The Feds Are Addicted to Pot -- Even If You Aren't

Marijuana's addiction potential may be no big deal, but it's certainly big business.

According to a widely publicized 1999 Institute of Medicine report, fewer than 10 percent of those who try cannabis ever meet the clinical criteria for a diagnosis of "drug dependence" (based on DSM-III-R criteria). By contrast, 32 percent of tobacco users and 15 percent of alcohol users meet the criteria for "drug dependence."

Nevertheless, it is pot -- not booze or cigarettes -- that has the federal government seeing red and clinical investigators seeing green. As I reported for AlterNet last year, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which overseas more than 85 percent of the world's research on controlled substances, recently appropriated some $4 million in taxpayers' dollars to establish the nation's first-ever Center for Cannabis Addiction. Its mission: to "develop novel approaches to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of marijuana addiction."

Of course, what good is a research center if it isn't conducting clinical research? To this end, the U.S. National Institutes of Health recently made millions of dollars in grant funding available "to support research studies that focus on the identification, and preclinical and clinical evaluation, of medications that can be safe and effective for the treatment of cannabis-use and -induced disorders."

According to NIH's request for applications,

"Cannabis-related disorders (CRDs), including cannabis abuse or dependence and cannabis induced disorders (e.g., intoxication, delirium, psychotic disorder, and anxiety disorder), are a major public health issue. ... Nearly one million people are seeking treatment for marijuana dependence every year and sufficient research has been carried out to confirm that the use of cannabis can produce serious physical and psychological consequences.

"Currently, there are no medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of CRDs. Given the extent of the use of cannabis in the general population, and the medical and psychological consequences of its use … there is a great public health need to develop safe and effective therapeutic interventions. The need to develop treatments targeting adolescents and young adults is particularly relevant in view of their disproportionate use patterns."

Sounds dire, huh? It's meant to. But as usual, the devil is in the details.

First, there's the issue of the so-called "one million people seeking treatment for marijuana dependence." Or not. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the actual number of persons seeking drug treatment for marijuana "as a primary substance at admission" in 2007 (the most recent year for which data is available) was 287,933. Still a large total to be sure, but even this tally is highly misleading. Think these folks are seeking treatment for pot "dependence?" Think again.

According to SAMHSA, over 37 percent of the estimated 288,000 thousand people who entered drug treatment for marijuana in 2007 hadn't used weed in the 30 days prior to their admission. Another 16 percent of those admitted said they'd only used cannabis three times or less in the month prior to their admission. Do these individuals sound like they meet the clinical standard of dependence (defined as "the state of being psychologically and physiologically dependent on a drug")? Hardly. In truth, the only reason these people are in "treatment" at all is because they were arrested with a small quantity of pot and were ordered to treatment in lieu of jail.

According to the Aug. 13, 2009 issue of The TEDS Report, published by SAMHSA, nearly six out of 10 individuals enrolled in drug treatment for marijuana are referred there by the criminal justice system. Stated the report, "In 2007, the criminal justice system was the largest single source of referrals to the substance abuse treatment system. [T]he majority of these referrals were from parole and probation offices."

In other words, it is not marijuana use per se that is driving treatment admission rates; it is cannabis prohibition and the increased emphasis on pot arrests that are primarily responsible. Yet you'd never know this by listening to NIDA. And that's just the way the agency wants it.