This letter is absolute nonsense. These are the ramblings of a delusional denier of science and evidence. It is appalling that the Scotsman should choose to give this space to what is dangerous and irresponsible misinformation.
There is no "epidemic of paranoid schizophrenia". This is a lie. Schizophrenia rates have in fact been falling for the last 50 years.
There is no evidence of any teenage suicide being "directly traced to cannabis use". On the contrary, cannabis has been used as an antidepressant for thousands of years. Furthermore the disastrous introduction of the anti-obesity drug rimonabant , a CB1 receptor blocker, led to a dramatic increase in suicides amongst users. The way rimonabant works is as "anti-cannabis" proving the very positive, life enhancing and homeostasis promoting nature of cannabis.
Cannabis does not "desensitise users". It does exactly the opposite, enhancing the senses. This is why people use it for pleasure.
There is no evidence of cannabis users performing "acts of appalling violence without concern", nor of aggression when ceasing use.
Cannabis is not addictive in the way that people understand the word as is the case with heroin or alcohol. There are no serious withdrawal symptoms or threat to life from ceasing use which is what drives drug addicts to commit crime or violence. However, approximately 9% of cannabis users exhibit signs of a very mild dependency. Prevalence and withdrawal symptoms are equivalent to caffeine dependence. (Hall et al 2001, Coffey et al 2002, Copeland et al 2004, DSM-IV)
There is no evidence of cannabis causing "huge mood swings in users".
There are no "extra strong hallucinogenic strains now being used." Although average THC content has increased two or three fold over the last 30 years, there have always been stronger varieties available and there has been no increase in mental health problems correlating with the change in average THC levels. In fact, users tend to use less of a stronger product just as no one drinks pints of whisky.
There is no evidence that cannabis "demotivates at even low levels of use".
There is evidence that cannabis smoke contains more tar and carcinogens than tobacco but the largest case control study of its type (Tashkin 2006) showed that cannabis provides a protective effect against the carcinogenic effects of tobacco and those who smoke neat cannabis develop fewer cancers than those who smoke nothing at all. These results were confirmed by a 20 year longitudinal study reported in the AMA Journal in January 2012 which showed that even long term heavy use provided no reduction in or harm to lung function.
There is no evidence of cannabis use being linked as a causal factor to "bowel and testicular cancer in young men.".
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and freedom of expression is a fundamental right. However, it is deeply irresponsible of the Scotsman to provide space for this dangerous and wholly false nonsense.
