Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Expert calls for marijuana to be legalised to reduce harm of binge drinking in teens



source: (Australia) Herald Sun Lifestyle 
 

THE head of Australia's leading alcohol research body has called for marijuana to be legalised to reduce the harm of drinking. 
 
Robin Room, director of the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research, says marijuana should be legalised under strict controls because the social harm associated with it was significantly less than from drinking.

"It makes sense to legalise marijuana in a controlled market," he told the Herald Sun yesterday. "We are in a situation where we need to look ahead. I think we need to have the discussion and it makes a lot of sense in terms of, among others, cutting down government costs to have a fairly highly controlled legal (cannabis) market and, while we are at it, tighten up the legal market of alcohol in the same way we tightened up the market of tobacco."


Prof Room, a leading academic at Melbourne University, is funded by the Department of Human Services.

In an ideal world, Prof Room said teens would not smoke marijuana or drink alcohol to excess.

But if an 18-year-old was going to use substances, he said they would likely land themselves in less trouble after using cannabis rather than bingeing on alcohol.

Teens were "better off" on a mixture of booze and marijuana rather than just pure alcohol in social settings, he added. Alcohol was more dangerous than cannabis because it had a closer association with aggression and violence, loss of co-ordination and impacts on work and family life, he said.
"Cannabis is not without harm but it's substantially less than alcohol and tobacco in terms of social harm," he said.

"If you are adding the cannabis to an equal amount of alcohol, then in some ways you'd be probably less likely to be aggressive but it's a bad idea to add it on if you want to drive a car."
Prof Room said if marijuana were legalised, among the measures to control the use should be "state sellers" and "state stores" where sales were regulated. It should not be sold in supermarkets nor advertised on TV or at sporting matches.

While Prof Room acknowledged many people would be "surprised" and even "bothered" by his stance, the statistics backed him up.

The controversial proposal comes as Melbourne continues to battle booze-fuelled violence, and alcohol-related hospital admissions soar for men and women.

aleks.devic@news.com.au




                    Watch News Video

ALCOHOLISM & Global Cannabis Studies completed

Undated - News - Pot Might Blunt Damage of Binge Drinking.
1979 - Study ~ Interaction of cannabidiol and alcohol in humans.
1980 - Study ~ Effect of Alcohol and Marihuana on Tobacco Smoking.
1984 - Study ~ Alcohol and marijuana: comparison of use and abuse in regular marijuana users.
1986 - Study ~ Concordant alcohol and marihuana use in women.
1988 - Study ~ Alcohol use, marihuana smoking, and sexual activity in women.
1992 - Study ~ Marihuana attenuates the rise in plasma ethanol levels in human subjects.
1994 - Study ~ Effects of Alcohol Pretreatment on Human Marijuana Self-administration.
2001- Study ~ Alcohol and marijuana: effects on epilepsy and use by patients with epilepsy.
2002 - Study ~ Association of a CB1 cannabinoid receptor gene (CNR1) polymorphism with severe alcohol dependence.
2003 - Study ~ Cannabis as a Substitute for Alcohol.
2003 - Study ~ Association between cannabinoid receptor gene (CNR1) and childhood attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in Spanish male alcoholic patients.
2003 - Study ~ Endocannabinoid signaling via cannabinoid receptor 1 is involved in ethanol preference and its age-dependent decline in mice.
2003 - Study ~ Cannabinoid Cb1 Receptor Knockout Mice Exhibit Markedly Reduced Voluntary Alcohol Consumption and Lack Alcohol-induced Dopamine Release in the Nucleus Accumbens.
2004 - Study ~ Overeating, Alcohol and Sucrose Consumption Decrease in Cb1 Receptor Deleted Mice.
2005 - Study ~ Comparison of Cannabidiol, Antioxidants, and Diuretics in Reversing Binge Ethanol-Induced Neurotoxicity.
2005 - Study ~ Ethanol Induces Higher Bec in Cb1 Cannabinoid Receptor Knockout Mice While Decreasing Ethanol Preference.
2005 - Study - Cannabidiol, Antioxidants, and Diuretics in Reversing Binge Ethanol-Induced Neurotoxicity.
2005 - Study - The endocannabinoid signaling system: a potential target for next-generation therapeutics for alcoholism.
2005 - Study - White Matter Integrity in Adolescents with Histories of Marijuana Use and Binge Drinking.
2005 - Study ~ Alcohol Consumption Moderates the Link Between Cannabis Use and Cannabis Dependence in an Internet Survey.
2005 - News - Role of cannabinoid receptors in alcohol abuse.
2006 - Study ~ Effects of Alcohol and Combined Marijuana and Alcohol Use During Adolescence on Hippocampal Volume and Asymmetry.
2006 - Study ~ In vivo effects of CB1 receptor ligands on lipid peroxidation and antioxidant defense systems in the rat brain of healthy and ethanol-treated rats.
2006 - Study ~ Confirming alcohol-moderated links between cannabis use and dependence in a national sample.
2007 - Study ~ The endocannabinoid signaling system: a potential target for next-generation therapeutics for alcoholism.
2007 - Study ~ Involvement of cannabinoid CB2 receptor in alcohol preference in mice and alcoholism in humans.
2008 - News ~ Report: Marijuana Less Harmful than Alcohol or Tobacco.
2009 - Study - Cannabis as a substitute for alcohol and other drugs.
2009 - Study - Daily marijuana users with past alcohol problems increase alcohol consumption during marijuana abstinence.
2009- Study ~ White Matter Integrity in Adolescents with Histories of Marijuana Use and Binge Drinking.
Posted by

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)