Paranoid? Me? Who said so?
The world is fast becoming one filled with paranoid people -- more and more of them every year, says researcher Daniel Freeman of the Institute of Psychiatry at University College London.
Freeman, who's been studying this subject for years, has developed a virtual reality machine expressly for assessing people's levels of paranoia (and if you weren't paranoid before the experiments ...) He says 1 in 4 of the general public has paranoid thoughts on a regular basis, according to his studies. "These days, we daren't let our children play outside. We're suspicious of strangers. Security cameras are everywhere," he remarks in a news release put out by the British charity the Wellcome Trust (Freeman is a Wellcome Trust fellow).
He chalks up the growing trend to a variety of societal factors, including:
-- More and more people are living in cities, where rates of paranoia are known to be higher than they are in rural areas, probably because social bonds are stronger and more stable in rural communities and social isolation is higher in cities.
-- The media over-reports on tragedies, terrorism and crime -- enhancing the perception of these risks in the minds of the public. "Over-reporting of dangers fosters a culture of paranoia," Freeman says. (He's picking on us!)
That and much more to be found in his new book, "Paranoia: The 21st Century Fear," out this week in the UK from Oxford University Press and available in early December in the U.S. (That'll cheer 'em up round the holiday tree!) Can't wait? Try "Paranoia: The Psychology of Persecutory Delusions" (2004), a more scholarly take on the topic that Freeman coauthored.
Intrigued by Freeman's virtual reality device? Read more about it here. And you can read lots and lots and lots about paranoia right here.
From the vantagepoint of health reporting, do I find this paranoia epidemic hard to believe? Well, we get a lot of calls -- from people explaining that drug companies don't want to cure cancer, they're covering up cures -- or that Dr. X has a miracle treatment but the mainstream medical establishment is trying to quash his or her efforts because they are jealous -- or that we deliberately omitted reference to a study or fact in an article not because we are incompetent but because we are in the pay of Big Pharma/the government/wacko environmentalists. And somehow the switchboard operators always pick my phone number to transfer them to.
-- Rosie Mestel
On the other hand, back in October 2003, Nature published a review by Spanish cancer research Dr. Manuel Guzman reporting on the research that's been done since 1974 showing that the active ingredients in marijuana can kill or shrink at least ten different types of cancers, including leukemia, lymphoma, breast cancer, prostate cancer and even lung cancer.
And we never saw a word about that research in the mainstream media, especially not in the LA Times.
But that's not because you're in bed with Big Pharm. That's because the War on Drugs requires you to treat your entire audience like they're all ten years old and might be confused by hearing mixed messages about pot.
It's a shame that public ignorance has been elevated to virtue by that War.
Posted by: Patrcia | October 22, 2008 at 08:57 AM
Dear Patricia,
Thanks for posting your comment. And thanks, too, for jogging my memory as to another reason we don't run stories: because we are Nannies trying to keep subversive information out of readers' hands. However, on the issue of covering marijuana, I am shocked to see there have been slips. A search in our database of the words "medical" and "marijuana" over the last four years brought up 388 articles, and searching for the phrase "medical marijuana" brought up 234. (We apparently didn't report specifically on the 2004 review article by Guzman, so maybe we've just got it in for Guzman.)
Among the articles we've published:
August 18, 2008 HARMFUL? HELPFUL? Medical marijuana inspires strong opinions, but what does science say? A look at the pros, cons.
AUG 18: Damaging habit? Marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug in the country -- an estimated 25 million Americans smoked it within the last year and close to 100 million have smoked it at least once in their life, according to the most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Rates and severity of marijuana addiction pale in comparison to that of legal addictive drugs, alcohol and nicotine, according to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, a panel of independent experts advising the British government, in a rare head-to-head, scientific comparison...
Aug 18: A balm for pain: Medical marijuana use has a history stretching back thousands of years. In prebiblical times, the plant was used as medicinal tea in China, a stress antidote in India and a pain- reliever for earaches, childbirth and more throughout Asia, the Middle East and Africa. In recent decades, medical researchers have investigated marijuana's effects on various kinds of pain -- from damaged nerves in people with HIV, diabetes and spinal cord injury; from cancer; and from multiple sclerosis. Marijuana has also been hypothesized to help with nausea induced by chemotherapy and antiretroviral therapy, and with severe loss of appetite as seen in people with the AIDS wasting syndrome.
May 19, 2008: Organ prospects go up in smoke: Medical marijuana users are being denied transplants. One of those patients died this month.
April 18, 2008: Researchers at UC Davis have concluded that medical marijuana can help blunt nerve pain stemming from a variety of causes.
February 15, 2008: A large and respected association of physicians is calling on the federal government to ease its strict ban on marijuana as medicine and hasten research into the drug's therapeutic uses.
August 27, 2008: Weeding good from bad: New guidelines on legal marijuana use are a welcome shield for Californians with medical needs.
Type of Material: Editorial
July 19, 2007: The DEA's rent control
It is attempting to shut down medical marijuana dispensaries by bullying their landlords.
May 31, 2007: Editorial: Not enough marijuana
Federal officials should allow competition in growing the drug for needed studies on its medical use.
February 11, 2007: A License to Chill
* SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: SMOKING MARIJUANA CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH, UNLESS YOU LIVE IN CALIFORNIA AND SUFFER FROM ANOREXIA, ARTHRITIS, CANCER, CHRONIC PAIN OR ANY OTHER ILLNESSES FOR WHICH POT PROVIDES RELIEF.
West Magazine
January 19, 2007 Medical marijuana raids are criticized: Federal agents trampled on state laws allowing the use of pot, say local officials and residents.
May 01, 2006: One drug, two takes: Some scientists and patients scoff at a recent FDA announcement that smoking marijuana has no medical benefits.
..They say the government hasn't done its homework -- and cite a 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine, a prestigious organization that advises the government, that found otherwise.
--Rosie Mestel
Posted by: Rosie Mestel | October 22, 2008 at 11:19 AM
^lol, owned.
Anyway, I can certainly attest that I have seen this growing trend. People are getting more and more paranoid about everything... and the consequences are numerious ranging from regular waste of time and resources to unimagineably cruel laws.
To illustrate my point, consider cleanliness. No normal healthy human should have the need to shower/bath more then twice a week. Humans have survived for ages... even with the technology and resources available.. with 1 or less showers a week. Believe it or not, rubbing soap over the whole body and rinsing it down repeatedly is really not a biological need. Yet it seems the norm these days has become to perform that procedure 2-3 times a day. To not do so is filthy and irresponsible. This is bordering on massive scale madness.
Another manifestation of this increased paranoia is seen in our legal systems.... specifically in laws concerning child porn. As bad as child abuse is, these laws are becoming retarded. Innocent, productive citizens who have never hurt anyone are being put in jail for years for watching an image or video of something they had no part of. While it's completely acceptable to watch murder ... a much more cruel and severe crime...on video or even actively virtually perform it (using video games), but as soon as the subject matter is related to pedophilia... the subject is concidered worthy of the worse forms of torture (even if he really isn't a pedophile). Watching a picture or a video (of ANYTHING) should never be considered a crime. This is madness on massive scale.
Posted by: Anum Faizan | April 09, 2009 at 01:47 PM
Anum: Personal hygiene benefits the public. Maybe it goes to the extreme end of the scale to shower 3 times a day, though i imagine many just enjoy an extra shower. It relieves stress... Of course, we all lived in caves at some point and we could go back to that kind of lifestyle...refuse to take showers and not work either. Forget about shelter etc. It's a romantic fantasy.
By the way, we know that virtual murder is make believe, and no, it is not necessary, but child porn is usually not a simulation. It's happening to some kid and the ba$tard who wants to watch it, (while wanting to pass off as some productive citizen) should be punished to the full extent of the law.
Posted by: Farah Eshetu | April 09, 2009 at 08:15 PM