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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Government stifles report that says it's safe: Cannabis Cover -Up
Sarah Stephens Daily Sport
Thursday 28 Mar 2002 HEALTH bosses have DELIBERATELY suppressed new evidence which PROVES cannabis is safer than fags or booze. The study, by the World Health Organisation (WHO), was the first to be carried out on cannabis in 15 years. EXPLOSIVE British doctors, scientists and specialists in drug abuse were eagerly awaiting it's publication. But the daily Sport can reveal that health officials have decided to sit on the politically explosive report instead. The amazing discovery that the truth has been hidden from the British public is revealed in leaked documents to the highly-respected New Scientists magazine. The WHO report, which should have been made public last December, concludes that cannabis does less harm than cigarettes or alcohol - even when taken in the same amounts. But insiders reveal that the findings were ditched at the last minute following a long and intense dispute between WHO officials, the cannabis experts who drafted the report and a group of external advisers. WHO claim the findings on cannabis were not included in their final report because the comparisons between booze and dope were "not reliable". But insiders say the comparison was "scientifically sound" and that WHO caved in to political pressure. It is understood that advisers from the US National Institute on Drug Abuse and the UN International Drug Control Programme warned scientists at WHO that it would play into the hands of groups campaigning to legalise marijuana. In five out of seven comparisons of long-term damage to health, cannabis came out better than alcohol. EVIDENCE The study found that while heavy boozing leads to severe brain injury, liver damage and an increased risk of accidents and suicide, there is no firm evidence that cannabis use has any bad effect on the brain or body whatsoever. One member of the expert panel which drafted the report says: "In the eyes of some, any such comparison is tantamount to an argument for marijuana legalisation." Another member, Billy Martin of the Medical College in Richmond, Virginia, says that some WHO officials "went nuts" when they saw the draft report. The leaked version of the excluded the section on cannabis states the reason for making the comparisons was "not to promote one drug over another but rather to minimise the double standards that have operated in appraising the health effects of cannabis."
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