Marijuana.com

JnEverett

New cure for Cannabis
10-24-06 l The Daily Telegraph l Clare Masters

A NEW statewide cannabis program is successfully weaning addicts off the drug by using medication to block the effects, emerging results from the study show.

But more resources are needed to deal with the increasing problems, experts say, with national hospital data showing rates of cannabis psychosis have doubled in the past seven years.

Hospital admission figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show the figure for cannabis psychosis rose from 655 in 1998-99 to 1025 in 1999-2000 and 1227 in 2004-05.

There are four cannabis clinics in NSW, in Western Sydney, the Central Coast, Orange and Sutherland.

Preliminary evaluation data from one clinic shows 76 per cent of clients were either completely abstinent or using less than half the amount they previously used when followed up 12 months after treatment. Twenty-four per cent reported small reductions or usage similar to pre-treatment.

The clinics have assessed 1933 clients and treated 1279 people.

Centre for Drug and Alcohol NSW clinical adviser Robert Batey said more clinics would open in the next two years.

Dr Batey said the use of medications that acted to block the effect of the drug had been so successful the clinics were looking at using them more extensively. He said there were increasing numbers of people with cannabis problems due to the potency of the drug, now frequently grown with powerful chemicals.

"There are more worrying conditions of psychotic presentations – these are very real," he said.

Dr Batey said the heroin drought and the increased use of the drug ice had helped drive up marijuana use with people smoking to "come down".

"People are turning to other drugs more readily available now and, being more potent, and they are getting some sense they are getting good value for the dollar," he said

Cannabis is the most commonly used illicit drug in Australia with recent research showing one in three Australians reporting use at least once in a lifetime and 11 per cent reporting recent use.

 

^_^truth

Since when is cannbis use a disease? That is all I am going to ask on this one.

Because we are are saying an addiction is a disease, we may want to take into account marijuana does not have any physically addictive substances within. True, it can be psycologically addicting, but anything can be psycologically addicting.

Headlines like this slightly disturb me.

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Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
Nietzsche

JnEverett

Headlines like this greatly disturb me. Headlines such as this are just an example of how many people feel about marijuana.
It is articles like this that help to perpetuate ignorance of marijuana usage.

And of course I feel it important to post such articles on here so that people see the nonsense put out by the media around the world.

Hopefully such articles will help light the activism fire in some people.

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Buzzby

In the real world, these "powerful chemicals" are known as "fertilizer"!

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Straightpipe

I've heard of people using methadone for that, but how is pot going to help someone go through withdrawls?

These crackpots from downunder must be smoking something.

 

Buzzby

Notice the mention of "ice"? That's methamphetamine. When you're wired up, weed helps you to calm down.

xxdr_zombiexx

Ahh..... reefer madness at it's finest. I do like it when I find bullshit from another country that's actually worse than ONDCP/John Walters bullshit.

"Weaning addicts" is part of the reefer mad propaganda meme and it's attached to the next sentence where the "need for more resources" (money) is. Good on Buzzby for noting the meth reference. This is a standard DEA propaganda meme - to associate cannabis with the "scary drug du jour" .

They are giving people pharmaceutical chemicals to "wean addicts" off the natually-occuring cannabis. In America, 700000 people go to the hospital each year due to undesirable side-effects of pharmaceuticals but nobody gets their panties in a wad about that. It barely makes the news.

And because Big Pharma is in the top 3 most lucrative industries, they aren't really begging for "more resources" - they just try to make it so the old and the ill cannot get their pharmaceuticals at any sort of discount - pay up or die.

It's more tragic than amusing and a fine example of why people will look back at cannabis prohibition like we now look upon slavery and racial prejudice: as an unacceptable backwardsness in human evolution.

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Alien Space Signal

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel

Fear became the ultimate tool of this government - V.