PROVINCE MAKES BULLSHIT MOUNTAIN OUT OF POT MOLEHILL

Newspaper Cites One Bad Study, Says Marijuana Makes People Turn Psychotic

Most journalists know jack about science. Sadly, it appears, Province
journalists know even less.

In its Sunday editorial, The Province called on senior governments to
launch a large-scale campaign warning Canadians about the dangers of pot.
It cited a study recently published in the scientific journal Addiction.

Calling it a "major study," the newspaper said it showed pot "appears to
cause psychosis, a severe form of mental derangement that can involve
delusions and loss of contact with external reality."

But the only thing "major" about the study is its flaws. Still, The
Province trumped up its meagre findings to push its agenda.

The researchers looked at young adults aged 18 to 25, comparing the amount
of pot they used with self-reported symptoms of psychosis. What they found
was that daily pot smokers on average reported two to three times the rate
of symptoms of non-users.

Unfortunately, the researchers and The Province ignored the
elementary-school math lesson that three times diddly is squat.

Subjects reported few symptoms of psychosis-the 25 year-old non-smokers,
for example, averaged 0.60 symptoms per subject. The daily pot-smokers on
average reported about two-hardly cause for alarm, especially when you
consider what the "symptoms" are.

The researchers had subjects fill out a Symptom Checklist-90 questionnaire
to determine if they had psychotic symptoms. If, for example, subjects
answered yes to "feeling lonely when you are with people," that was counted
as a symptom.

Other symptoms on the SCL-90 checklist include having "the idea that you
should be punished for your sins," "having thoughts about sex that bother
you a lot," and "never feeling close to another person."

Having one of these "symptoms" hardly means you are psychotic. It could
just mean you're lonely, or Catholic. Psychosis is the profound
psychological derangement schizophrenic people experience. It would be hard
for a psychotic individual to even make sense of a checklist.

What matters is not how many symptoms pot users report. What matters, is
whether or not actual psychosis or other health problems result from using
the drug. The study did not report either.

What's more, basing a study on self-reported data is problematic. There's
no way to determine if some respondents are less truthful than others.
Numerous researchers have dismissed the validity of the SCL-90 when
comparing different individuals. It's better used as a way to track the
progress of individual patients.

Despite these flaws, The Province says marijuana is "at least as dangerous"
as tobacco-which would be true if pot were killing millions of people every
year, instead of zero. But researchers reported in The American Journal of
Public Health that among the14,000 pot smokers studied, death rates (from
all causes) were no higher than for anyone else. Death rates among tobacco
or alcohol users soared.

Yet The Province wants government to divert scarce public health dollars to
promote scare tactics against pot. If their editorial board wants to change
public policy because of one flawed study, it has lost contact with
external reality.