>Two articles.

Two litanies of lies, you mean.

>Time to rethink the cannabis law

Yes, cannabis should be legalized.

>Disturbing new research by eminent medical specialists - reported for the first
>time in the Mail today - reveals just how much damage cannabis can do to young
>people. 

No, it doesn't.

>It found that those who smoke the drug regularly at the age of 15 are more than
>four-and-a-half times more likely to be schizophrenic by their mid-20s than
>those who do not. 

So incipient schizophrenics are more likely to self-treat with cannabis.  This
is not big news.  Yawn.

>The reason for this, the researchers found, is that teenagers who use the drug
>risk boosting levels of dopamine in their brains, which are still developing -
>and this can lead directly to schizophrenia. 

Then why does the incidence of schizophrenia stay constant when the percentage
of users of cannabis changes?

>And the profound impact on mental health is as evident from a series of
>shocking high-profile cases as it is from the research. 

Anecdotal evidence is worth the paper it is printed on, no more.

>Just look at the lives that have already been destroyed. 

"Destroyed"?

>On Saturday the Mail showed how it fuelled the psychotic behaviour of mental
>patient John Barrett, who stabbed Denis Finnegan to death. 

No it didn't.  He stabbed Denis to death.  And he smoked pot.  No causal
connection between the two behaviors has been established.

>Cases linked to cannabis include the Scottish satanist Luke Mitchell who killed
>and mutilated his 14-year-old girlfriend. 

Again, someone who was troubled smoked pot.  No causal connection.

>Then there is Reece Wilson, a promising young golfer whose life slid
>disastrously downhill after he began to experiment with the drug at the age of
>14. 

Exactly how do we know his life slid downhill *after* he began using pot?
More likely the pot use was another symptom, not a cause.

For every one of these, we can find thousands of cases of people who smoke
pot who live perfectly boring lives and who never injure or kill anyone.

>Can there be more compelling evidence that this country will face a mental
>health timebomb if it does not make teenagers aware of the real risks of taking
>this drug? 

None of this evidence is compelling.  It is pure fear-mongering.

>And the only way to do this is for the Government, which has sometimes talked
>tough but invariably acted soft on drugs, to admit that it blundered by
>downgrading cannabis and reconsider the legislation. 

It didn't blunder.

>Cannabis: Linked to psychosis

Yes, but not as a causal factor.

I'm not going to quote the other article, since it is just as baseless as the
one above.

-Pete Zakel
 (phz@seeheader.nospam)

    They spell it "da Vinci" and pronounce it "da Vinchy".  Foreigners
    always spell better than they pronounce.
							-Mark Twain