GET OFF THE POT AND LEARN THE FACTS

IF politics is smoke and mirrors, then the smoke part of it these days has
a sweet, autumnal odour that is clearly not the scent of burning maple
leaves. It is marijuana smoke, and it continues to cloud the vision of many
politicians, many Canadians and most journalists.

The issue du jour is the medical use of marijuana. Health Minister Anne
McLellan indicated in mid-August she is less than enthusiastic about
allowing certain sick Canadians to receive prescriptions to use marijuana
to treat their pain or nausea, especially when her bureaucrats are busy
working at ways to prevent people from smoking cigarettes. That is the sort
of logic that escaped her predecessor, Allan Rock.

Doctors have long pointed out that, at best, scientific literature is mixed
about the impact of marijuana, but several lower-court rulings encouraged
Mr. Rock to approve the medical-use plan. Once he was pushed, he embraced
pot with all the zeal of a politician reaching for another hand to shake.

But Ms. McLellan told doctors at the annual meeting of the Canadian Medical
Association in New Brunswick she feels "a certain degree of discomfort
around this issue." She continued by saying she supports clinical trials
for pot, but she also pointed out the drug's use is tangled in legal issues
that may have to be resolved by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Regardless, she said later the government will continue growing a second
crop of marijuana in Flin Flon, Man., to conduct those trials. You may
recall that the first was abandoned after producing too many variations.

Ms. McLellan's waffling on the subject leaves her open to criticism from
both pro- and anti-marijuana camps. I, for one, am against medical use of
the drug, on the grounds its benefits are unproved, its dangers
considerable and its use represents an incremental victory for those
wanting the drug decriminalized and eventually legalized (more on this
later). Therefore, I wish the minister had simply announced a reversal of
Mr. Rock's plan.

On the other hand, Canada's considerable pro-pot lobby is up in arms over
the fact that Ms. McLellan has dared to suggest that the scientific method
needs to be adhered to before the government can release its state-approved
marijuana. For true-believer pot proponents, the mere questioning of the
benefits of marijuana is heresy. Indeed, their bible declares that pot is,
at worst, harmless and, at best, a magical, mystical drug that can produce
beneficial effects for all mankind.

The most hysterical reaction to Ms. McLellan's pronouncement could be found
in the pages of the Globe and Mail, where B.C.-based columnist Spider
Robinson, a science-fiction writer by night, directed a torrent of verbal
abuse toward the minister and anyone else who stands in the way of the
pro-pot agenda. But his reasoning is addled and so is his grasp of the
facts. For example, he labelled as "preposterous" an Ontario doctor's
assertion that "a single joint is as harmful as 10 cigarettes." Mr.
Robinson continued, "Fortunately, for anyone with interest, Internet access
can find the true facts effortlessly."

Well, I am a person "with interest," and when I went to my sources, I found
volumes of information about the negative--not positive or neutral--effects
of marijuana. This was particularly satisfying to me in the wake of the
many testy messages I received in recent weeks from people who disagreed
with my earlier column criticizing Justice Minister Martin Cauchon's
liberal stance on decriminalization.

So, what are some of the studies I found? Here are just a few of the recent
ones:

* In 1999, three researchers published an article in the American
Journal of Public Health. It said that early adolescent marijuana use is
associated with 1.91 times the risk of low education, 2.59 times the risk
of violence toward others, 2.81 times the risk of violence toward the user,
2.69 times the risk of other drug use and 4.44 times the risk of
multiple-sex partners.

* Earlier this year, another team of researchers published a report in
the Journal of the American Medical Association in which long-term, heavy
use of marijuana was found to lead to problems with memory, attention, word
retention and learning. It is noteworthy to mention that the study also
finds these deleterious effects persist beyond the period of intoxication,
and worsen with increasing years of use.

* Finally, just this summer, a team of European researchers published a
report in the American Journal of Epidemiology, in which it was shown that
marijuana use increases the risk of psychosis by 2.76 times in otherwise
healthy people.

I talked to Eric Voth, a medical doctor who is also chairman of the
Florida-based Institute on Global Drug Policy, about these findings and
about events in Canada. He says it is clear that a massive propaganda
campaign has been launched by marijuana advocates. It is a campaign that
not only ignores the medical risks of marijuana, but also misrepresents the
facts surrounding decriminalization and legalization. (Decriminalization is
the loosely defined term for a policy that would see the drug still being
outlawed but that would not prosecute individuals for mere possession.) In
short, decriminalization would only encourage both drug use and other
criminal activity, he says, while legalization would not only lead to more
use--and concurrent problems--but would not eliminate criminal activity
from pot "bootleggers."

"It was Hitler's director of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, who said that if
you tell a lie enough times, it becomes the truth," Dr. Voth says. "That
is, by golly, what's going on here. I think it's time the public should
realize that they are being manipulated."