Marijuana Does Not Cause Insanity

Over at Salon, Maia Szalavitz has an article, titled The Return of Reefer Madness which discusses the current campaign by the Drug Czar's office to convince people that marijuana use causes insanity. The effort began in May and has included ads in the New York Times and Newsweek.

Szalavitz does a very good job of exposing the extremely dubious science backing the government's tired old unverifiable claims. For example she points out that while rates of cannabis use skyrocketed in the 1960s and 1970s "schizophrenia rates remained virtually constant over those decades." The same reasoning can be applied to driving fatalities, which declined, and any number of other arguments for marijuana's status as a society destroying drug.

Also, the author tells of something encouraging that happened at the press conference initiating the operation, "While the launch was attended by a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the current occupant of the office, Dr. Nora Volkow, did not attend or speak, nor did her deputies. This is unusual: The National Institute on Drug Abuse is the federal agency responsible for scientific research on the medical effects of drugs, so a campaign about marijuana's health effects would ordinarily feature at least one top representative discussing the science. The agency's name does not appear on the list of organizations endorsing the ad."

When we consider the above and the action taken by Susan F. Wood, assistant FDA commissioner who resigned her position over unwarranted interference in agency decision-making concerning a new contraceptive, perhaps, we are witnessing the beginning of a needed trend, researchers rebelling against the constant subordination of scientific fact to politics.

Hat tip to Richard Lake.