Originally published February 11 2014
Marijuana legalization leads to fewer suicides
by L.J. Devon, Staff Writer
(NaturalNews) In a culture so saturated in chemicals and synthetics, pesticides and plastics, fragrances and heavy metals, it can be very easy for a person to accumulate a toxic overload in the body and not even know it.
Environmental toxins wearing people thin
This toxic overload shows up in people's facial expressions, speech and overall mood. Heavy metals like aluminum, mercury and cadmium affect the brain in harmful ways. Synthetics like bisphenol A disrupt metabolism and hormone levels, disturbing harmony in the body. Neurotoxins like aspartame, found in many diet products, excite neuron cells to their death. Synthetic fragrances often give people headaches and migraines. Pesticides are also hazardous formulations, as sprayers must protect themselves with protective gear. Consumers don't realize how much of these chemicals are contained in residues on their store-bought food. Plastics can leech into food and water as well.
As people struggle to cope with environmental toxins building up inside them, they can become irritable, slow to learn and slow to react, with memory loss, depression, loss of identity and even suicidal thoughts. These behavioral trends are easy to observe in society and are aggravated by environmental and food toxicity accumulated in the body, which affects normal processes.
While it's important to detoxify from these everyday pollutants, a new study shows that the Cannabis sativa herb can help people cope with life's stressors, leading to lower suicide rates. A team of researchers collected data from all 50 states in the US and found that states allowing medical marijuana have a much lower suicide rate.
Where psychotropic medications cause suicide, marijuana can help reduce those rates
This is good news for those who struggle to cope using psychotropic prescription medications. While trying to manage anxiety and depression, many of these pharmaceutical drugs actually lead users to dependency and even suicide, as listed as one of many harmful side effects of these drugs.
The roles are being reversed as the majority now realizes that marijuana isn't the the gateway drug or the big bad wolf that it had been made out to be. Many now see that psychotropics are the real drugs that should be eradicated, as they are responsible for causing violent and suicidal behavior.
Economists Dr. Mark Anderson, PhD; Daniel I. Rees, PhD; and Joseph J. Sabia, PhD, worked together to obtain state-level suicide data from the National Vital Statistics System's Mortality Detail Files between 1990 and 2007. Applying regression analysis, the team examined associations between a state's medical marijuana legalization status and suicides per 100,000 people.
Reducing suicide rates by 10.8 percent in young males
The researchers compared data from the 12 states that had legalized medical marijuana with the other 38 states which still criminalized the plant.
After adjusting the data based on state policies, economic conditions and state-specific linear time trends, the researchers found a distinct correlation between marijuana legalization and suicide rates. While the results for females were inconclusive, legalization of medical marijuana showed a 10.8 percent reduction in suicide rates for men aged 20 through 29 and a 9.4 percent reduction in men aged 30 to 39.
The newly published report is contained in the American Journal of Public Health.
"The negative relationship between legalization and suicides among young men is consistent with the hypothesis that marijuana can be used to cope with stressful life events," the authors wrote. "However, this relationship may be explained by alcohol consumption. The mechanism through which legalizing medical marijuana reduces suicides among young men remains a topic for future study," say the authors of the study.
"The estimates for females were less precise and sensitive to model specification," Rees said. "In other words, legalization may reduce suicides among females, but we didn't find conclusive evidence one way or the other. Females could respond to marijuana differently than males. Females could respond to alcohol differently than males. It's even possible that they respond to legalization differently than males."
Federal justice department still classifies marijuana as a dangerous Schedule I drug
In 2014, marijuana remains as a Schedule I drug, deemed more dangerous than cocaine, methamphetamine, methadone, hydromorphone (Dilaudid), meperidine (Demerol), oxycodone and prescription antidepressants.
The federal justice department and the President of the United States have the power to reclassify marijuana and end the decades-long hysteria and misinformation of the herb. This will likely happen in the coming decade. Currently, 20 states have legalized marijuana for medical purposes, with a dozen other states in the wings.
The discussion of marijuana's pros continues to open up.
Sources for this article include:
http://ajph.aphapublications.org
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
http://www.justice.gov
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