July 6, 2006
Ratted out
Nature magazine—which apparently is now the media division of the DEA—wants to show you fear in a handful* of rats:
Neuroscientists have found that rats are more likely to get hooked on heroin if they have previously been given cannabis. The studies suggest a biological mechanism — at least in rats — for the much-publicized effect of cannabis as a ‘gateway’ to harder drugs.
The discovery hints that the brain system that produces pleasurable sensations when exposed to heroin may be ‘primed’ by earlier exposure to cannabis, say researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, who carried out the study.
… [Researcher Yasmin Hurd] feels that softening the law against marijuana at this point would be “ridiculous”, given the number of unknowns about its effects. She adds that two other drugs that also stimulate opioid cells, and could therefore also feasibly cause a gateway effect, are nicotine and alcohol. “If we turned back the clock with the knowledge we have now, these two drugs would never have been legalized,” Hurd says.
The discovery also warns against complacency that cannabis does not have any lasting effect in young people who use the drug. “Lots of mothers say ‘oh well, at least it’s not cocaine’,” Hurd says. “But this is not about the short-term effects. For adults to do it is one thing, but we have to consider the effects on children.”
But George Mason University’s Statistical Assessment Service (STATS), which monitors the abuse of science and statistics in the media, notes that a few key details are missing from Nature’s overwrought story:
[T]he article did not note that the problem with the “gateway theory” is that the vast majority of cannabis users never try harder drugs. While most illegal drug users start with the most widely available illegal drug — marijuana — most marijuana users start and stop with cannabis. Some 50 percent of high school students try marijuana before graduation, but just eight percent try cocaine, six percent try methamphetamine and less than one percent try heroin. This is why the Institute of Medicine, in a 1999 report on the use of marijuana as medicine, gave no credence to the gateway idea.
And while the article said that cannabis use might similarly predispose to amphetamine or cocaine use, it did not mention that the same authors had previously published a study finding no such effect with amphetamine.
… For the last 40 years or so we’ve run an uncontrolled experiment exposing at least half of America’s teenagers to cannabis. Obviously, it would be better if teenagers didn’t take the risk of exposing themselves to any psychoactive substances.
However, so far, no one has found any effects on mortality, there is no link with lung cancer, there are no deaths from overdosing, cognitive effects are minimal once the drug has worn off in all but the heaviest of users, and rates of use of cannabis and other drugs have waxed and waned over time. This scientist may believe her kids to be equally at risk when trying cannabis or cocaine — but she sure isn’t basing this belief on data. This is an interesting, but preliminary, study which should be covered; but it shouldn’t be covered without context.
More on the drug war here.
* OK, 12.
Posted by Stephen at 12:37 PM in Drugs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.disinterestedparty.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/863
