MARIJUANA BOOK SPARKS DEBATE

New York

It’s the exact opposite advice one would expect from a parent, doctor or teacher about smoking marijuana. However, a new book by two city university professors concludes that smoking marijuana is not harmful, and doesn’t make users, including college-aged students, unmotivated.

Columbia University Medical School Professor John P. Morgan, M.D. said, "Marijuana has some dangers but the dangers that young people have been told for a decade are not true."

Claiming the book, Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts, is scientifically sound, Prof. Morgan and co-author Lynn Zimmer, Ph.D., a sociology professor at Queens College, write, "Even long-term high-dose marijuana use is not harmful to the brain. Marijuana use during pregnancy does not damage the fetus. There is nothing about marijuana that causes people to lose drive and ambition. Marijuana does not cause crime."

"The drug comes to the brain, binds itself to the brain, exerts its affect and leaves and probably causes no long-term damage," Prof. Zimmer said. "There’s no evidence that occasional use impairs people ability to be good people, good parents, good citizens, productive workers."

But on that, and the issue of marijuana and crime, the book was denounced by long time narcotics officer turned New York City Police Commissioner Howard Safir.

"There’s no doubt marijuana leads to trouble and I can show you 10 books that prove that for every one like the one you just showed me," he said. (Ed. note: I think that the Commissioner may be taking the term "weight of the argument a bit too literally. Nor is "how the evidence stacks up measured with a tape measure.) "The fact that these two professors are teachers leads me to wonder if they are fit to be leading a classroom."

However, Prof. Zimmer maintained, "I think most people use marijuana in a responsible way."

The authors said the book would not have been possible without city university’s help. It was researched at taxpayers’ expense. Prof. Zimmer was granted a year’s sabbatical with pay and given an award from the president’s office, an additional six months to work on the book.