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Buzzby

Pot Smokers 'Certain' To Try Other Drugs
Sydney Morning Herald | 03/14/2006

(BuzzNote: We're not the only country with ONDCP-type "science". )

Cannabis users almost certainly try other illicit drugs, new research suggests.

Research from the Christchurch Health and Development Study at the Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences looked at the relationship between the use of cannabis and other illicit drugs in a sample of 1,000 young people aged between 15 and 25.

The Otago University study showed high rates of both cannabis and illicit drug use, with almost 80 per cent of the sample using cannabis by the age of 25 and more than 40 per cent using other illicit drugs.

It found that in the great majority of cases the use of cannabis preceded the use of other illicit drugs.

Principal investigator David Fergusson said the question of whether cannabis use increased the risk that young people would use other drugs had been the subject of long debate.

Fergusson said the latest findings could suggest a "cause and effect relationship" where cannabis use encouraged the use of other drugs.

It had often been suggested that associations between cannabis and other illicit drug use arose from common factors that predisposed young people to use cannabis and other drugs.

However, Fergusson said the Otago University study applied complex statistical methods (i.e. "voodoo math") to address that issue and found that even following statistical controls, there was a clear tendency for cannabis users to have higher rates of usage of other drugs.

The tendency was most evident for regular cannabis users and was more marked in adolescents than in young adults.

Evidence from the study favoured the view that cannabis may encourage the use of other drugs. Cannabis may lead to changes in brain chemistry (although no one has ever found any...) that make young people more susceptible, or experiences with cannabis may encourage experimentation with other drugs.

In addition, Prof Fergusson said, because cannabis use was illegal, users often obtained supplies from the black market, exposing them to drug dealers.

"Our research shows the regular use of cannabis increases the risks that young people will try other illicit drugs," he said.

(BuzzNote: Statistically, so will the regular use of beer, the early use of milk, and breathing. )

"What's not clear are the underlying processes that lead to this association. Understanding these processes is critical to how we view cannabis."

(BuzzNote: Hint: Altering your consciousness can be fun.)

Fergusson said if the association arose because using cannabis increased contact with illegal drug markets, it would support arguments for the decriminalisation or legalisation of cannabis.

"If, however, the association arises because using cannabis encourages young people to experiment with other illicit drugs, the results could be seen as supporting the prohibition of cannabis use," he said.

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walstmonky

I have spent many years in extensive, painstaking research, statistical analysis, performed 100s of laboratory and clinical studies conducted in almost every civilized country in the world. I have determined and proven that 100% of hard drug addicts (including alcohol addicts) spent the first several weeks of their lives on a liquid diet. We must encourage parents everywhere to quit this insidious practice. Don't want your kids on drugs? Feed them beefsteak from day one. If you're too cheap to lay out for a set of false teeth for your precious child so he can eat solid food, don't blame me when you find him with a needle in his arm, a spoon up his nose, and a bottle of liquor in his hand.

L0st_St0ker

lol, i just read alllllllllllllllllll that, and when you think about it, all the bullshit was just words written to sound so informative when all that really happened was there was a test and a lot of people who takes heavy drugs take marijuana, well,, so what!!! lol!

Cassius

"Everyone knows that marijuana leads to other things..."

"Yeah, mostly junk food." *snicker*

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JWCyborg

Please excuse if this is so obvious as to be without conversational merritt, but...

If the political right submit a proposal that they claim as fact, almost without exception, someone(s) on the political left will attempt to make political hay over it(and of course the opposite is equally true).

What follows is the press will report on it, and depending on where that news group falls in there own political beliefs, seems to be in directly per portion to how much energy they expend on that story.

A glaring exemption to this pattern is this whole "war on drugs" issue. They just let this one roll on by...again and again.

I expect this from an institutionalized bureaucracy that gets fat living off propaganda, but where in the hell is the press??!!

They pick other topics and defend them to the death.


Politics is politics, but shame on the press.


JW

 

Cassius

The problem is the press' bread is buttered on the same side as the government's. Everybody gets a meal at the ONDCP's banquet!

teufelfisch

I have no problem when they claim that a large percentage of cannabis users have used hard drugs in comparsion to non-cannabis users. That is a veritable fact.

I do have a problem when they attempt to imply that a cause-effect relationship exists. The situation is too complex to start with spurious claims (like altered brain chemistry). The general population has a hard time distinguishing between facts and speculations, so in politically heated issues like marijuana, scientists have a moral obligation to refrain from wild speculation.

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dedbr

It said "Pot" in the articles title, but "cannabis" all the rest of the time. Interesting.

Well sure. Once someone finds out the lies about herb, they think, what the hell....



Duh, duh, and duh. And we all know how nasty those 'drug dealers' are.

Looks like I need to call his editor, too. He gettin' his dees' and dos' mixed up.




I honestly don't think this guy could find his ass with both hands. Statistically speaking that is......


Ded Land

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castklear

"CHRIST" Christchurch Health and Development Study

The Hebrew translation of the word "CHRIST"....means "OILHEAD"...in reference to the healing oil that jesus carried was in fact cannabis oil a common but rare healing oil?

jesus was a pot head that liked hash oil! He recieved this information from the Himalayan budhists in the years after carpenter school nothing is really known of his whereabouts while he was in Tibet smoking dope getting enlightenment. The problem he had was anybody (jews) gonna believe him....hence the healing oil gave him a leg up on all the other wanna be saviors!

These idiots still need JESUS!

Anybody that embraces Cannabis has a leg up on everybody in the relationship to earth and its total goodness!

Buzzby

Thank you for that amusing, historically dubious, and thoroughly irrelevant bit of information. If, indeed, Christ was an historical figure, "nothing is really known of his whereabouts" from age 12 to age 32. He must have been in Tibet! Where else could he have been?

(Cannabis was well known in the Mediterranean world at the time Christ supposedly lived. The cannabis-based anointing oil [if it was actually cannabis-based] about which you speak was used on kings long before that time. Buddhism [it's spelled with two "d"s] didn't enter Tibet until 800 A.D. when Bodhidharma crossed over the mountains from India.)