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.