See High Anxieties -- What the WHO Doesn't Want You To Know About
Cannabis -- New Scientist Special Report
February 21, 1998
This is so intellectually pathetic that it needs little
comment. In fact, it is really both embarrassing and frightening to think that a statement
like this could emanate from an organization ostensibly in charge of something as
important as "world health." The study in question compared marijuana with
alcohol and tobacco. It did not say that it was "harmless." Saying that
"cannabis is dangerous to health because it causes mind-altering activities in
users," ignores the point of the suppressed study. Rather, it makes an argument
that may or may not be valid, but again does not address the point in question.
Saying that the dangers of cannabis are "obvious" flies in the face of the
scientific method. Always, as in the suppressed study, "danger" is a relative
term, not absolute. What is really "obvious" here is, that the WHO does not need
anything to impair its intellectual capacities. The corruption of the prohibitionist
ideology is even more corrosive of the mental processes than one can readily imagine.
February 20, 1998
Cannabis Obvious Threat To Health, World
Health Organization Says
GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization insisted yesterday that cannabis is a
public health threat.
"It is obvious that the use of cannabis causes a number of
health problems and that an increase in its use would make the situation worse," a
WHO statement said.
It was defending itself against accusations that it suppressed a report that found
cannabis safer than alcohol or tobacco.
Britain's New Scientist magazine said Wednesday that WHO officials in Geneva suppressed
a comparison study of cannabis and legal substances because they feared it would give
ammunition to the "legalize marijuana" campaign.
Instead, WHO said it dropped the analysis because it contained contradictions and
conclusions were not scientifically sound."
Tokuo Yoshida, in charge of narcotic drugs at the WHO, said cannabis is dangerous to
health because it causes mind-altering activities in users.
"Cannabis is milder than LSD, of course," he said. "But
it must not be used because it changes your judgement and thinking."
According to New Scientist, which published a special report on marijuana Wednesday, a
leaked document about the analysis concluded that the drug posed less of a public health
threat than alcohol or cigarettes, even if people consumed it on the same scale.
The magazine said researchers had found marijuana smoke did not lead to blocked airways
or emphysema or impact on lung function and it was less addictive than alcohol or
cigarettes.
Supported