Tuesday 3rd February saw a programme in the BBC’s “Horizon” series entitled “Cannabis: The Evil Weed?”. The BBC website offered the following summary:
Cannabis is the world’s favourite drug, but also one of the least understood. Can cannabis cause schizophrenia? Is it addictive? Can it lead you on to harder drugs? Or is it simply a herb, an undervalued medicine?
Addiction specialist Dr John Marsden discovers that modern science is finally beginning to find answers to these questions. John traces the cannabis plants’ birthplace in Kazakhstan; finds the origins of our sensitivity to cannabis in the simple sea squirt; and finds out just what it does to our brains.
He meets people who have been changed by this drug in drastically different ways – from those whose lives have been shattered to those who lives have been revived.
The programme started, as they so often do, with a taster of what was to follow. We were told that cannabis “produces a range of effects that is unmatched” which is probably fair enough. We then met three people – a cannabis user who loved the drug as “being better than sex”, an addict who was “ruled” by cannabis and someone who used it at a young age and went on to develop schizophrenia. Then we heard sound bites from three scientists and a piece to camera from Dr John Marsden who poses the question “what does science reveal about the world’s favourite drug?”
So as usual, cannabis was regarded in a way alcohol and tobacco aren’t – as a “drug”. Hence the claim that cannabis is the “world’s favourite drug”, which if course is simply not true, cannabis comes in at number 4, behind alcohol, nicotine and caffeine. This blindness to the real nature of the legal drugs was to produce a major failing in the programme, which we will come to later.
A second major failing was that no comment was made about the effect of the law on the gathering of scientific data regarding cannabis. Of course, had this been a programme about alcohol, we would have seen population studies and so forth. There could of course be non for cannabis, the reason being due to its legal status which makes such studies impossible. Of course the prohibition law has been responsible for many aspects of the cannabis trade and culture and has created many aspects which simply would not have otherwise existed, yet it was never mentioned.
In addition, although the fact that cannabis varies in its composition and contains more than one important ingredient was mentioned in the introduction, this important variable was not mentioned again until near the end and all the studies which claimed to show what cannabis actually does were in fact carried out only with THC. Now the real cannabis experience is not simply THC and so how far these results can be applied to the real world is very much open to debate, but the programme did not acknowledge this. As a factual scientific programme this sort of omission is a serious criticism.
The first section was pretty interesting, Dr John Marsden explained that he was an addiction specialist who worked with heroin and cocaine addicts and that compared with these drugs, the effects of cannabis were “a walk in the park” and that the number of its users eclipsed the users of all the other drugs put together. He told us that he had used cannabis himself but guess what – like many a politician he didn’t enjoy the experience! At least he accepted that he could see the attraction, but had decided “cannabis was not for him”, so fair enough.
We were introduced to the fact that cannabis has been around for thousands of years, we were told how THC works in the brain and why we have come to have the receptors in our brains which THC binds to along with what they are there to do. We also had some interesting information about how we evolved from the sea squirt. Again, all good stuff.
Then we start to look at how modern science is investigating the way cannabis actually works and from here on, “cannabis” becomes simply “THC”. We were told how the brains cannabinoid chemicals “dim” the flow of other messenger chemicals, which is how the brain regulates its behaviour. We were shown research in the USA which identified where the THC receptors were and how widespread they are throughout the brain – hence the wide range of effects of cannabis.
A couple of cannabis users explained the sensation they enjoyed by way of illustration. Dr John Marsden explained there was nothing very unusual about cannabis containing chemicals that do this and cited the opium poppy and tobacco amongst others as having chemicals which “act on the brain”. It was now the question “how real is the dark side of cannabis” was posed.
Is cannabis addictive?
We were introduced to another “John” – someone who didn’t want to use their real name, but was happy to appear on TV, which seemed more than a little illogical. “John” considered himself a cannabis addict, someone who had given up his life to cannabis. We were given a quite depressing account of how this guy’s life had become dominated by the need to roll a spliff, morning noon and night. “John” also seemed amazingly bad at rolling a joint, something most heavy cannabis users can do blind folded.
This is where the programme fell down badly, and for an addiction specialist it was very strange the Dr John Marsden – who had already mentioned the fact that tobacco contains a mind altering drug did not pick up on this. “John” the addict was smoking cannabis mixed with tobacco and described a typical tobacco habit. Could it be that his addiction was actually fueled by the tobacco addiction, with him not realising – or wanting to admit to himself – that he was in fact a heavy tobacco addict? We were given the impression that he only smoked joints, never cigarettes, is this the case? For any scientist to present an case example like this without pointing out blindingly obvious confounding factors is really quite inexcusable.
However, the programme went on to explain that cannabis is not physically addictive and that “John’s” apparent addiction was probably psychological. It was pointed out that psychological addiction can be difficult to beat which is true, but why didn’t they also mention the complicating factor of the tobacco and it’s very definite physical addiction properties which include strong cravings? Dr John Marsden used the word “craving” to describe the psychological urge to use cannabis, it’s highly questionable if any such cannabis craving even remotely compares the that of tobacco.
The programme entirely avoided any consideration of the tobacco issue, which is important not just for the addiction potential but also for a range of other health issues. Why did it do this?
We then moved on to the accusation often leveled at cannabis that it’s a “gateway” drug to hard drug addiction:
Does cannabis “lead on” to other drugs?
Here would have been a useful time to have referred to proper population studies. Of the millions of cannabis users world wide, how many do actually go on to become heroin or cocaine addicts? Of course, because of prohibition we simply don’t have those population studies and we can’t get them. Although this problem created by prohibition wasn’t referred to directly, he explained the use of lab rats because “unlike humans we can give them cannabis in controlled amounts” to see what happens. It’s assumed that the rat’s brain structure is similar enough to ours to be able to extrapolate from.
Whatever the merits of doing unnecessary experiments on animals like this (there are, remember millions of willing human volunteers who take cannabis whether they’re studied or not) the conclusion was that cannabis users are no more likely to become heroin addicts than non-users, cannabis is not a gateway drug.
The conclusion made by the programme was that it’s more “likely to be peer pressure or life stresses that lead people onto harder drugs”. The fact that cannabis users are much more likely to be offered other drugs by their unregulated prohibition created dealer than non-users wasn’t considered.
Does cannabis trigger permanent psychosis or schizophrenia?
We were introduced to Paul and his family. Paul has schizophrenia and was a cannabis user at a young age and his parents put the condition down to his early cannabis use. We were given a fair description of what severe mental illness is and we were told that Paul is now on the road to recovery and has stopped his cannabis use.
The fact that his cannabis use was unknown to his parents – a very common thing given the “underground” nature of its illegal use – was mentioned but not followed up with any difficult questions which might have raised the issue of the law’s role.
However, Dr John Marsden went on to explain that although it might seem an obvious link exists, in fact it’s much harder to demonstrate as it’s a “chicken and egg” situation. Does cannabis cause mental illness, or do ill people seek it out (ie find it in some way especially appealing). Again, some real life population studies would help us to understand what’s going on, but again because of the law they don’t exist.
So were shown some experiments with mice using the Maurice water maze , some of which were given cannabis at an early age, some later. The mice were put in a bowl of water and had to swim to a tower, the surface of which was just below the water level – the water being cloudy to prevent the mice seeing the tower. The mice had been shown the tower before and should know where it is by reference to objects outside of the tank. The experiments showed that mice given cannabis at an early age (<15 in human terms) showed learning impairment and couldn’t find the tower, whereas those given cannabis at a later age found it quickly, showing no impairment with a control group. The conclusion from this is that it’s probably not a good idea for people under 15 or so to consume high levels of THC, but for those above that age there’s no impairment. The researcher made the point that the number of children using cannabis is increasing, yet no explanation as to why this is happening was considered nor why there can be no protection for children under the present regime – again, no consideration of the impact of prohibition.
Dr John Marsden made the point that the risk of schizophrenia is low at around 1%, but then made the claim that occasional use of cannabis can raise this to 2% and heavy use might raise it to 6%. No source for those figures was given and no population data is available to support them, but it was stated as fact.
We then moved on to the research by DR Zerrin Atakan which is looking at the role of THC in the brain which has been mentioned before on this blog. The conclusions are that the effects of THC are similar to the effects of schizophrenia which re-enforces the idea that smoking cannabis can, in a small number of cases, trigger the condition.
Now this is the point where we really need proper population studies. Over the past 40-odd years cannabis use has increased massively. Not mentioned in the programme was the research carried out by the ACMD as a part of its review of cannabis classification for the Home Office (and still not published) which seems to show a decrease in rates of schizophrenia in this time. The lack of real hard data is a serious impediment to understanding what’s really going on, but this wasn’t referred to yet again.
Is cannabis a medicine?
The programme then looked at the medical dispensary system in California, which to be frank looks very much like legalised cannabis. The range of conditions a doctor can prescribe cannabis for is wide to put it mildly and probably anyone who wants it can get it. Dr John Marsden did question whether this is real medical use, but didn’t produce any evidence of it’s ill effects – other than being in conflict with state law.
We then looked at the development of SATIVEX, the cannabis derived medicine being grown at the secret location known as Porton Down. Only now was the existence of CBD and its anti psychotic properties mentioned, and the claim made that someof the newer recreational strains contain no CBD at all (which isn’t actually correct, although CBD levels are low in some strains). A good case for the proper regulation of the commercial trade was almost made, but avoided.
So the end of the programme and anyone who expected an answer to the question it posed: Is cannabis the evil weed? was in for a bit of a shock. Dr John Marsden’s opinion was this:
Cannabis isn’t in the same league as heroin and cocaine. It can’t kill you and is very unlikely to ruin your life”. He went on to say that “cannabis use has no place in the developing brain and although the numbers of people affected is tiny, there does appear to be a link between the early use of cannabis and mental health problems”. Now, it would have been expected that Dr John Marsden would have concluded his presentation with the advice that cannabis should be restricted to adults, much as we do with alcohol, but no. He concluded with a quite shocking and un scientific opinion:
“… in the end it’s my impression that the most significant damage caused by cannabis is subtle. It’s not at the extremes, it’s the thousands of regular smokers who’s lives are held back, it’s the apathy, it’s the sitting around smoking, not getting things done, the valuable, precious opportunities of life are lost”. Cue emotive music, programme ends.
So much for the promised objectivity.
It was as if the BBC had instructed Dr John Marsden to end on a downbeat note of doom about cannabis use and that was the best he could come up with. In all honestly , this conclusion debased what had been quite a good programme, albeit compromised in places.
Is cannabis the evil wed? From the evidence in the programme, no it’s not in all honestly, although as with many things in life it does need a proper regulated framework to minimise harm to vulnerable groups like children. One programme like this can’t be expected to cover every aspect of an issue as complex as cannabis, but it did miss out several vitally important issues that really should have been at the very least considered. In it’s favour though it didn’t feature the “usual suspects” making their usual claims.
It would be interesting to see a similar programme made about alcohol and it’s effects – not as the controlled and regulated drug as we have now, but under a regime of prohibition similar to that which cannabis exists under. I wonder how the two would compare?
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Horizon: Cannabis – the evil weed? can be seen (in the UK) on the BBC i-player for the next 70 days or so here and will be repeated on 14th February at 01:15 on BBC One (except Wales).
He also didn’t mention the study conducted in Australia which shows that shizophrenia rates have stayed the same since the 1980s despite the fact that cannabis use in young teenagers has grown at an enormous rate.
I was excited when I saw the title of the study, then I remembered that the BBC are funded by the government and that they aren’t very well known for being controversial. He basically just reinforced what most people think about cannabis.
Also just wrote an extensive email to my MP about the misgivings of the government on this topic. If I dissapear then don’t be too surprised.
Something that is often forgotten is that in the UK cannabis is often smoked with tobacco and often this is cigarette tobacco. Cigarette tobacco is a product that has been treated with chemicals and is not supposed to be used without a filter. It also changes the effects of cannabis and adds a chemical addiction element to the habit – hence the people who smoke 10, 20 or more “joints” a day.
The documentary veered from scientific to anecdotal. There was one scene with a family whose son had a nervous breakdown of some kind and the family noticed this happened about the time he started to use cannabis. The program offered no evidence for cannabis use being a cause rather than a symptom of his illness (his family reported all sorts of uncharacteristic behavior from their son). It seemed like a deliberate attempt to add a ‘scare story’ to the programme just so people don’t get the wrong idea. In no way do I wish to detract from the tragedy of mental illness but it does no one any good to attribute blame to cannabis when the causal link is just not proven.
At no point did the documentary say that prohibition was the appropriate way to deal with the subject or discuss how this strategy adds to the problem. Every 10 years or so we get these kinds of TV programmes, New articles etc that tell us we don’t know about this substance and it must be dangerous – this is just the latest one.
I was really disappointed by this programme and seemed to spend most of my time watching it wondering how on earth we manage to allow this propagandist scare mongering on our screens at all. Then a thought struck me. Whats the suprise? Whats one more lie for these social dictators? Then I skinned up and realised regardless of how illegal they make my favourite herb – there will always be somewhere I can find it!
Oh and as a final note to zumbum, I shouldn’t worry about disappearing, they’ll just ignore your message much like any I’ve sent, or any of the petitions I’ve signed, or any of the times I asked personally. Like they say, ignorance is bliss – and a lot less messy than assassination!
1. “The apathy, the sitting around smoking, not getting things done, the valuable, precious opportunities of life are lost.” Blamed on cannabis as usual, this is tobackgo culture successfully masquerading as a cannabis culture. A U.S. 1980’s cigarette ad series showed a well-dressed person, often a woman, lounging or waiting somewhere among expensive-looking furniture, architecture or landscape, labeled “the L & M Moment.” Tobackgo contains stay-awake medicine to enable well-dressed loungers to sit around somewhere looking awake, holding down a “job” which consists of watching, guarding, spying, etc. When cannabis-users try to emulate this heavily glamorized comfort-posture they may look dopy, because cannabis contains no stay-awake drug such as nicotine, so in order to pass for alert they may add nicotine to the recipe, leading to major medical expenses to that family decades later. For nicotine-addicts, this is a source of money– look alert, fool the boss, bring home a paycheck– so some short-term-thinking spouses or in-laws may credit the victim with “being responsible”. I.e. if nicotine helps you fulfill your duties to your family, etc. you have a duty to sacrifice 10-20 years off your life and L100,000 etc.
2. Incorporating some thoughts from last week’s comparison with alcohol– the last thing Big Tobackgo wants to see is a drop in alcohol consumption, because binge-drinking is one of the main methods of recruiting young victims into lifelong nicotine addiction, providing profit to farmers, cigarette manufacturers, the retail store, the guy who drives the cigarets to the stores in a truck, etc., and, oh, yes, the government which takes in those huge taxes.
Now think about this: children attracted to a party where they will be able to drink may wind up breathing for hours in a room where dozens or hundreds of cigarettes have been smoked. The side-stream smoke is drugging them with more nicotine and carbon monoxide with each breath. Now what happens when a youngster has too much boose and passes out? If he/she doesn’t die, they will sit with their hend bowed over, etc., for hours continuing to breathe more nicotine and carbon monoxide.
Now after a few days the binge drinking effects wear off and the child is behind in their studies with an important test coming up! Gotta stay up all night cramming, or somehow get the source theme written down in the correct order. This is when the child knowling reaches for a cigarette in need of the anti-sleep medicinal use. After a habit develops, no one will remember the role of the binge-drinking, just another dirty little secret in the arsenal of the same conspiracy which gives you cannabis prohibition.
Great post, everything you mention here went through my mind while watching this program. I was particularly disappointed by the representation of “John” the addict – it’s TRUE, that is the worst joint i’ve ever seen!!!
By the end of the program I did feel robbed of any comparison between other more accepted drugs and was left with a bitter taste in my mouth especially considering our good Doctor’s closing comments. Apathy? Laziness? By that same logic, think how productive we might be if Britain didn’t have such a destructive drinking culture?
No-one can argue that canabbis is good for you and that it will make you a healthier person but to what extent are the government prepared to legitimise the underground canabbis culture through prohibition.
I really feel sorry for Paul, if canabbis did trigger his schizophrenia then maybe we should be asking ourselves if he would be a normal teenager now had the government legalised and controlled the production and distribution of the drug rather than pursuing prohibition. The fallacy that prohoibition works is possibly what angers me the most.
I’m wondering if anyone else noticed this, but the studies with the mice in relation to schizophrenia was based on the effect THC had on the memory, since the mice who were given THC had memory impairment this was automatically attributed as a sign of schizophrenia since memory impairment is a symptom of schizophrenia, however anyone who has ever smoked weed heavily will tell you it has a negative effect on your memory, this is given fact really, so what puzzles me is not only how studies on mice can be related to humans (without even entertaining the possiblity that studies on mice may not be applicable to humans, but also that giving mice the TCH equivalent of 20 joints a day was it? for two weeks? is supposed to demonstrate that schizo is caused by weed, you give me 20 joints to smoke a day for 2 weeks when i was 14 and i’d probably forget where i live, let alone be able to navigate my way around a clouded swimming pool of water.
I would just like to point out I actually said that I thought cannabis was ALMOST as good as sex.
From what I was told the documentary was going to be like, and the finished result I am a little disapointed. There was more time devoted to people like paul and ‘john’ than to those people who never have a problem like myself. Would have been more ‘balanced’ if they had included as much time focused on the positive people in the same way. Oh and I do agree that for a heavy user, ‘john’ can’t roll a joint for love nor money!
You did indeed say “almost” – my apologies! I agree about the plastic duck as well 🙂
Of course you’re right, the vast majority of cannabis users only get pleasure from cannabis. Although the programme did say accept that, it hardly gave that impression.
Thanks for commenting Stuart
at least they mentioned CBD ,but otherwise it was not very good of the BBC ,and Horizon has made mistakes before and it has had to apologise ,who wants to wait for them to apologise for this
c’mon it’s ‘John Marsden’, hardly someone with any understanding of anything other than getting his mis-informed mug on the telly
oh,, and before Pshycho Paul’s preciously disillusioned parents blame cannabis they should look into the complications which are more common when you wait till your in your early 40’s to start having kids!!!!, f’n retards!
Just to say something positive about the programme: there were a lot of us who were unaware of the balance (or not) of the antipsychotic/THC components. This has been something that has stuck with a lot of people I’ve talked to, and has probably been a very significant point that’s made people think differently about cannabis use.
please, does any one have a light? I just down loaded this comedy about cannabis by the bbc and my joint went out.
very nice critique..
i feel brainwashed after this ‘documentairy’..
i feel like again it’s a bad thing i’m doing… shit
I thought that it was ridiculous that the one man, felt as though he was restricted and addicted to cannabis. It was very apparent that he had an addiction to tobacco and as a result a habitual addiction to cannabis. Being an addiction specialist, it surprises me that John Marsden did not mention that this was even a possibility. I just wanted to tell that guy so badly to try smoking cigarettes and stop smoking pot with it. I don’t even know how that man could survive, with no job or anything, he just sat around smoking all day long. In any case I really wish that they had expressed that in the documentary.
Wow…. this doc. is making me pretty annoyed.
Aside from everything already mentioned, the ‘link’ between Paul’s smoking and schizophrenia was backed up by nothing, zilch, nada, (and no, the Mum’s vague suggestion that no-one else in the family has schitzophrenia does absolutely not count)
The Dr. nonetheless proceeds to say something along the lines of ‘even though the link seems clear’ (does it? why?) we don’t know if it’s a chicken or the egg thing…. well blow me down let’s not even hint at the possibility that they are totally unrelated and that this was simply the ‘one in twenty’ people who was using it at one time or another, and that he also happened to be someone who became psychotic.
They may as well be trying to say that Tea made Joan psychotic because she drunk it every day. They gave NO reason to think there was evidence for a stronger link than that.
The doc. is pants. I’m not finishing it.
The guy said that at one point he had 12 different head characters?!
Yes, I’m sure you’d have been right as rain had you never smoked anything…. NOT
Thank you very much for this enlightening post.
On the other hand i have some friends who smoke weed (without tobacco) all day long. but have normal social lives, meet friends, have jobs and have no problem at all.
Another observation is that many people wast their lives behind the television. How productive and creative could they have been if they weren’t addicted to this mind numbing drug?
A nice observation from my personal live is that i have some friends who smoke weed (without tobacco) all day long, for 12 of more years, and who have had never serious social problems. they never stopped working, seeing their friends or going to church.
thanks againa and have a nice day.
ok, only the sativex-part is really worth watching, bbc should really reproduce it with this part and then some good health anticancer news from the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Rick Simpson and stuff
hehe
Is cannabis addictive? I don’t think it is but think for yourself. I do.
Does cannabis “lead on” to other drugs?
The answer would be NO!!!! The dealer is who shall lead you to other drug types!! I stop everything thanks to shisha!!!!
When they showed cannabinoid receptors in the brain and then the scientist/doctor? also pointed them out in the liver and all over the body, I thought we were going to learn something. But no, they shut him up quickly, skipped any mention of receptors everywhere and quickly moved on to the usual perverted, prohibitionist, witch hunt oriented drivel.
Absolutely no mention of how and when the herb became “illicit”. Completely skipping this critical bit of history made it seem like hemp had always been illicit. Clever and deceitful. Just another disinformation production narrated by a nice turd.
my big focus is on the benefits of weed with healing cancer and social anxiety.
the doco really misses the whole point and everything leading up to the point too haha. just more brainwashing to be fed to the gereral public which are pretty much asleep anyway.
I really looked forward to watch this “documentary”, but as all of you, it really left me disappointed.
One of my friends who had a serious abuse of hard drugs and medicine told me, that many addicts that she met, have used weed as an EXIT DRUG! Simply because it takes some of the nervousness and to ease their mind. No one ever told me that before.
My friend had a psychosis from her abuse of cocaine, amphetamine, benzodiazepines. When I brought her to a psychiatric hospital, their solution was to fill her with medicine that left her paralyzed and unable to remember the subject of a conversation in the middle of it. It was so horrible to watch. Now she is living with me, and she has stopped taking her medicine, and she has started living a normal life. Thanks to cannabis.
Cannabis is the only medicine that she tried, that can take away her anxiety and give her the ability to eat food. Without it she has no appetite.
It is really a shame but we spent around $500 a month on 200g of cannabis. A lot less than what her invalidating prescription medicine would cost. We buy it from a friend of mine, who gets it from Hells Angels. I really don’t like supporting these guys. But do we have a choice? NO!
I was really disappointed with this program. At the end it goes no where. Excellent article you have written about this.
So far the best Documentary about cannabis i’ve seen is The Union : Business behind Getting High.
There are many many many population based studies concerning most of the issues that you raised, why would you assume that there weren’t without consulting scientific journals? I’ve been writing an essay on the subject, for university, during the last couple of weeks and was drowned among them (mainly because they are mostly useless for postulating causal relationships anyway.) I’m also a daily user.