Only dopes call it dope!

I know it's been sometime since you wrote this ridiculous
article but after just finding it today and reading it, it truly amazes me how
1937 style propaganda still lives and breathes stronger than ever in our
society delivered in such ignorant articles as yours and the right wing Sun
Media.You say you couldn't care less about a Canadian being thrown into an
American prison, well then why bother writing about it? Cause you do what you’re
told right? Can't write about the fact that Canadians are being policed by
Americans or other important issues like that, yet you have no problem telling
lies and age old propaganda.
Too bad Canadians
don't put the money, passion and drive to eradicate a medicinal plant into
actually solving crimes and arresting actual violent people like child and
human sex trafficers, rapists, serial killers, violent drunks, murders, you
know back to protecting children like the pot law was supposed to do in the
first place. How many little boys and girls have been molested, sexually abused
or raped by a drunk uncle, dad, or grandfather, neighbor or family friend? Yet
you’re going to make it sound like adults that smoke pot are smoking up with
their children and raiding the fridge because of munchies...hahaha...now that's
moronic! It's a medicinal plant and even the Conservative government still give
out medical marijuana cards, so who's the moronic dope now, that would be you.
Yes I take offense to being called a moron just because I smoke pot.

Fact, the drug alcohol kills more teens than any other drug
legal or illegal.
Fact, 300% more people die of prescribed prescription pills
than all illegal chemical drugs combined and that's not even counting the
underground black market but we sure don't hear Canadian journalists reporting
on that. You just keep making these ridiculous claims without any actual proof.
Propaganda-It's powerful on small minded idiots that don't question anything.
Fact, Canadians spend more on marijuana arrests than all
violent crimes combined. You know what that is...completely stupid!
Btw, when did you study smoke and become a smoke expert? Would love to hear that story sometime.

Anyway Mr. Coren, if you have the courage to read on, you
will learn that not only does marijuana smoke either have a neutral or positive
effect on the lungs it has 100’s of other medicinal properties dating back to
the beginning of time. Dr. Donald Tashkin, UCLA, M.D., for the past38 years the
U.S. government's and the world's leading marijuana researcher on pulmonary
functions, strictly lungs and cannabis for over 38 years. So no matter what you
say Mr. Coren a simple 2-5 year study showing the negative effects of marijuana
means nothing to people like me because we all know that an expert is much more
credible then some biased doctor that is putting his negative spin on his
marijuana study just to give his career a boost either financially or
politically.

Cannabis has either a positive or neutral effect in most
areas of the lung, 1967-97; UCLA Pulminary studies.

In 1976, Dr. Tashkin, M.D., UCLA, sent a written report to
Dr. Gabriel Nahas at the Rheims, France, Conference on “Potential Cannabis
Medical Dangers.” That report became the most sensationalized story to come out
of this negative world conference on cannabis.

This surprised Tashkin, who had sent the report to the
Rheims conference as an afterthought.

What Tashkin reported to the Rheims conference was that only
one of the 29 pulmonary areas of the human lung studied the large air
passageway Did he find marijuana to be more of an irritant (by 15 times) than
tobacco. This figure is insignificant, however, since Tashkin also notes that
tobacco has almost no effect on this area. Therefore, 15 times almost nothing
is still almost nothing. In any event, cannabis has a positive or neutral
effect in most other areas of the lung. (See Chapter 7, “Therapeutic Uses of
Cannabis.”)

(Tashkin, Dr. Donald, UCLA studies, 1969-83; UCLA Pulmonary
Studies, 1969-95.)

Afterwards in 1977, the U.S. government resumed funding for
ongoing cannabis pulmonary studies which it had cut two years earlier when
Tashkin reported encouraging therapeutic results with marijuana/lung studies.
But now the government limited funding only to research to the large air
passageway.

We have interviewed Dr. Tashkin dozens of times. In 1986 I
asked him about an article he was preparing for the New England Journal of
Medicine, indicating that cannabis smoke caused as many or more pre-cancerous
lesions as tobacco in “equal” amounts.

Most people do not realize, nor are the media told, that any
tissue abnormality (abrasion, eruption, or even redness) is called a
pre-cancerous lesion. Unlike lesions caused by tobacco, the THC-related lesions
contain no radioactivity.

We asked Tashkin how many persons had gone on to get lung
cancer in these or any other studies of long-term cannabis-only smokers
(Rastas, Coptics, etc.)

Sitting in his UCLA laboratory, Dr. Tashkin looked at me and
said, “That’s the strange part. So far no one we’ve studied has gone on to get
lung cancer.”

“Was this reported to the press?”

“Well, it’s in the article,” Dr. Tashkin said. “But no one
in the press even asked. They just assumed the worst.” His answer to us was
still that not one single case of lung cancer in someone who only smoked
cannabis has ever been reported. It should be remembered that he and other
doctors had predicted 20 years ago, their certainty that hundreds of thousands
of marijuana smokers would by now (1997) have developed lung cancer.

Why no Sun Media articles about the facts and the truth?

Marijuana Produces brain cells.


University of Saskatchewan Research Suggests Marijuana
Analogue Stimulates Brain Cell Growth

ScienceDaily (Oct. 16, 2005)— A synthetic substance similar
to ones found in marijuana stimulates cell growth in regions of the brain
associated with anxiety and depression, pointing the way for new treatments for
these diseases, according to University of Saskatchewan medical research
published today in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Xia Zhang, an associate professor in the U of S
neuropsychiatry research unit, led the team that tested the effects of HU-210,
a potent synthetic cannabinoid similar to a group of compounds found in
marijuana. The synthetic version is about 100 times as powerful as THC, the
compound responsible for the high experienced by recreational users.

The team found that rats treated with HU-210 on a regular
basis showed neurogenesis – the growth of new brain cells in the hippocampus.
This region of the brain is associated with learning and memory, as well as
anxiety and depression.

The effect is the opposite of most legal and illicit drugs
such as alcohol, nicotine, heroin, and cocaine.

“Most ‘drugs of abuse’ suppress neurogenesis,” Zhang says.
“Only marijuana promotes neurogenesis.”

Current theory states that depression may be sparked when
too few new brain cells are grown in the hippocampus. It is unclear whether
anxiety is part of this process, but if true, HU-210 could offer a treatment
for both mood disorders by stimulating the growth of new brain cells.

But Zhang cautions that HU-210 is only one of many
cannabinoids. His previous work with marijuana shows that while the plant may
contain medicinal compounds, they come in the same package as those that cause
symptoms such as acute memory impairment, addiction, and withdrawal. Also, the
HU-210 used in the study is highly purified.

“This is a very potent cannabinoid oil,” Zhang says. “It’s
not something that would be available on the street.”

Marijuana has been used for recreational and medicinal
purposes for centuries, evoking public interest and controversy along the way.
As a medicine, the plant is used to ease pain in multiple sclerosis patients,
combat nausea in cancer patients, and stimulate appetite in people afflicted
with AIDS. It has also been used to treat epilepsy and stroke.

Zhang’s work is the latest product of the U of S Neural
Systems and Plasticity Research Group
(http://www.usask.ca/neuralsystems/group.htm), a multidisciplinary effort by
researchers from the Colleges of Arts and Science, Engineering, Kinesiology,
Medicine, Pharmacy and Nutrition, and Veterinary Medicine. The group
collaborates to study the function of neural systems, from nerves to brain, in
living organisms. In particular, they look at how these systems change over
time with experience.

Zhang’s research is supported by a grant from the Canadian
Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), as well as a CIHR New Investigator Award.
The Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation provided funding support to
establish the Neural Systems and Plasticity Research Group, as well as
post-doctoral fellowship awards to research team members Wen Jiang and Shao-Ping
Ji.

Again, why no front page articles about this break through?

Another Fact:
Emphysema Sufferers Benefit


During a later interview, Tashkin congratulated me on the
tip I’d given him that marijuana used for emphysema produced good results among
persons we knew.

He laughed at me originally, because he had presumed that
marijuana aggravated emphysema, but after reviewing his evidence found that,
except in the rarest of cases, marijuana was actually of great benefit to
emphysema suffers due to the opening and dilation of the bronchial passages.

And so the relief reported to us by cannabis smoking
emphysema patients was confirmed.

Marijuana smoke is not unique in its benefits to the lungs.
Yerba Santa, Colt’s foot, Horehound, and other herbs have traditionally been
smoked to help the lungs.

Tobacco and its associated dangers have so prejudiced
persons against “smoking” that most persons believe cannabis smoking to be as
or more dangerous than tobacco. With research banned, these public health and safety
facts are not readily available.

In December 1997, we asked Dr. Tashkin again, and he
unequivocally stated that “marijuana does not cause or potentiate emphysema in
any way.” In addition, there has not been one case of lung cancer ever
attributed to smoking cannabis.

. . . And So On

Most of the anti-marijuana literature we have examined does
not cite as much as one single source for us to review. Others only refer to
DEA or NIDA. The few studies we have been able to track down usually end up
being anecdotal case histories, artificial groupings of data, or otherwise
lacking controls and never replicated.

Reports of breast enlargement, obesity, addiction, and the
like all remain unsubstantiated, and are given little credence by the
scientific community. Other reports, like the temporary reduction in sperm
count, are statistically insignificant to the general public, yet get blown far
out of proportion when presented by the media. Still others, like the handful
of throat tumors in the Sacramento area and the high rate of injuries reported
in a Baltimore trauma unit are isolated clusters that run contrary to all other
statistics and have never been replicated.

So Mr. Coren, if you had the courage and brain cells to read
this please tell me your medical back ground and degrees and how such credible
world renowned doctor's could possibly be saying exactly opposite of your age
old reefer madness dribble?

Sincerely,

Mike Krahn