Why is Marijuana Illegal when Alcohol is Not?

It almost seems cyclical when the proposals come up for legalizing marijuana and it isn't just in this country, the world itself seems to question why it's not legal when alcohol is typically legal. You never see the same argument arise for cocaine or methamphetamine, with good reason! Legalizing an addictive drug just leads to trouble. I mean imagine if nicotine was legal? Oh wait...

Marijuana and alcohol have every similar effects. Both are impairing. Both can be harmful to your health, marijuana has similar effects on the lungs as tobacco and alcohol is known to damage the liver. So why is alcohol legal and marijuana is not?

Well, if you remember your history, the government did try to ban alcohol during prohibition. And we all know how successful that was. Alcohol was too fully enmeshed in our culture to be eradicated. Speakeasies were popular and people continued to drink though the health risks from homemade alcohol is always a bit higher than when it's made in nice clean regulated facilities. The interesting thing is what ultimately pushed the repeal was economic factors. The stock market fell, the Great depression started and people needed jobs. Prohibition was repealed and alcohol was once again legal to manufacture and tax.

Is it any wonder that economic downturns always lead to talks of legalizing marijuana?

At this time, marijuana was still legal. It's use and sale was allowed. So why didn't the government follow suit and develop the industry? Well in 1937 taxation began on marijuana with the Marihuana Act of 1937 which did nothing to criminalize it, but rather taxed those who dealt commercially with marijuana. In fact, the American Medical Association argued against the bill, not because they wanted to see harsher penalties, but because the bill did not exempt doctors who were prescribing marijuana for treatment purposes.

Eventually of course marijuana did become illegal, but there is more evidence that this was due to societal prejudice and competition with the paper industry who had more powerful lobbyists than it was to any scientific or health information.

I'm not saying whether or not it should be legal as that really is the point here. Besides which the argument is out there and repeated constantly. It's just an interesting thing to really examine why our laws are the way they are.

Staying up to Date Part II: THC Potency and Drug Changes

Marijuana is the number one used drug in this country with the exception of alcohol, so it makes sense that for years studies have been done on it's effects on behavior, especially on driving abilities. I've attended numerous seminars and read many articles where low and high levels of THC concentration have been given to subjects so that these studies can be done. Great! We have low and high, so we're all set right?

Wrong!

Let's discuss: Looking at these studies the low dose of THC equates to 1.7% and the high THC equates to 3.5%. Ok, so far so good. So naturally our questions should go to how do these values compare to what is used in the real world? Well, let's see.

This September, the Journal of Forensic Sciences featured an article entitled "Potency Trends of Δ⁹-THC and Other Cannabinoids in Confiscated Cannabis Preparations from 1993 to 2008" which first appeared online in May of this year. This study was put together by the University of Mississippi which acts as the Potency Monitoring Program for NIDA. So, how do our studies with concentrations between 1.7% and 3.5% compare to what's out there?
 
Well...pretty dismally. It turns out that the average THC concentration of marijuana that has been confiscated between 1993 to 2008 has risen from 3.4% in 1993 to 8.8% in 2008. Hmm...


This is another example of why it is vital for those involved in forensics to keep up to date with the literature and the trends. An opinion given in a case using the studies for THC concentrations of 1.7% or 3.5% would be woefully inaccurate when what was smoked was closer to 9%. That is a substantial increase and one that makes a substantial difference in interpretation. It also points to why it is important that theses studies continue and continue to be funded. 

Studies are only as good as their applicability to the real-world situation.

This past week I attended the annual meeting of the Northeastern Association of Forensic Scientists which was held in conjunction with the New England Division of the International Association for Identification. It was a wonderful conference with many great people and presentations. One of which was presented by Vadim Astrakhan from the DEA in New York who made a comment about the good ole days when Ecstasy contained MDMA and it's variants. Now he is finding Ecstasy frequently that contains no MDMA at all, but does contain BZP or TFMPP. His presentation was on detecting these compounds since they co-elute, but whether your interest is in testing for the drug or discussing it's effects it's important to know what is actually out there.

The other trend in presentations was the "Spice Trade" which features plant material coated with synthetic marijuana and is sold legally. The general theme of these presentations was the concept of chasing a moving target. When there are 400 different variations of the compound where do you look? Some states are contemplating banning one or two of the compounds. How effective is that when the dealers can merely switch to one of the other 400? The appearance of spice has changed over time as well. How do you keep officers informed for what to look for now?


Keeping up to date is vital for anyone involved in forensics. Science is not static! It is ever changing and to be good at your job you have to keep up. Any state or county that under-funds their forensic section should think on that.

The Forensics of Horror, Part II: Jekyll & Hyde

"I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of practice. I knew well that I risked death; for any drug that so potently controlled and shook the very fortress of identity, might, by the least scruple of an overdose or at the least inopportunity in the moment of exhibition, utterly blot out that immaterial tabernacle which I looked to it to change. But the temptation of a discovery so singular and profound at last overcame the suggestions of alarm."

-The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ...

In our last post we discussed how the science of temperature change can be used to determine the time of death on a cooling body. In this post we move back to my realm of expertise, toxicology. Now, the way toxicology is applied in forensics changes drastically with whether the subject is alive or dead. When the concern is postmortem, then what we tend to be most interested in are the effects that the drug had on the body. What was the cause of death? How did the drugs/poisons interact with one another? What effect did the drug/poison have on the heart, the brain, etc.

When the subject is alive what we tend to be interested in is how the drug/poison effected their behavior. Did the drug cause the subject to behave in an unusual manner? With alcohol, this could be impairment as we discuss in DUI cases, but it could also be in terms of decision making or memories. For instance, did the alcohol make the subject unable to consent to sexual intercourse? Is it possible the subject has no memory of an assault?

Most know the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; the case of a mild mannered doctor who uses himself as a lab rat with a drug of his own mixture and releases the murderous personality of Mr. Hyde. There are several drugs we could attribute this change in Dr. Jekyll to. Many drugs including alcohol lower inhibitions. Perhaps Dr. Jekyll wasn't as mild mannered as he appeared. Perhaps the murderous rage was simply being held in check when he was sober and the reduced inhibitions let it free.

We can probably safely say that it wasn't marijuana and probably not an opiate either. The sedative effects of those drugs should have helped quell Mr. Hyde's rage if not simply reduce his motivation to seek out victims. They are also not associated with personality changes.

We can probably also eliminate cocaine from the list of possibilities. There are extremely rare cases where cocaine does cause paranoia in people taking it, but it's rare so let's assume Dr. Jekyll does not fall into this category. Certainly Mr. Hyde would still have the energy to seek out and act on his desires, but if we believe that Dr. Jekyll really was mild mannered then we would not expect cocaine to change his personality so drastically. Perhaps Dr. Jekyll would simply spend more time in his research without the need to sleep?

LSD is known to cause drastic changes in perception and we would certainly expect a change in personality to occur. LSD users tripping together have been known to kill each other in one delusion or another. Homicide and suicide are the most common causes of death attributed to LSD so is it possible that LSD was Dr. Jekyll's drug? Possible. However, Mr. Hyde's personality when it does appear seems to be very consistent and methodical, which is probably not what we would expect with LSD. Trips from LSD are known to differ wildly in the same person based on environment and mood. Would it be possible for Dr. Jekyll to always revert to Mr. Hyde regardless of mood or environment? Possible, but improbable.

I believe our most likely culprit would be PCP which is known to induce delusional, paranoid and violent behavior in it's users and those are the reasons the drug was pulled from approved human usage. Additionally PCP users have been known to exhibit "strength" and "endurance" beyond what is expected from an average person. This is primarily due to the fact that users simply do not register the pain and will continue on despite the fact that serious injury is occurring. Additionally, at low doses, some of the symptoms are consistent with alcohol which, as we mentioned before, result in reduced inhibitions.

So, we assume that Dr. Jekyll does have some part of his personality that encompasses the rage and homicidal desire of Mr. Hyde, but is buried within his consciousness. His drug (PCP) reduces the inhibition holding this desire back and adds in the paranoia and violence to truly let Mr. Hyde free.

Though we are discussing literature and not an actual case, this is not a far fetched hypothesis. Indeed one real life horror, Charles Manson, used drugs to help induce the right frame of mind in his followers to commit horrible murders.