DRUG STUDY FINDS MARIJUANA “MILD”

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31863, 16 December 1968, Page 17

DRUG STUDY FINDS MARIJUANA “MILD”

(N. Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) NEW YORK, Dec. 15. A Boston research team that has carried out the most carefully controlled study to date, on the physical and psychological effects of smoking marijuana, has concluded that the drug is a “relatively mild intoxicant with minor real, short-lived effects.” Only one of nine young men who had never before smoked marijuana got "high” after smoking a high dose of the drug in a laboratory. However, all nine experienced a small but significant impairment of their ability to think clearly, and of their motor co-ordination. On the other hand, eight chronic users of marijuana did get “high” on the same dose, but did not suffer any impairment of performance in the laboratory tests. A member of the research team said that after smoking marijuana, subjects tended to talk more about their immediate surroundings than

[about their past, when asked to recall a past experience. They also had difficulty maintaining a logical line of thought The team takes its findings to indicate that marijuana has a greater effect on the higher brain centres—those controlling thinking, perception and moods—than on the lower brain centres, which control reflexes and co-ordin-ation. “Medically, it’s quite harmless,” a member of the team said. "It’s not like alcohol, which can seriously injure, even kill, you. But I would not minimise the effects of marijuana on brain function.” He said that the effects of smoking a marijuana cigarette were greatly diminished after one hour, and completely dissipated after three hours.

Fire In Hospital.—Fifty patients were evacuated as fires destroyed the top floor of a wing at St Luke’s Hospital, King’s Cross, today. A fireman was the only casualty —Sydney. December 15.