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Marijuana

Yahweh

Philosopher
Y
Joined
Apr 7, 2003
Messages
9,006
Every few weeks this topic comes up, but of course, I have to ask the popular question "Is marijuana really all that bad?" Heres an excerpt from http://mountainresourcecenter.org/tlc/issue5.htm

According to a 1997 UCLA study, heavy marijuana use causes no serious lung damage. Some common foods like meat and dairy products can cause more health problems. Also, the National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that annual deaths from tobacco are an estimated 400,000 and alcohol causes 100,000 deaths. Marijuana deaths are credited at 0 per year. No deaths from marijuana have ever been recorded. Also, unlike alcohol, tobacco or other drugs, marijuana is not physically addictive. It appears that marijuana has no serious health risks but of course, not much research has been conducted
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I've never known any stupid person who's abused marijuana who wasn't already stupid before using. I've never heard of a person "ODing" on marijuana. Those commercials report that smoking marijuana and driving is a bad combination (REALLY!?!)... then again marijuana suppresses the urge to go driving around. As far as I'm concerned, marijuana is about as annoying as smoking cigarrettes, but dangerous as it decreases your motivation... and lack of motivation isnt likely to kill you is it.
 
arcticpenguin said:
Do you consider marijuana to fall under "Religion" or "Philosophy"?
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Well, both, of course. What are you, stoned?
 
Uh, marijuana smoking is very carcinogenic.
It has no lethality.
It is very bad to drive while high.

It used to be my religion, now I am atheistic. (Makes my depression worse)
 
Yahweh:

As far as I'm concerned, marijuana is about as annoying as smoking cigarrettes, but dangerous as it decreases your motivation... and lack of motivation isnt likely to kill you is it.
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I wouldn't under-emphasize this motivation thing. This can have very serious long-term consequences for a pot-head. Sure it's not the kind of health problem that's usually measured in this kind fo of study, but I think of it a kind of mental health issue, and a serious one. A daily pot smoker can go through years of life accomplishing very little, when he might otherwise be quite productive.
 
Well, I can't really speak from personal experience about pot and driving, but then again, I see enough damn fool behavior on the road from people trying to drive and drink coffee, drink beer, use cell phones, smoke cigarettes, eat salads, (yes, I've seen people do that), and any number of brainless activities. Frankly, I don't even take aspirin when I'm going to be out on the road, and I get a raging headache. (And I occasionally get some real splitting migraines.) I don't do well with ANY medication, and if I'm running at the legal limit, (80K), I sure as hell don't want anything muddying my brain. If the migraine gets bad enough, I pull over and do what I can until it passes.

But that's me. I'm a professional driver, and I'm called upon to hold myself to a much higher standard behind the wheel than most other folks here. Your own situation is going to be radically different. Frankly, before I start a new job, or if DOT decides they want to double check me, I have to go contribute to the cause of Highway Safety and pay a little visit to the Little Trucker's Room, providing a sample of bodily fluid. Anything that looks funny in that cup, and I'm out of a job, and if it's serious enough, I can lose my license. Considering that piece of plastic is my livelihood, you damn well better believe I'm going to be clean.

SOME people do not do well when using pot. My brother was a heavy user, and ultimately turned to speed, toot, and God only knows what else. Today, he's clean, but what it took to get clean was sheer hell. Do we ban pot because my brother can't control his use?

Some people do well when using pot. A buddy of mine fell three or four stories, and was impaled on some rebar while working on a building in Sacramento, CA. While he's lucky to be alive, he's also unable to hold a job because of the incredible pain. He tokes a little in the morning, and little at night. He can not only function, but he can function well. (Last I heard, he might actually be able to get a job pretty soon.) Do we legalize pot because my friend is able to contribute to society because of it?

When I was 23-24, this was an easy call. Pot was evil. Pot should be banned. Now, I'm 43, and I'm not so sure that marijuana is evil, and I'm sure as hell not sure if it should be illegal. But considering the damage that's done even from someone fiddling with their radio while driving, I don't want ANYONE trying to toke on their Ganja while driving.

(BTW: A writer buddy of mine reminds me that the best herb around is grown here in the good old USA. Anyone know where I can get an American flag made of hemp?)
 
The libertarian in me says decriminalize it and hold people responsible the same as alcohol.
I too drive professionaly and there are some incredible nitwits out there but when I'm in my own car I can be one of them at any given moment, I just try not to make a habit of it.
Of course having the DOT holding oneself accountable to commercial standards in terms of infractions even while in one's own vehicle narrows the room for stupidity on the playing field.
Potheads generallybelieve a good buzz enhances their performance across the board but personally it took away from mine. That's most likely due to the fact that a toke was hardly enough but that's another story.
Yes I get far more accomplished without it so as a result it's been so long since I've used it I don't even remember the last time I did.
Oh sh**!!! Is that memory disorder?
 
I'm quite interested in drug effects, and recently I had a patient (I'm an assistant psychologist) who had smoked 5 joints a day for 30 years and had a probably unrelated neurological problem, which prompted me to do a lit review on how this might interfere with our testing and intervention.

I don't have the review in front of me, but I found that, while the evidence was contradictory sometimes, there seems to be nothing which would indicate a demotivation syndrome which persists far beyond cessation of use. The carcinogenic effects are unclear (often confounded by tobacco or polydrug use), but any effect would be offset by the actual way cannabis is used (smoked much less often than cigarettes, sometimes eaten, etc.). Lethal overdose is practically impossible.

It would definitely be a Bad Thing to get stoned and drive, but I remember one study (irrelevant to the lit review) in which mildly stoned subjects actually drove better than the control group! This was put down to the fact that they felt stoned, and so were much more careful.

Cannabis studies are notoriously difficult to control as regards other substance use, and factors leading to use. Another problem is that sometimes, researchers (or the most vocal ones, beloved by the media) are dogmatically against (or for) drug use, and this may be reflected in their methodology (I'm thinking of some of the things John Henry, an English professor of emergency medicine, has said which apparently betrays an unobjective stance.

Sorry for the lack of references, when I'm back at work I can post them if anyone's interested.
 
Roadtoad said:
Well, I can't really speak from personal experience about pot and driving, but then again, I see enough damn fool behavior on the road from people trying to drive and drink coffee, drink beer, use cell phones, smoke cigarettes, eat salads, (yes, I've seen people do that), and any number of brainless activities. Frankly, I don't even take aspirin when I'm going to be out on the road, and I get a raging headache. (And I occasionally get some real splitting migraines.) I don't do well with ANY medication, and if I'm running at the legal limit, (80K), I sure as hell don't want anything muddying my brain. If the migraine gets bad enough, I pull over and do what I can until it passes.
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Roadtoad,

That's a very good perspective. I agree with you that considering the effects pot has on one's driving abilities only serves to confuse the issue. The same can be said about alcohol.

Pot use is no worse than alcohol use when used at home and not in the presence of kids or when one has responsible things to do. Being messed up in the head when one has to do anything requiring attention or good judgment is just stupid.

Driving and using psychoactive substances do not mix under any circumstances.

This is no reason for marijuana to be illegal. If alcohol is not prohibited, then neither should pot be. As alcohol prohibition was a dismal failure in the US, so has marijuana prohibition been. It's far past the time when we should admit the truth that large numbers of Americans will use pot, whether it is illegal or not. Why criminalize a large class of persons who wouldn't be criminals but for the prohibition?

It just doesn't make any sense. Focusing on the possible health effects is missing the target altogether. We know very well that alcohol usage has many detrimental health effects. Still, its usage remains lawful. There is no legitimate reason for the double standard regarding the two.

Be honest. Be consistent. Decriminalize marijuana.

AS
 
arcticpenguin said:
Do you consider marijuana to fall under "Religion" or "Philosophy"?
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... you know... I honestly thought I put this under "Banter"... I was searching for it and I couldnt find it... I'm going to close this because I think its a remarkably pointless topic anyway... dont do drugs kids.
 
Yahweh said:

... you know... I honestly thought I put this under "Banter"... I was searching for it and I couldnt find it... I'm going to close this because I think its a remarkably pointless topic anyway... dont do drugs kids.
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Oh, sure. Kill one of the few interesting threads on this forum.
 
We can continue this thread here because Rastafarians use pot as part of their religion, there's your loophole, now on with the discussion.

Once again I find myself in agreement with AmateurScientist.

Look at pot, alcohol, and tobacco, side by side, and you find nothing between them that would make 1 illegal, and the other 2 legal.

And I would rather meet a stoned guy alone in an alley than a drunk one, that's for sure.

Obviously driving while stoned would still be illegal if pot was lagalised, that's just sensible.

I fear until there are some definitive and unbiased studies done on the side effects of it, it will remain illegal in most places, mainly because of the doubt of what damage, if any, it does do.

By the way, it is decriminalised here, meaning it's not legal but if you get caught with it, they give you a fine but not a criminal record. That's just the ACT, I think in the rest of Australia it is still illegal.
 
If alcohol is not prohibited, then neither should pot be.
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Now see, that there is called logic, and has no place in American jurisprudence. We live by majority rule, not by logic.

The obvious flaw in your silly statement is that many fine older Americans like to drink, but only longhairs and hippies and commies smoke pot.

I don't like the kind of people who smoke pot, so putting them in jail for smoking pot makes perfect sense.

:mad:

I swear to Ed I have heard every one of those lines.
 
If you have read my posts in Ed's drug war thread then you know my stance ;)

Pot needs to be completely legal. I agree completely with AS's logic about pot vs alcohol, there is just no valid reason for marajuana prohibition.

-Joxter-
 
I strongly suspect that the reason 0 deaths are attributed to marijuana is that it's a common thing to say. There is evidence that I know of for a synergetic effect with cigarettes. I would be very supreised unless non-tobbacco smokers who use marijuana regularly show higher cancer rates.
 
Teenagers getting pot from people who are (even) a couple of removes from hard-core criminals is a terrible influence. But let's not fool ourselves, the buyers are seldom really isolated from the realities of the industry. The parties people go to, the many people they meet, the many joints passed around inevitably mix sub-cultures.

Forget pot as a gateway to harder drugs, it's a gateway to a very easy lifestyle. This fact derives from the fundamental problem of criminalizing the marijuana industry.

Here in Canada, despite the soon-to-be decriminalization of marijuana, very little is being done to address the most fundamental problem: In Canada, extremely violent criminal associations control most of the pot trade.

Instead of the money going to taxes (health education, heath CARE), honest farmers and commercial vendors, it's going to fund trade in heroin, methamphetamine, coke, guns, prostitution, racketeering, money laundering, counterfitting and lawyers to defend bastards who should be in jail.

As far as I am concerned, the new Marijuana laws are worse than useless despite the justice of not jailing pot users. Marijuana use is still unfairly discriminated, dangerous subcultures is still being pumped full of literally billions of dollars, and hard-core organized crime is laughing all the way to the international banks through which even more mischief becomes possible.
 
All I have to say is that anyone that is against legalizing pot for terminally ill patients obviously never saw their parents die from cancer.
 
I can personally testify that smoking a joint while driving is not as dangerous as rolling a joint while driving.
 
From the initial article and post:
According to a 1997 UCLA study, heavy marijuana use causes no serious lung damage.
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So minor damage is OK?

(Yes, I know people are going to argue that people should have the right to do what they want; I just found it strange that they are suggesting that it causes damage, just not bad damage.)
 
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