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And if it was legalised, I imagine most employers would still refuse to employ declared cannabis users, and test for it in medicals.

And if it was legalised, I imagine most employers would still refuse to employ declared cannabis users, and test for it in medicals.

To clarify: if cannabis were to be produced to the standards that ensures food is fit for human consumption and is sold through certified outlets, would there still be significant complications arising from cannabis use?

If the addicts where you live are paying £5 per G on the puff and £50+ per G on the crack, then they are being SERIOUSLY ripped off.

Not forgetting that driving under the influence of drugs is also a licence bye-bye. Test kits will soon be widely available, and hair samples can be tested to establish use up to 3 months in the past.

Can the same honestly be said of cannabis, especially in view of many recent reports suggesting it is a major trigger of psychosis?

Are there significant complications arising from cannabis use now?
If so what?

..... turn into paranoid, drivelling wrecks after use...

The only reason alcohol and tobacco are legal is that they were in common use long before they were known to be dangerous.
Both have become part of the fabric of our society and it would be impossible to ban them.


As with alcohol and tobacco we tend to look at friends who use cannabis with no apparent harmful effects and use that as "evidence" that the stuff is safe.
We conviently forget about the alcoholics, the drink drivers, the pub fights, those who need liver transplants, the ones with heart disease or lung cancer etc because they don't fit our opinion.

I see the effects cannabis has on people in court and at work and have no doubts whatsoever that downgrading it to class C was a big mistake.

I would prefer the government to continue to persue the harder drugs and to take state ownership of cannabis. However, they would end up taxing it to the hilt as so many people would enjoy it and the government hates you to have anything you enjoy unless they can get at least 60% tax out of it.

If government did legalise cannabis and sell it like tobacco the people curently growing it and dealing it would continue to do so. Theirs wouldn't carry tax and would be cheaper.

result would probably be an increase in use as those who won't risk using it now due to the effects of a drugs conviction on their employment would be free to start.

If government did legalise cannabis and sell it like tobacco the people curently growing it and dealing it would continue to do so. Theirs wouldn't carry tax and would be cheaper.

result would probably be an increase in use as those who won't risk using it now due to the effects of a drugs conviction on their employment would be free to start.

I tend to believe that if cannabis was legalised many employers would be much more up-front over simply refusing to employ anyone who was a cannabis user.

Would that be legal though? Surely if someone's producing work to the required standard then what they do in their own time is their business. I was under the impression that the only reason that drug testing was allowed was because the drugs were illegal.

Then again, it seems to be the case that employers can discriminate on the basis of whatever they want until it is specifically made illegal to do so, so perhaps they would be able to. I'm certainly no expert, but I think it would be unfair for companies to do what Peter says (and they may well be shooting themselves in the foot if they refuse to take on an excellent worker just because they partake).

We should stop pretending that personal use is a "big deal" when no-one actually thinks it is.

I found that report slightly confusing in that it said people who smoked cannabis were far more likely to suffer from a psychotic disease, but it also said the number of psychotic diseases per unit population had remained the same for 30 years.

That implies to me a 'chicken and egg' relationship, i.e. perhaps people with a predisposition to psychotic diseases also have a predisposition to experiment with drugs.

Alcohol and tobacco can be dangerous but neither causes this sort of life long, life wrecking disease, so young with such little use.

Cannabis harm worse than tobacco

A single cannabis joint could damage the lungs as much as smoking up to five tobacco cigarettes one after another, scientists in New Zealand have said.
The research, published in the journal Thorax, found cannabis damaged the large airways in the lungs causing symptoms such as coughing and wheezing.

It also damaged the ability of the lungs to get oxygen to, and remove waste products from tissues.

Experts say the study confirms that the drug represents a serious health risk.

In the study researchers from the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand, Wakefield Hospital and the Wellington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, studied 339 volunteers.

They took CT scans of their lungs and tested their lung function through breathing tests to assess their lung damage.

Participants were divided into four groups - cannabis smokers, combined cannabis and tobacco smokers, tobacco smokers, and non-smokers, and gave them a questionnaire on their smoking habits.

Cannabis smokers were included if they had smoked at least one joint per day for at least five years, while tobacco smokers had to have smoked 20 cigarettes per day for one year.

Cannabis smokers reported symptoms such as wheezing, coughing, chest tightness and excessive phlegm production.

The drug also reduced the numbers of small, fine airways that transport oxygen and waste products to and from blood vessels in the lungs.

And it damaged the function of the large airways of the lungs, obstructing air flow and forcing the lungs to work harder, so contributing to symptoms such as coughing, and the development of bronchitis.

The extent of this large airway damage was directly related to the number of joints smoked - the more joints smoked, the more damage was seen.

However, in this study, people who smoked only cannabis were not found to suffer from emphysema, a serious and crippling lung disease which was previously thought to be linked to the drug.

Impact

The authors said: "The most important finding was that one joint of cannabis was similar to 2.5 to five tobacco cigarettes in terms of causing airflow obstruction.

They said the impact of cannabis was likely to be due to the way in which cannabis joints are smoked - joints do not usually have filters, and they reach higher temperatures with users inhaling more deeply and holding their breath for longer than cigarette smokers.

The British Lung Foundation welcomed the research, and Dr Keith Prowse, chairman of the foundation said: "This research confirms that cannabis poses a serious health risk to the lungs, and smoking a joint can be more harmful to the lungs than smoking a cigarette.

"It's important to remember, though, that tobacco continues to be more harmful overall because it is typically smoked in much higher quantities than cannabis."

The warnings come after recent research suggested cannabis smokers were 40% more likely than non-users to suffer psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia.