WHY MARIJUANA ISN'T ALL BAD

More than being just a 'social lubricant,' cannabis helps you relax and can
reduce the negative side-effects of HIV drugs, in addition to offering a
whole host of other medicinal benefits

As a teenager, Dom Cramer's anti-drug attitudes would have made any parent
proud. He bought into the "Just Say No" government campaigns and the
warnings from the police who visited his high school that marijuana was a
surefire gateway to more hard-core drugs.

Today, Mr. Cramer owns the Toronto Hemp Company, a Yonge Street store that
sells everything from hemp soaps and lip balms to rolling machines and
"defunk smell remover spray."

Mr. Cramer, now 30, began smoking marijuana in university, after he stopped
believing "all the lies I was taught in high school." He smokes frequently,
although he says he can go for weeks or months without it.

Mr. Cramer calls cannabis the ideal "social lubricant -- something to do
instead of drinking alcohol, something to share with people and bond
people." The drug also "helps take your mind off things. It helps you
relax."

Even experts believe can-nabis can have positive health and physiological
effects, and groups such as Canadians for Safe Access argue that the health
repercussions of recreational marijuana use would never come close to
matching the harm done by cigarettes or alcohol.

The debate over the health impact of marijuana took on renewed significance
when the Liberal government introduced Bill C-10 in the House of Commons
last month.

The bill would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana.
Possession of up to 15 grams and up to three marijuana plants would be
punishable under the new law by tickets and fines of between $100 and $500.

According to the 2002 special Senate committee report on illegal drug use,
close to 30 per cent of the Canadian population aged 12 to 64 has used
cannabis at least once.

About two million Canadians aged 18 and older have used cannabis some time
during the past 12 months, 600,000 have used the drug in the past 30 days,
and approximately 10,000 use it daily. (The committee sharply criticized
health officials for failing to monitor marijuana use, saying knowledge of
patterns of use in Canada "verges on the abysmal." They relied on
epidemiological data from two surveys, in 1989 and 1994, to estimate
marijuana use.)

Canada has one of the highest rates of cannabis use among youths, the
committee reported: About one million teens aged 12 to 17 used marijuana
some time in the past year, 750,000 in the past month and 225,000 appear to
smoke it daily. Among youth, the "average age of introduction" to marijuana
is 15.

But experts say many recreational users don't smoke enough marijuana to
produce the high concentrations that are needed to do serious harm.

"It's like cigarettes," says Thomas Klein, professor of medical microbiology
and immunology at the University of South Florida. "I think most rational
people would say, 'Well, you smoke a cigarette from time to time, or a cigar
from time to time, it's not going to hurt you. But if you smoke three packs
a day, it is.' It's the same situation with marijuana."

Still, like most drugs, there's a relatively narrow margin of safety between
the effects you want, and the ones you don't.

"Let's begin with the beneficial effects, because there's much less to say
about that," says Harold Kalant, professor emeritus in the University of
Toronto's department of pharmacology. Marijuana induces relaxation "and a
sense of easier communication with other people," Dr. Kalant says. "And
things are funnier." Once the initial acute phase is over, people feel
drowsy, "and it may help some people get to sleep." Doctors prescribed
marijuana as a sedative in the 19th century.

THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the active ingredient in marijuana, has been
shown to blunt the nausea and vomiting caused by cancer treatments and
anti-HIV drug cocktails. THC can also lower the pressure within the eyeball,
making it a potential treatment for glaucoma.

Meanwhile, researchers at the McGill Pain Centre in Montreal are testing the
effects of different strains of smoked cannabis on neuropathic pain -- the
electric, burning, stabbing pain caused by severed or damaged nerves.

Anecdotal reports suggest it may also help ease muscle spasms in diseases
such as multiple sclerosis. At high enough concentrations, THC works like an
anti-inflammatory. Scientists are investigating whether the drug may help
with autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, where the immune
system attacks the body's own tissues.

Finally, a synthetic form of marijuana has been shown to reduce agitation in
Alzheimer's patients.

That's the good news. Here's the bad.

THC, the main ingredient in marijuana, is extremely fat-soluble, which means
it can easily seep through the fatty part of the lining of the cells in our
body. Once inhaled, marijuana is absorbed through the lungs, where it's
diffused into the blood via tiny capillaries, then immediately ferried to
the brain and the rest of the body.

Researchers have found "receptors" -- the link between the outside of the
cell, and the machinery within -- for THC in the brain, stomach, pancreas,
spleen, lymph nodes and disease-fighting white blood cells in bone marrow.

When THC binds to cells, it changes their function. In some cases, that can
be good. In the spleen, for example, THC is believed to help suppress
inflammation. But there is also an increased risk of cancers among children
born to women who smoked marijuana during pregnancy, and THC may further
impair a person's immune defences in those who are already
immune-suppressed, including those living with HIV or AIDS.

Marijuana has been found to be a potent trigger for heart attacks. This news
comes just as surveys suggest marijuana use in middle-aged adults, the group
most prone to coronary artery disease, is growing.

THC causes blood vessels to relax, which in turn can lower blood pressure,
decreasing blood flow to the heart and causing the heart rate to go up by
about 10 to 20 beats per minute -- not enough to cause trouble for most
people, unless you already suffer from restricted blood flow to the heart.

In a study of heart attack survivors, researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center in Boston found the risk of another heart attack increased
nearly five-fold in the first hour after smoking marijuana. What's more,
smoked marijuana rushes through the blood almost as fast as if it were
injected intravenously, Dr. Kalant says.

Marijuana may also cause a heart attack by causing plaque inside an artery
to rupture and form a clot, which in turn can block blood flow to the heart
muscle.

Other studies have found regular marijuana use can lead to male infertility
by causing sperm to swim abnormally fast. The drug may also fuel the growth
of cancerous tumors, and it has been linked to anxiety and panic attacks
even in first-time users.

Research is also incriminating marijuana in an increased risk of depression.

Then there are the neurotoxic effects of heavy use (more than five joints a
week) on learning, memory, intelligence, attention and other brain
functions.

Researchers at Carleton University once tracked 70 people and compared their
IQ scores at two stages: When they were aged nine to 12, before they started
using marijuana, and again at ages 17 to 20. They found the IQ scores of
heavy users dropped by about four points on average.

However, the effects on the brain of long-term, recreational use (fewer than
five joints a week) appear to be minimal. Last summer, researchers who
reviewed 15 previously-published studies on the residual effects of cannabis
reported that they found little evidence of "deleterious" effects on brain
functioning.

"The only exception was a very small effect in learning new information,"
says Dr. Igor Grant, director of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research
at the University of California, San Diego.

The Carleton University intelligence study, in fact, found that IQ scores
increased in light users by a mean score of nearly six points -- more than
former users, and nearly double that of nonusers.

Smoking anything isn't good for you. According to the U.S. National
Institute on Drug Abuse, the amount of tar inhaled in marijuana smoke and
the level of carbon monoxide absorbed is three to five times higher than
among tobacco smokers, probably because people who smoke marijuana tend to
inhale more deeply and hold the smoke in longer.

Marijuana can impair driving skills by slowing reaction times, a person's
ability to steer or to make quick decisions in an emergency. But unlike
alcohol, marijuana tends to make drivers less aggressive, not more. That
means they're less likely to speed or pass recklessly.

Still, marijuana has been implicated in 10 to 15 per cent of accidents and
impaired driving charges involving people who weren't drinking.

And survey studies show teenagers are more likely to be driving under the
influence of cannabis than alcohol because they know there's no quick,
roadside breath test for the drug, Dr. Kalant says.

"That's really quite worrying, because kids are more likely to get involved
in accidents anyway, because they think they're immortal, particularly boys
in their late teens," says Dr. Kalant, who is also a former director of
biological and behavioural research for the Addiction Research Foundation
(now the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.)

But teens who smoke marijuana may be less likely to practise unsafe sex than
teens who drink.

British scientists recently reported that as few as two pints of beer
increase how attractive members of the opposite sex appear by about 25 per
cent. The team believes the "beer goggles phenomenon" results when booze
stimulates the part of the brain that's used to score facial attractiveness.

Both marijuana and alcohol reduce inhibitions and self-control, "but I would
think probably it's true that it's more so with alcohol," Dr. Kalant says.

"You see aggressive, violent behaviour after heavy drinking, much more than
you are likely to see smoking a lot of pot. If anything, the pot user is
more likely to become rather placid."