Cannabis Chronicles

Would you believe that the author of a critically flawed study on Cannabis “addiction” came to the Cannabis Chronicles to comment on our criticism?

Here’s the full exchange - culled from the comments section and brought right out to the main pages of our humble blog, lest they be missed by our readers.

Here’s the exchange . . .

rvandrey said

January 25 2008 @ 11:13 am · Edit

As the author of the paper I feel like I should at least comment on your take of my research so others are not similarly confused. First by saying that this absolutely is science. I’m not sure why you chose to emphasize that the study is based on participant “self-reports”. How else would you expect people to indicate how they are feeling? If you would like to read the actual research report, rather than just the press release, I will be happy to send it to you.

While there were only 12 participants in this study, we and others have repeatedly demonstrated in several controlled studies involving hundreds of study participants that a reliable and valid withdrawal syndrome does occur in SOME heavy marijuana users when they quit abruptly. We readily acknowledge that MOST people who use marijuana, whether for medical or recreational reasons, have not such problems. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that some do and it is very difficult for them to quit.

I will close by attaching comments I received via e-mail this morning in response to the article from someone who just quit long-term daily use of marijuana and tobacco. “I’ve been up since 3, and its been this way for weeks, lots of sweating at night, vivid dreams and so on. Major sleep deprivation that I treat by sleeping 2x per day for 3 hours + small naps and 10 km daily jog with heavy workout. Very rough. I am 44 years old, and the habits have been going on for years. Apart from lack of sleep, and hunger cravings, there is also sudden onset of constipation. This is actually the most distressing aspect, for me at least. I have tried to quit many times, sometimes only cigarettes, other times only cannabis. Any hard-core smoker will say the two go together and they just aren’t the same on their own.”

Your interest in research related to marijuana and that you share this type of thing on a public forum is great. In most cases I would leave your comments alone, but I have to admit I take some offense to being told my research represents a “new low” for medical research…

and our response . . . btw - feel free to send the full text of your report to our email - three_little_birds@hushmail.com - we’ll even publish it here if you give us permission so EVERYBODY can read it for themselves . . .

Thank you for your comment. We are actually impressed that you took the time to visit our blog and comment on our “take” on the media coverage of your report. That doesn’t mean we’re going to back away from our position, because we believe we are defending the truth, and we honestly feel you are distorting reality at the behest of individuals intent on furthering the misguided war on drugs.

When we are confronted by stories in the media that report the exact opposite of our personal experience, we can’t help but wonder who’s trying to fool whom. Let’s start with OUR personal experience here at the “bird’s nest”, and BTW - please feel free to add this “self reporting” to your study - if you dare!! Here’s a testimonial . . .

I’ve quit smoking marijuana before, after extremely heavy use, and I’ve quit smoking cigarettes after 15 years of 1+ pack a day use. I can tell you from my experience that there’s no comparison. Nicotine causes clear physical addiction, by the classic definition of the term “addiction” - it’s as addictive as heroin or cocaine in every study we’ve seen, some state it’s more addicting.

Cannabis, in some instances, can cause a psychological dependency, which is clearly different from a physical addiction. The fact that cannabis / THC primary active components are fat soluble, the likelihood of any true physical withdrawal symptoms are actually pretty remote, a regular cannabis user will test positive for more than a month after quitting all use. There’s no “withdrawal” as there might be with physically addicting drugs like heroin, nicotine, or even caffeine.
FOGHORN

In the end, with all due respect sir, we think “science” is not well served by individuals willing to report what the government wants to hear. We believe your study is PSEUDOSCIENCE - and we can’t believe anyone with a PhD would even dare defend a study based on the experience of a mere 12 people. There are three people here at the “bird’s nest” who can report experiences quite different from what your study attempts to portray as “truth”.

As we said before, when we are confronted by stories in the media that report the exact opposite of our personal experience, we can’t help but wonder who’s trying to fool whom.

We won’t get fooled again, but then again, we aren’t getting paid tax dollars to produce evidence that forwards a misguided governmental policy. No sir, that’s a description of you! If our article was insulting to you sir, it’s because it was meant to be, it’s our opinion that individuals who report pseudoscience actually sacrifice their professional integrity on the alter of a dark Goddess.

Again we’ll ask that you expand your study to include 15 individuals, and report that a large percentage of heavy smokers of both pot and marijuana also report an extreme difference in effect when quitting either tobacco or cannabis - the difference is like night and day.

Please feel free use our experience to amend your study - call it “self reporting” - if you will. Considering that the experience of the 3 individuals here actually represents a 25% proportion of your original pool, could it do anything but help improve your accuracy

And come visit a few cannabis message boards and you’ll find hundreds of people who could report experiences similar to ours. Take a little time to do a real survey sir, and we’re quite positive you’ll be forced to report different results!

EDIT - We’ve been contacted by a number of our regular readers with encouragement etc, and it seems that there’s also a bit of curiosity still in regard to your study . . .

Folks really want to know how much you got paid to do this wonderfully “scientific” study of 12 individuals. With that in mind, our question is simple . . .

Was it more or less than 30 pieces of silver?