmful.  This advertising is many, many times more effective than the "Joe Camel" ads by the tobacco companies, which lure kids to smoke tobacco. 

We have seen that marijuana severely damages the immune system.  How then can we justify telling unfortunate AIDS patients that they should smoke marijuana to lessen their pains? Instead we should be shouting, "With your weak immune systems, you should consider marijuana to be the worst form of poison."

It's also being used by some cancer patients, but it's just as bad for them.  Although chemotherapy can cause severe nausea and THC is very effective in combating nausea, the last thing a cancer chemotherapy patient needs is marijuana, which would weaken his immune system further. 

There is probably enough common sense in our country to keep us from falling for the phony plea to legalize medical marijuana.  However the primary harm from this campaign is its associated propaganda.  This propaganda is convincing countless youngsters that marijuana is harmless. 

Implications of Fat Solubility of THC

The reason that marijuana is much more dangerous than alcohol is because the alcohol is water-soluble and it dissolves readily into the blood.  It is absorbed from the stomach and stays in the blood until it is metabolized by the liver.  The blood carries the alcohol to the brain, where it performs its numbing effect. 

In contrast, the THC that is found in marijuana is not soluble in water and so cannot dissolve in the blood. 

When a person smokes marijuana, no more than 25% of the THC is absorbed into the blood.  About 40% of the THC that enters the body is stored deeply in body fat.  The fat releases the THC into the blood with a half-life of one week, which means that if a person stops smoking pot it takes one week for the stored THC to drop to 1/2, two weeks to drop to 1/4, etc.  Every week the THC is stored in the fat, it decreases by one-half. 

The blood in the brain is separated from the main blood supply by the blood-brain barrier, which is a sieve that helps to protect the brain from toxic substances.  Since the THC molecules stick to this sieve, they pass through the blood-brain barrier very slowly.  This delays the flow of THC to the brain.  By the time an appreciable amount of THC has worked its way through the blood-brain barrier, there is little THC left in the blood.  Consequently the peak concentration of THC in the brain blood is very small.  It is only 1/2 of one percent of the initial THC concentration in the main blood supply. 

At the time of the "high," the peak concentration of THC in the blood of the brain is about 1/1000 of the THC in the marijuana joint, spread over the blood supply of the body. 

THC is extremely potent.  It is one million times more potent than alcohol.  Marijuana appears to be mild because THC acts very slowly, over a period of many weeks. 

The more often one smokes marijuana, the more THC is stored in the body fat.  The THC stored in body fat is released steadily into the blood.  Although the blood-brain barrier delays the flow of this THC to the brain, it does not reduce the amount of THC in the brain because the fat releases THC slowly and steadily.  When a person smokes one marijuana joint per day, the peak change of THC concentration in the blood of his brain after smoking a joint is only 3 times the steady THC concentration.  He builds up tolerance to the steady THC level, and so he does not feel a strong "high" when smoking a single joint. 

The regular pot smoker is constantly sedated from the steady THC level, and so he sinks into a state of continual sedation.  His mind becomes confused, he becomes lazy and sloppy, and he has a strong urge to feel "high." Since he is tolerant to the steady THC in his blood, he often turns to other drugs to get "high." Nevertheless, he continues to smoke pot as he takes the other drugs, because smoking marijuana makes him "feel good all the time."

One of the drugs that marijuana smokers take frequently is alcohol.  Those who smoke pot usually drink much more alcohol and drink much harder than those who do not.  Normally a young person becomes sick and vomits when he drinks excessive alcohol.  However THC strongly inhibits nausea, and so a young pot smoker can easily consume a lethal dose of alcohol without vomiting.  For someone who does not smoke pot, it normally takes many years of hard alcohol drinking before one builds up sufficient alcohol tolerance to hold down a lethal dose of alcohol without vomiting. 

Our society is deeply troubled by the smoking of cigarettes by teenagers.  Yet nobody seems concerned that nearly as many teenagers smoke marijuana as smoke cigarettes.  How do you convince a teenager to stop smoking cigarettes when he is smoking pot ?

Relationship to Crime

Individuals directly involved in prosecuting criminals are well aware of the strong relation between crime and drug abuse.  One district attorney stated that most of the criminals in our jails were so confused by drugs when they committed their crimes they cannot even remember the crimes for which they are bring punished.  Marijuana is the seed from which the scourge of drug abuse grows.  If we stop the marijuana, we will stop the rest of the drug abuse, and with it the crime. 

The marijuana presently being smoked by our kids is ten times as potent as in the 1960's.  When we realize how much marijuana is being used by our teenagers, and how extremely potent it is, it is frightening to think of the damage that this marijuana must be doing to the brains of these innocent children.  None of us should be surprised by the violence in our schools today.