WEED MYTHS EXPOSED

Because the government has always been so vocally against cannabis and the growth of marijuana seeds, quite a lot of myths and legends have sprung up around the drug to make it seem more dangerous. Here’s some of the more memorable myths related to marijuana:

Marijuana is a Gateway Drug

What we have here is a lazy interpretation of statistics. This misnomer is based on the fact that cannabis is the most popular illegal drug around, and as such the people who have used the less popular, harder drugs are likely to have tried marijuana as well.

If you’re still in doubt about this one, consider this: since cannabis was partially legalised in Holland in the 1970s, usage of heroin and cocaine have dropped substantially. If cannabis were a gateway drug, then the legalisation of it would cause an increase in these harder drugs, not a drop!

Cannabis is a More Dangerous Drug than Tobacco

While it’s true that smoked cannabis contains around the same number of carcinogens as a similar amount of smoked tobacco, this is a pointless comparison because of the relative usage. While a heavy smoker may easily work their way through 10-20 cigarettes in a day (and often significantly more), it’s very rare to find anyone who smokes marijuana in quantities even approaching that.

A 1997 UCLA study backs this up further, and states that even prolonged heavy marijuana use causes no serious lung damage. Meat, salt and dairy products present a bigger cancer risk than the humble joint, and for those who are still worried remember that all cancer and respiratory risks can be sidestepped by taking cannabis in baked goods!

Cannabis Contains Over 400 Chemicals, Which Proves it’s Dangerous

This is a half truth – yes, cannabis can contain this many chemicals, but this is very much a scare number. Not all chemicals are deadly, and to put this into perspective coffee contains 1,500 chemicals, while rat poison contains just 30. The take home message of this? The number of chemicals in a product has no relation as to how dangerous it is!

The Slang Term ‘420’ Comes From Police Codes

This is just plain wrong. 420 (pronounced “Four-Twenty”) is not police radio code for anything, and is not related to penal code. Nor is it because of Hitler’s birthday (April 4th), the date of the Columbine school shootings (this was terminology years before then) or based on the number of active chemicals in marijuana. The term actually comes from San Rafael High School in the 1970s, where some of the students would meet up at 4:20pm after class. The code was developed so they could talk openly about their plans without alerting their parents to their drug use!

Nowadays the code is so well known that this won’t work as a strategy. Some people use the term “420 friendly” to show their acceptance of marijuana use, and April 20th has become National Pot Smoker’s Day in homage to the students – who are now in their 50s.

Cannabis Damages the Brain/Reproductive System/Immune System

All of these claims have been levelled at cannabis on the back of some fairly shaky science. Let’s tackle these one by one:


* The brain damage accusation was the result of an experiment by Dr Robert Heath from the late 1970s. It claims to demonstrate brain damage in rhesus monkeys as a consequence of marijuana. It was however reviewed by a distinguished panel of scientists in 1982 and was found to have severe weaknesses: the sample was too small (just four monkeys), it failed to control experimental bias and crucially misidentifying a normal monkey brain structure as damaged! Subsequent studies have shown no evidence of brain damage.



* The claim that marijuana damages the reproductive system is based on two bits of research – one based on isolated tissue cells in petri dishes, and the other based on animal research. Both are invalid – the scientific community has stated that isolated cells cannot be compared to full human beings, and the animals in question were given near-lethal dosages of cannabinoids – far more than one would get from a ‘normal’ dose. Further to this, the animals that didn’t die in the testing returned to normal within 30 days. Suffice it to say, no studies of actual human populations have demonstrated any evidence of this!



* The immune system myth has the same problems as the reproductive ones – animals were given close to lethal dosages of cannabinoids making comparisons invalid. In fact, a couple of studies undertaken in 1978 showed that cannabis and hashish may actually boost the immune system in some!

People Have Died as a Direct Consequence of Cannabis Abuse

Not true. Scientists have carried out experiments on animals, and the results show you would need an extraordinarily high dosage of cannabis to be lethal. In fact, the amount of cannabinoids required to get a person stoned relative to the amount needed to kill is around 1:40,000. To put this into everyday sense, you would need to consume 40,000 times as much cannabis as would get you stoned to have a lethal dosage.

Let’s put this into further into perspective. Alcohol’s relative intoxication to death ratio is between 1:4 and 1:10. No wonder alcohol is responsible for the deaths of more than 5,000 people every year.

Cannabis is More Potent Today Than in the Past

This is a common myth based on bad data. The researchers who made these claims measured the THC content of marijuana seized in the early 70s, but fail to take into account the poor storage of the samples in question, which will have lead to a decline in its potency before any tests could be undertaken. Independent assessments on unseized street cannabis from the 1970s shows the potency is roughly the same as it has ever been.

These are far from the only myths around cannabis, and the drug is sure to attract more in the future. Remember, if it sounds dubious then look up the facts yourself. The old adage of “don’t believe everything you read” should apply doubly when dealing with facts about cannabis and marijuana seeds.