Pubdate: Sat, 15 Nov 2014
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2014 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Sandy Banks

CLEAR THINKING NEEDED ON POT

Four states out of 50 may not sound like much of a mandate, but the 
success of marijuana initiatives on the ballot last week suggests the 
nation is inching toward legalizing the once-demon weed.

California started the ball rolling 16 years ago with a medical 
marijuana law so broad, it makes a gram of weed cheaper and easier to 
get than a prescription for Vicodin. Now dozens of states allow 
adults access to marijuana as medicine, and four - Oregon, Alaska, 
Colorado and Washington - allow the drug to be sold outright, without 
even the pretense of illness.

All this is in defiance of a federal ban that deems marijuana as 
dangerous a drug as heroin with no legitimate medical use - a view 
radically out of step with what a majority of Americans believe.

Surveys show that more than half of the country's voters think 
marijuana should be legal, and 75% believe it eventually will be.

But supporters might want to hold the applause. Our experiments with 
open access show there are hazards to address and a critical need for 
the kind of research that federal rules proscribe - research that 
would help us harness the drug's benefits and avoid the minefields of 
dependence.

A day after the election, this headline showed up on our Science 
blog: "Regular pot smokers have shrunken brains, study says." The 
story wasn't quite as scary as that implies, but it's not something 
to be shrugged off.

Researchers comparing the brains of "chronic" marijuana users (who 
smoke at least four times a week) with those of people who never 
light up found pot smokers had less gray matter in a region of the 
brain that influences decision making, and they had significantly 
lower IQs than their nonsmoking counterparts.

Does that mean that smoking weed really does make you stupid - or 
that less intelligent people are more likely to smoke lots of weed?

That's a question the study can't answer, in part because of hurdles 
that stall and limit scientific research. The drug is illegal, so 
it's hard to get clearance for the scrutiny that would help us decide 
whether to make it legal.

That's absurd, particularly this far down the road. More than a 
million people are legally using medical marijuana. Two-thirds of 
Americans consider the drug less harmful than alcohol.

But at least you know what you're getting when you crack open a 
bottle of vodka. If you're choosing between Blue Dream and Granddaddy 
Purple, you don't know whether you'll land in a stupor or wind up 
climbing the walls.

Several states, including California, will likely have legalization 
on the ballot two years from now. Given the way public approval has 
been steadily trending up, our local collectives might finally be 
able to drop the medical charade and become commercial outlets.

As the stigma around pot eases and access to it broadens, people who 
wouldn't have toked before are bound to want to try, if only to see 
what all the hullabaloo is about. Colorado's 2-year-old foray into 
legalization suggests there are issues we need to attend to before we 
follow their lead:

It would help to have a standardized way for consumers to assess the 
potency of a particular crop or strain. "Smooth draw, fruity taste" 
isn't good enough. How much THC - the drug's main mind-altering 
ingredient - does it contain?

We need to tighten rules on cannabis edibles. Too many young people 
are winding up in Colorado emergency rooms because they mistook pot 
for candy. Scrap the rainbow colors and cutesy shapes. If you need 
your marijuana to look like gummy bears, you're too immature to use the drug.

We need an honest public conversation about marijuana's promise and 
its hazards. Research should be ramped up, not stifled, so our 
decisions can be based on facts instead of propaganda.

We know, thanks largely to studies done through California's Center 
for Medicinal Cannabis Research, that marijuana relieves the pain of 
nerve damage from strokes, injuries and HIV, and eases the nausea 
associated with chemotherapy. There's also evidence that it can 
improve the outlook for people dealing with Alzheimer's, multiple 
sclerosis, epilepsy and post-traumatic stress.

There are signs that federal restrictions on research into those 
claims may be easing up.

But just as important is research on the adverse consequences of 
marijuana use, particularly on young adults. There's evidence that it 
can dampen motivation, short-circuit decision-making and lead to 
short-term memory loss. Arguing that weed is better than alcohol 
doesn't obviate that.

National health surveys suggest that 2.7 million Americans depend on 
marijuana to get through the day. That's why Washington state's 
legalization law sets aside money for education, addiction treatment 
and drug abuse prevention.

I realize as I write this that I'm trying to straddle a line. It's 
easy to advocate, as I have for medical marijuana. It's harder to 
endorse what I believe: That an adult should be able to come home and 
smoke a joint, just as I might employ a glass of wine to ease me into 
the night.

Maybe that's because I've seen the issue from both sides: I've known 
cancer patients for whom marijuana was the only route to peace and 
pain relief. And I've had childhood friends whose potential seemed to 
vaporize in the haze of marijuana smoke that surrounded them all their lives.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom