HEALTH officials in Geneva have suppressed the publication of a politically
sensitive analysis that confirms what ageing hippies have known for decades:
cannabis is safer than alcohol or tobacco.
According to a document leaked to 快猫短视频, the analysis
concludes not only that the amount of dope smoked worldwide does less harm to
public health than drink and cigarettes, but that the same is likely to hold
true even if people consumed dope on the same scale as these legal
substances.
The comparison was due to appear in a report on the harmful effects of
cannabis published last December by the WHO. But it was ditched at the last
minute following a long and intense dispute between WHO officials, the cannabis
experts who drafted the report and a group of external advisers.
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As the WHO鈥檚 first report on cannabis for 15 years, the document had been
eagerly awaited by doctors and specialists in drug abuse. The official
explanation for excluding the comparison of dope with legal substances is that
鈥渢he reliability and public health significance of such comparisons are
doubtful鈥�. However, insiders say the comparison was scientifically sound and
that the WHO caved in to political pressure. It is understood that advisers from
the US National Institute on Drug Abuse and the UN International Drug Control
Programme warned the WHO that it would play into the hands of groups campaigning
to legalise marijuana.
One member of the expert panel which drafted the report, says: 鈥淚n the eyes
of some, any such comparison is tantamount to an argument for marijuana
legalisation.鈥� Another member, Billy Martin of the Medical College of Virginia
in Richmond, says that some WHO officials 鈥渨ent nuts鈥� when they saw the draft
report.
The leaked version of the excluded section states that the reason for making
the comparisons was 鈥渘ot to promote one drug over another but rather to minimise
the double standards that have operated in appraising the health effects of
cannabis鈥�. Nevertheless, in most of the comparisons it makes between cannabis
and alcohol, the illegal drug comes out better鈥攐r at least on a
par鈥攚ith the legal one.
The report concludes, for example, that 鈥渋n developed societies cannabis
appears to play little role in injuries caused by violence, as does alcohol鈥�. It
also says that while the evidence for fetal alcohol syndrome is 鈥済ood鈥�, the
evidence that cannabis can harm fetal development is 鈥渇ar from conclusive鈥�.
Cannabis also fared better in five out of seven comparisons of long-term
damage to health. For example, the report says that while heavy consumption of
either drug can lead to dependence, only alcohol produces a 鈥渨ell defined
withdrawal syndrome鈥�. And while heavy drinking leads to cirrhosis, severe brain
injury and a much increased risk of accidents and suicide, the report concludes
that there is only 鈥渟uggestive evidence that chronic cannabis use may produce
subtle defects in cognitive functioning鈥�.
Two comparisons were more equivocal. The report says that both heavy drinking
and marijuana smoking can produce symptoms of psychosis in susceptible people.
And, it says, there is evidence that chronic cannabis smoking 鈥渕ay be a
contributory cause of cancers of the aerodigestive tract鈥�.