Is cannabis addictive ??? was Re: Poitical abuses...

[Dr E. Buxbaum]

Matt Jones <jonesmat at ohsu.edu> wrote:

>I think I did a pretty scholarly job, actually, considering that most of
>those journals aren't available in my library. Now, how about a little
>help? Surely you can provide one (just one) citation to an objective
>scientific study demonstrating that cannabis is addictive (seeing as you
>have such an extensive knowledge of the literature). It would save me a
>lot of work, and you'd gain the added bonus of shutting me up once and
>for all on this subject (a rare opportunity, believe me). 

The point is not to shut anybody up. 

And a single reference to a complex problem would not be scientific. 
Unfortunately, our world is much too complicated for that. The problem 
with the references you found is that they are too young. Most of the 
relevant work was done in the 60's and 70's. Modern works do not repeat 
it, but build onto what is known. However, they will give you pointers to 
the older literature. Following them up is "a scholarly job". 

If you have problems finding original literature in a library, another 
way sometimes is to check popular scientific journals like "Scientific 
American" or "New Scientist" which summarise research developments. The 
problem here is that these summaries can be very biased, but they usually 
provide some leads into the original literature, and they are somewhat 
easier to digest than research papers (particularily sociological ones). 
Unfortunately, I rarely find the time to read them...