who smokes a full pack of cigarettes every day.” While in certain places it is legally perscribed to people with many different types of cancer. The New scientist says, “A FRENCH government study has heaped fuel on the debate over the safety of cannabis by listing it as the least dangerous of all potentially addictive drugs. It also concludes that alcohol is among the most dangerous. The study, commissioned by French health minister Bernard Kouchner, was carried out by a panel of 10 French and foreign scientists headed by Bernard-Pierre Roques of the René Descartes University of Paris. The panel searched the scientific literatur

drivers had tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, in their bloodstream, Dr. Heishman said. One study showed that 32 percent of drivers in a shock trauma unit in Baltimore had marijuana in their bloodstream, he noted. However, in most of these studies, the majority of subjects who tested positive for THC also tested positive for alcohol, making it difficult to single out THC's effect on driving. In a laboratory study at NIDA's Addiction Research Center in Baltimore that controlled for

social hazard and its "very strong" addictiveness. In the middle category they placed stimulants such as amphetamines, hallucinogens and tobacco—largely because of its "very strong" addictiveness and toxicity. The authors point out that government’s base their decisions whether or not to prohibit a drug on its

performance. A series of surveys he conducted among 4,600 municipal employees in four cities in the Southwest indicated that 8 percent of employees had smoked marijuana in the past year, and a large percentage of these users had smoked marijuana in the past month, Dr. Lehman said. "Employees who report marijuana use are different from nonusers," said Dr. Lehman. They are much more likely than nonusers to have arrest histories, low self-esteem, high rates of depression, and friends who are deviant. Many marijuana smokers also have alcohol-related problems. One-third of marijuana users in the surveys reported they drank frequently, one-half said they got drunk, and 60 percent reported a problem with alcohol use, according to Dr. Lehman. This behavioral pattern in the personal backgrounds of marijuana-smoking employees was associated with negative attitudes toward work and job performance, Dr. Lehman said. The surveys found that marijuana users were less likely than nonusers to commit to the organization, had less faith in management, and experienced low job satisfaction. These workers reported more absenteeism, tardiness, accidents, workers' compensation claims, and job turnover than workers who had not used marijuana. They were also more likely to report to work with a hangover, miss work because of a hangover, and be drunk or use drugs at work. These data indicate that marijuana use is strongly associated with problematic alcohol use and a pattern of general deviance that leads to impaired behaviors and poor workplace performance, Dr. Lehman concluded.” It goes on to say, “Regular heavy marijuana use compromises the ability to learn and remember information primarily by impairing the ability to focus, sustain, and shift attention, says Dr. Harrison Pope, Jr., of McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, who directed the recent study. Noting that the actual ability to recall information remains relatively unaffected, Dr. Pope says, "If you could get heavy users to learn an item, then they could remember it; the problem was getting them to learn it in the first place." In thestudy conducted among college students, Dr. Pope and Dr. Deborah Yurgelun-Todd, also of McLean Hospital, tested the cognitive functioning of 65 heavy cannabis users, most of whom had smoked marijuana at least 27 out of the previous 30 days. The researchers compared the heavy users' cognitive functioning to that of a comparison group of 64 light users, most of whom had smoked marijuana on no more than 3 of the previous 30 days. Heavy users ranged in age from 18 to 24 years and light users from 18 to 28 years. The two groups were similar demographically and had comparable numbers of men and women. Subjects in both groups had smoked marijuana for at least 2 years, and none had smo

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