"Drug and Alcohol Review (1994) 13:209-216

Commentary

The human toxicity of marijuana: a critique of a review by Nahas and Latour.

by Macdonald J. Christie & Greogory B. Chesher
Department of Pharmacology,University of Sydney,New South Wales,Australia

Abstract

A review entitled "The human toxicity of marijuana" was published in 1992
in the Medical Journal of Australia. The authors claimed that the adverse
effects of cannabis use have been trivialised and that the effects are
much more serious than earlier reported. We have made a careful study of this
review and examined the claims made. We compared the claims of the authors
with the information contained in the documents they cited and found that
at least 28 of the 35 citations in this article were cited inaccurately.
Five of these publications were misquoted,or the findings of the study
were not fully reported. Twenty-three citations contained other errors,
leaving only six to eight (two citations could not be traced because of
their obscurity) accurate citations among the 35. All of these inaccuracies
operated in the direction of finding an adverse effect of marijuana.

Introduction

It is not a pleasant task to make an open criticism of a paper by colleagues,
but we feel compelled to do so in the case of a paper published in the Medical
Journal of Australia in 1992.. . etc "