Research
Cannabis is a very widely used drug, both for medicinal and recreational purposes. This is a brief analysis of its health effects, both physical and mental, based on the available evidence. We would advise any reader that this research is in no way complete and recommend readers to further their research through the links we provide, books we recommend as well as doing their own research.
Where to start
The easiest way to assess a survey of the possible health implications of cannabis is to compare it to alcohol and tobacco, two other psychoactive drugs which are used by millions of people every day. Cannabis has much in common with both of these other drugs. Tobacco is usually smoked, and cannabis shares this method as its usual route of administration. Cannabis is also very like alcohol in being used for intoxicating and euphoric effects. This comparison serves the useful and necessary purpose of reminding us of the risks we currently tolerate with our most widely used psychoactive drugs.
There are some primary points, which everybody should be aware of:
- Cannabis is not a harm-free drug, but it is important to analyse its potential dangers whilst bearing in mind the substances which society already accepts, and often welcomes as socially beneficial. By far the most significant health problems associated with cannabis are the possibility of respiratory disorders similar to those already experienced by tobacco smokers.
- Cannabis use may exacerbate existing mental health problems, but it is not by any means clear that it will cause them.
- Despite a great deal of admirable research, and a mass of popular speculation, many of the other possible risks from using cannabis remain unproven or inconclusive.
- Policy makers must assess the likely health impact on the greatest number, because the nature of the evidence is inconclusive. This is largely because of the obvious difficulty of gathering reliable scientific evidence from a wide spectrum of the population about a controlled substance. Rather than extrapolating from individual case studies or those involving surveys with only small samples, laws should be formulated on the basis of the best available wide-ranging health surveys, which may well originate outside the United Kingdom.
- It seems safe to say that cannabis has far less dramatic health implications than alcohol, which has a host of health problems such as cirrhosis attendant upon it, and tobacco, which is a prime cause of cancer and is smoked by users in a far greater, addictive quantity than the average cannabis user. Since cannabis exposure became widespread in the 1960s, it has enjoyed a broadly favourable comparison with these legal intoxicants.
There is, unfortunately, a major difficulty inherent in assessing the value of the evidence gathered to date, most of which has come from America and, more recently, from Australia.
Firstly, the main psychoactive component of cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and apart from laboratory studies, it is difficult to ascertain the amount of THC consumed by cannabis users. Furthermore, cannabis is very often used with other substances, most commonly alcohol and tobacco, which may also have adverse effects on health and make it difficult to distinguish the effects of cannabis from those of these other substances. Perhaps more important than either of these, however, is the fact that the prohibited status of cannabis has made the collection of epidemiological ( i.e. pertaining to epidemics) evidence difficult. There is, therefore, a lack of controlled long-term studies, a situation not helped by intermittent, time-limited usage, with most users stopping in their mid to late twenties.
