What to believe about marijuana?My friend enjoys smoking marijuana.
My friend smokes quite often. He still maintains his grades in school (straight A's) as school is his first priority. He has obviously heard the conflicting evidence on the health risks/benefits of marijuana. We all know that the "Reefer Madness" way of thinking is no longer acknowledged, but the possibility of health risks cannot be known by anyone. All smokers want to believe that marijuana has only positive effects on the human body and cannot cause harm, but that may not be the case. Today, some doctors tell of the health benefits of marijuana, which are somewhat evident through its current medicinal use. Still, other doctors believe marijuana has many negative effects on the body.
My friend believes that smoking marijuana has very limited actual health risks. He knows that inhaling the smoke from a dead plant obviously can't be good for the lungs, though there are ways around this, like baking marijuana or using a vaporizer. Some doctors still today say that marijuana kills brain cells, though some say that the studies that show this were done on monkeys which were forced to wear gas masks filled only with marijuana smoke, so their brain cells died because of the deprivation of oxygen. Some even say that marijuana can boost brain cell growth. I don't think anyone can really know the truth about this (unless you are a doctor and have done studies and seen results yourself, in which case your response will hopefully satisfy my questions completely), but (1) can anyone provide convincing evidence that one belief is true and the other is false?
Another proposed health risk of smoking marijuana is memory loss, which a lot of my friend's "stoner friends" believe occurs from smoking marijuana, yet on the news the other day, I saw evidence from a study that suggests that marijuana can actually improve memory and is being tested on patients with Alzheimer's disease. (2) Can anyone provide convincing evidence that one belief is true and the other is false?
Basically, WHY IS THERE SO MUCH CONFLICTING EVIDENCE ABOUT MARIJUANA?!?
If the government wants the public to believe marijuana is a "narcotic substance" and not just a contained forest fire, why are they releasing this new information?
p.s My friend and I are alot alike ;)
Jimmy
I "medicate" everyday and still get straight As and maintain a a job. Been at the job for 2 years now. Not all of us are ignorant or lazy.
VOTE YES FOR PROP 19!
LiT
Send your friend to the psychiatric hospital, they will throw him down to the ground, hold him down in a spread-eagle fashion, and inject him in the buttocks with a high dose of Haldol, which is horrible depressing and dangerous drug. It will make him fat, weak, depressed, impotent, unable to talk, think or move properly, and unable to experience pleasure.
AD
Its a matter of time now. The world is rapidly realizing the positive effects of Medical Marijuana. This new information is not what they WANT to release it just IS being released because it is true that it is good for you and there are cancer preventing qualities in the CBDs in Cannabis (google Dr. Courtney) Enjoy it, fight for it, promote it, it's all from God.
Jillian Galloway
Humans have been smoking marijuana for more than 5,000 years - I think after all that time we've got a pretty good idea about its health risks! lol And I think after more than 5,000 years of continuous use, if we're still looking for it's health risks then it's time to admit that there are none.
Here's a few smart people who seem to have reached the same conclusion:
DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young - "In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. It is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death. Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. Marijuana does not meet the legal criteria of a Schedule I prohibited drug and should be reclassified".
Governor Raymond P. Shafer, Commission chairman of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse ("the Shafer Commission") - "the actual and potential harm of use of marijuana is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior" and recommended that "the possession of marijuana for personal use no longer be an offense, and that the casual distribution of small amounts of marijuana for no remuneration, or insignificant remuneration no longer be an offense".
Dr. Donald Tashkin, author of the largest study ever conducted into marijuana and cancer - "We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use. What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect".
The Lancet (British medical journal) - "the smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health".
So that's the health aspects of marijuana, lets look at its prohibition:
John P. Walters, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy - "Marijuana, not heroin or cocaine, is the "bread and butter," "the center of gravity" for Mexican drug cartels that every year smuggle tons of it through the porous U.S.-Mexico border. Of the $ 13.8 billion that Americans contributed to Mexican drug traffickers in 2004-05, about 62 percent, or $ 8.6 billion, comes from marijuana consumption".
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton - "The killings, beheadings and bombings in Mexico are due to "our insatiable demand for illegal drugs".
So, taxpayers pay $ 40 BILLION a year for the prohibition which *doesn't* stop people smoking (so whatever "harms" it causes are with us anyway) and which empowers the sadistic cartels, resulting in the death of thousands of good people every year. We need to STOP people buying from the cartels, and the ONLY way to achieve this is by allowing legitimate businesses to produce and sell marijuana to adults with after-tax prices set too low for the cartels to match. We have to legalize marijuana.
peetr
sorry about the cut paste, but this is my answer from a few days ago.
It's not great, many people get lazier the more they smoke and they often forget what they did with their car keys. Other than that, no big problems other than the legal problems.
There are some benefits. Most people find it makes them calmer, more empathetic, opens up their minds to new ideas, and reduces anxiety. Medical patients report that it works better than prescription drugs, to reduce nausea, increase appetite and dull pain. Some seriously ill people find that it helps them forget how bad they feel.
Toking has been proven to cause some temporary memory problems, "yo, dude, what were we talking about just now"
And some people refer to another side effect as "amotivational disorder" which just means laziness.
However there is no reputable data linking any other problems with it's use. Most studies that showed major issues with mental health, health of the lungs, car accidents, violence, etc. have been proven to be false, for one reason or another. Some studies of car wrecks blamed on marijuana, for example, failed to note that in most cases the driver was drunk as well. Other studies relied on the premise that it would be bad, and changed the data to support the premise. A big no no in science. Other studies had conclusions that supported legalizing and removing it from the list of scheduled drugs, but the agency that ordered the study just disregarded the conclusion made in the study and rewrote the conclusion to say exactly the opposite. Again, a big no no.
In conclusion, it's not as bad as many people say, but it's still not good for you. Especially if you are young, and trying to remember some algebra problem in math class, or get up for a job at 6 AM.
However it should be legalized, both for personal use, as well as for industrial use.
The industrial uses are all more environmental sound than the products that replaced hemp in the 1930s.
People smoking it has never been the real reason it was made illegal, it was all about paper, fiber, rope and oil.
Synthetic fibers, plastics and logging/paper interests saw that they could eliminate the competition if they could demonize people who smoked. And it worked
It's illegal because:
the chemical industries that make synthetic fibers
the lumber industry that make paper etc.,
the alcohol and tobacco industries ,
the prison and legal system, that make money on prosecution and incarceration of relatively harmless pot smokers,
etc. etc.,
- don't want it to be legal. They convinced enough people that it was a bad bad drug, even though it obviously isn't.
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