And thus, along with Harry Jacob Anslinger who was a United States government official who served as the first commissioner of the U. Grinspoon’s Harvard Health articles have reached tens of millions of readers, have been widely referenced in the national media, and have been cited in congressional testimony. The benefits have not, however, been as well detailed, so Professor Nutt and colleagues have established Project Twenty21, which is gathering data about the efficacy of cannabis-based medicines for numerous conditions.

Scientists were using the MCDA method for analyzing the harms of different drugs and they came to the conclusion that using cannabis is not as harmful to people and society as alcohol and even cigarettes. Peter Grinspoon has written a delightfully readable, informative, and timely book that shines a clear light through this maze of misunderstandings. And how many people die from cannabis, about 12 people (who only took cannabis and nothing else) every year.Grinspoon presents both sides of the divisive issues polarizing society today, allowing the reader to reconsider what is and isn’t true about cannabis.

He also lecturers widely to the public as well as to the scientific and medical communities; he has presented three time at the Cheltenham Science Festival and several times for Cafe Scientifiques. But, he makes a convincing case for the almost complete failure of New Labour to take effective, progressive action on drugs. His writing has been published in The Nation, the Los Angeles Times and Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics. As marijuana goes mainstream, many lingering doubts, contradictions, lies, and half-truths remain entrenched in the public debate.Many countries do now approve cannabis drugs for some forms of epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, cancer, Parkinson's. On the science side – the book makes complex scientific points in an accessible manner, the explanations of the entourage effect, and the way that THC and CBD form a natural complementary see-saw, counteracting the effects of one-another, were particularly interesting. There was only one harm where alcohol didn’t score higher, and that was dependence, where cannabis and alcohol were equal,” Professor Nutt comments in the book.

Professor Nutt starts with telling us the history of cannabis use and then its tortured political history, both around the world but especially in the UK. By focusing on the most critical purported harmsdriving, pregnancy, addictiveness, memoryand by focusing on the most commonly cited medical benefitsrelieving chronic pain, sleep, anxiety, PTSD, autism, and cancerSeeing Through the Smoke will help patients, parents, doctors, health experts, regulators, and politicians move beyond biased perceptions and arrive at a shared reality towards cannabis.The history, science and sociological approaches of the book offer a holistic insight into the demonisation and potential medical uses of the drug.