Magic Statistics

New research suggests that cannabis-induced mental illnesses will become significantly more common within three to four years.  Regular cannabis consumers are up to six times more likely to develop schizophrenia, use of the drug has jumped since the 1970s, and more powerful strains are available on the illicit drug market.

By the end of the decade one in four new cases of schizophrenia could be triggered by smoking cannabis, scientists say.
. . .
The Department of Health says it is now generally agreed among doctors that cannabis is an “important causal factor” in mental illness.

A study published in the journal Addiction predicts that, if the causal link between cannabis use and schizophrenia is accepted, rates of the illness will increase substantially by 2010, especially among young men.

The use of cannabis grew fourfold over the 30 years to 2002, and eighteenfold among under18s, the researchers say.

Such a boom in cannabis use could lead to increases in the number of new cases of schizophrenia of 29 per cent between 1990 and 2010.

Several international studies support the claim that cannabis use increases risk of mental illness.

Previous related posts:

• UK paper apologises for supporting cannabis legalisation
• Cannabis: Risk factor for schizophrenia
• Call for tougher anti-cannabis policy

With impeccably bad timing, the president of Indonesia yesterday cautioned the United Nations against imposing new sanctions on Iran, maintaining that would only inflame an already volatile situation.  Best to continue negotiating with Iran, he said, even though it has repeatedly and pointedly ignored UN demands that it shut down its uranium enrichment programme.  The Jakarta Post reports:

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono asked the United Nations on Friday not to impose harsh sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

Yudhoyono said that given the volatile situation in the Middle East, the application of a new sanction would only add to the tension in the region.

"The current situation in the Middle East is dangerous, tense and flammable. New problems could emerge if a decision concerning Iran and the Middle East was made without thorough consideration," Yudhoyono said in a snap press conference.

He said that negotiations and diplomacy were better ways to resolve the standoff than harsh sanctions.

President Yudhoyono apparently did not say how one negotiates with a nation that refuses to negotiate.

The plea for the UN to continue doing what it does best—talk—was delivered about the same time that Iran seized fifteen British Royal Navy sailors in Iraqi waters, provoking a major international crisis.

If Iran’s aim was to derail the UN resolution calling for military and economic sanctions, it flopped.

The UN Security Council has unanimously voted in favour of new sanctions against Iran for its refusal to suspend its nuclear enrichment programme.
. . .
The new sanctions block Iranian arms exports and freeze the assets of individuals and companies involved in Iran's nuclear and missile programmes.

Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the decision was "illegal" and "unjustifiable".

Unlike, say, Iran’s gunpoint detention of British military personnel, which was by the book right down the line.

Also, despite the concerns voiced by its president, Indonesia finally voted in favour of sanctions.

My friend John at Verum Serum is all over the Iranian abduction story.  Check it out.

h/t for Muslim News link: Big News Network.com - Breaking Religious News

Previous related posts:

• Merkel: Threat of Ahmadinejad like that of Hitler
• Middle East “locus of the final war” between Islam and the West

h/t: Grouchy Old Cripple

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