Philosophy Now Forum

I must admit that the plethora of research findings these days regarding pot consumption’s effect on human health that ‘reveal’ a benign or, contrarily, insidious nature to cannabis consumption make me instinctually wonder: Who commissioned the research? As cynical as it may sound, I’m one who believes that quite often knowing the interests of the entity who has commissioned the research quite often reveal much about the research ‘findings’ to come.
The commissioner and news-media will likely use the terms “independent” or “independently commissioned,” but such doesn’t necessarily translate into 100 percent accuracy; questions asked and/or research methodology can be quite manipulative.
However, there are very rare knowledgeable public figures who, in my view, can be taken at face value: scientist David Suzuki, while having publicly voiced his support for legalizing cannabis consumption also voiced his concern over increased cases of severe mental illness—most notably severe schizophrenia—due to significantly genetically-enhanced THC concentration levels.
Regardless of how one feels about his views on such a sacred cow topic as marijuana, Suzuki is one very active citizen who truly cannot be simply, conveniently dismissed as naught but an ideologue, demagogue or worse, an opportunistic politician or activist news-media.

Don't know about the guy you mentioned, a bit more context and perhaps a reference would help expand on his role in the subject, but I'm personally also rather sceptical about studies in cannabis because everything in the world is dangerous to some degree, even water, there is such a thing as too much water (ruining your body with thinning out the blood for instance, see link for a reference to a study among athletes who develop a condition of "hyponatremia" - "dilution of the blood caused by drinking too much water") and even water intoxication (http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... r-can-kill).

Therefore, I'd like to see cannabis compared with other types of food and drink and pleasure consumables (including unrestricted "medical drugs") so that whatever bad things cannabis can do to you can be compared to bad things other things do.

People can ruin their health by eating/drinking too much sugar or eat too little vitamin, that's common knowledge, and it's very easy to do, so my question is: is cannabis really more dangerous to us than too much or too little of other ordinary stuff? It needs a good context, with unbiased people, people who really do care about finding the truth, an expanded context, I'd say I prefer a context in which cannabis is not the main target even but a range of products... maybe call it a "comparative study in general and non-general goods on the long-term negative after-effects of consumption and deprivation" with a broad and largely encompassing diversity of people, wares and versions of wares with the goal of creating clear diagrams and a large amount of freely usable data.

FrankGSterleJr wrote:I must admit that the plethora of research findings these days regarding pot consumption’s effect on human health that ‘reveal’ a benign or, contrarily, insidious nature to cannabis consumption make me instinctually wonder: Who commissioned the research? As cynical as it may sound, I’m one who believes that quite often knowing the interests of the entity who has commissioned the research quite often reveal much about the research ‘findings’ to come.
The commissioner and news-media will likely use the terms “independent” or “independently commissioned,” but such doesn’t necessarily translate into 100 percent accuracy; questions asked and/or research methodology can be quite manipulative.
However, there are very rare knowledgeable public figures who, in my view, can be taken at face value: scientist David Suzuki, while having publicly voiced his support for legalizing cannabis consumption also voiced his concern over increased cases of severe mental illness—most notably severe schizophrenia—due to significantly genetically-enhanced THC concentration levels.
Regardless of how one feels about his views on such a sacred cow topic as marijuana, Suzuki is one very active citizen who truly cannot be simply, conveniently dismissed as naught but an ideologue, demagogue or worse, an opportunistic politician or activist news-media.

As to schizophrenia, as a result of cannabis use, how could one possibly know that it's the case?