The Marijuana Thread

[Skibum]

(emphasis mine)

Interesting choice of words. So you admit that smoking pot does indeed endanger the smoker.

It can, I wouldn't say it will indeed.

It all depends on how much/ often you smoke and what you do after, just like alcohol or pretty much anything else you put into your body.

If you smoke then drive, you are endangering yourself as well as others.
If you smoke often for long periods of time, there can be health consequences.

If someone wants to smoke a pin joint and kick back and relax on a saturday night every once in awhile, I don't see any harm in that.

 

[slingblade]

er frankly evidence which you provide no source for is not exactly what I would call authoritative.

I already sourced it long ago Red, in this thread. Who isn't reading their linky-winkies, eh?

 

[slingblade]

(emphasis mine)

Interesting choice of words. So you admit that smoking pot does indeed endanger the smoker.

Asking is not admitting. If the case is made that others are endangered, there is nothing being admitted by asking "which others?"

Putting words in other's mouths is....well.

Anyway, coincidentally, there is a new article about this topic, but do consider the source. USAToday's not exactly one of our more leavel-headed rags.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-02-05-marijuana_x.htm?csp=34

"Is marijuana a gateway drug? That question has been debated since the time I was in college in the 1960s and is still being debated today," says Harvard University psychiatrist Harrison Pope, director of the Biological Psychiatry Laboratory at Boston's McLean Hospital. "There's just no way scientifically to end that argument one way or the other."

That's because it's impossible to separate marijuana from the environment in which it is smoked, short of randomly assigning people to either smoke pot or abstain — a trial that would be grossly unethical to conduct.

"I would bet you that people who start smoking marijuana earlier are more likely to get into using other drugs," Pope says. Perhaps people who are predisposed to using a variety of drugs start smoking marijuana earlier than others do, he says.

There's a lot more to this artice, which should be read as it's so timely and deals with so many points. but I liked that part, because I said that last bit, earlier.

 

[steverino]

Wow SLING- That article does nothing to romanticize marijuana. It seems like a trian wreck, another social ill America could do without...Certainly a good find, very topical. Thanks!

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

Just a little of a historical curiosity, and I’m sorry if this is already mentioned – I just skimmed through the middle of the tread.

…According to some sources, George Washington (one of the founding fathers) seemed to have had a really favourable attitude towards hemp. The Writings of Washington(U.S. Government Printing Office, 1931) and The Diaries of of George Washington (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1925) mention some interesting dialogues between Washington and Hamilton and between Washington and his gardener.

Here’s a nice quote about that, found in Robert Anton Wilson’s book Sex, Drugs and Magic (Washington writes to his gardener about the “better” India Hemp [Vol. 35, p.72]): “It ought, all of it, to have been sown again; that not only a stock of seed sufficient for my own purposes might have been raised, but to have disseminated the seed to others, as it is more valuable than the ordinary Hemp.”

Somehow I just don’t think he had a fondness about making his own rope

 

[BPSCG]

But who has, at any point, said that legalizing recreational use would mean driving under the influence would be legal?

Nobody. But as I said before, unlike with alcohol, there is no standard for "marijuana intoxication," and even if there were, there doesn't appear to be any breathalyzer-type test to determine that a person's blood has attained that level of concentration.

So you could go to a party and decide not to drink alcohol because you'd get busted if pulled over at a sobriety checkpoint. But you could smoke all the weed you want, because the police couldn't test you; you'd have nothing to fear from a sobriety checkpoint no matter how stoned you were. They could bust you for "failure to keep right" or "failure to yield," but not for DUI.

 

[Dancing David]

Not following.....I thought the whole "alcohol and tobacco are drugs and bad so they should get same treatment as MJ" was aimed at having legal consistency - ??

yes but i am agreeing that is a flawed argument, the consistancy of law is most likely unattainable. We have a hodge-podge of law, and it might not be possible to make it consistant. the current system seems to be self correcting none the less. So i agree that expecting consistancy in the law is not a good premise for an argument.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that.

I could turn that around and say the claim has been made that MJ is (relatively) safe and where's the proof of that, but anyway the medical issues have already been covered and again while I have no concrete proof of "societal danger" (conveniently hard to prove anyway) I think anyone who can walk and chew gum at the same time that knows anything about MJ and isn't burying their head in the sand dune of pro-MJ bias knows darn well the dangers (though to what degree is of course debatable).

That still comes down to "I think so" as a form of argument. Societal danger would be easy to make a scale of, there would be the potential medical costs, the know loss of work and production, the ability to drive people into debt and homelessness. Such would be a great thing to have. i would assume that cocaine, methamphetamine and alcohol would rate the highest with tobacco pulling up the rear based solely on medical cost. Then the others would be running in a pack behind the leaders. With compulsive shopping and gambling somewhere near the leaders. the hard one would be how to quantify something like "sex outside marriage that leads to the disolution of marriage". And then there are the behaviors such as domestic violence and driving over the spped limit that are not addictive per se.

But I don't think that political society is ready for cost benefit analysis that might but flight to many conservative and liberal notions.

Weak analogy which I'm sure you know.


Fair enough.


Alcohol ABUSE, I think you mean. Brain cells killed and nerve damage done by light-to-moderate drinking is quite negligible.

the number of brain cells lost is fairly amzing, nerve damage to the casual user is negligible. I just seem to recall the number of alcoholics being the largest number of deflections in the ED, but I haven't read the national statistcis in a while.

Sorry missed it, thx for the correction.


Hardly. Whether one agrees that MJ qualifies or not, lesser drugs leading to harder ones (ie the whole gateway thing) does exist. Tomatos/etc leading to drug use does not.

That might make sense intuitively but it would take a fairly sophisticated sampling procedure to actualy prove it. (Which is why i bring up the tomatos cause cancer argument, one has to be careful when it comes to crrelation. Maybe the link between ice cream and drowning would be better.) There are people who go straight from alcohol to cocaine and byass mj, then there are those who would never have a dring or a toke and go straight to perscription abuse. So it would take a really large longitudinal sample to see what correlation rise to a high enough level.

Sorry I'm not into repeating what I or others have already said; this has already been covered.

 

[bigred]

BIGRED, Question:

Are you for or against legalizing marijuana? I am reading your posts and cannot wrap my mind around your point of view on this single question.

Your perception is working better than you may think I lean somewhat to against, but have mixed views. Both sides have made valid points.

 

[bigred]

Just like with alcohol, its all about how/where its used and what you do after you consume it.

Well duh.

If someone wants to relax at home by taking a toke or two who else would they be endangering?

I see, so your proposal for legalization would be a law that says "you can only get high if you stay in your home." Good luck w/that. Believe it or not, if you legalize pot, not everyone will just sit at home and get high. And precious few would call a cab if they were out somewhere and couldn't drive. Am I still going too fast for you?

I think you've watched Reefer Madness one too many times.

I think you've gotten high one too many times. Like, dude, I'm all, yknow - dude.

 

[bigred]

Hey, I think people who drive drunk, stoned, tired and while jabbering on their phones should be beaten with something considerably more sturdy than a wiffle bat. Repeatedly.

I agree emphatically on all counts.

Afraid you lost me on the rest.

 

[bigred]

It can, I wouldn't say it will indeed.

It all depends on how much/ often you smoke and what you do after, just like alcohol or pretty much anything else you put into your body.

If you smoke then drive, you are endangering yourself as well as others.
If you smoke often for long periods of time, there can be health consequences.

If someone wants to smoke a pin joint and kick back and relax on a saturday night every once in awhile, I don't see any harm in that.

Agree on all counts.

 

[bigred]

I already sourced it long ago Red, in this thread. Who isn't reading their linky-winkies, eh?

My bad, I'll dig back and check out.

PS lol @ "linky-winkies"

Edit: sorry, I cannot find. Can I impose on you to re-provide?

 

[brodski]

(emphasis mine)

Interesting choice of words. So you admit that smoking pot does indeed endanger the smoker.

Well yes, smoking anything endangers the user, as does drinking, eating fatty foods (or even eating at all, due to a risk of chocking) and putting on socks caused more household injuries in 2001 in the UK, than any other household activity.
Risk and harm are inherent in every activity, life is a terminal disease. If we where to ban everything which may endanger people, nothing would be legal.

 

[Luke T.]

Yes, MJ is less addictive than alcohol- to an alcoholic. Although, an alcoholic would be predisposed to issues regarding "using" any drug.

LSD is not addictive. Where would LSD fall in your "severity-to-mild scale" of drugs?

I think we are talking about recreational MJ here, not medical MJ legalization.

I'm wincing because "less physical damage" still sounds bad to me.

The argument has to be "We all accept that MJ is damaging, and may be very damaging to some, so either it should be up to us what to take into our bodies, or up to the law to prevent a health crisis.

Just my POV.

Well, I am an alcoholic. Just celebrated 12 years of sobriety two days ago. And that means NO drugs of any kind, except those prescribed by a doctor. That's what being a recovering alcoholic means. You can no longer not just drink alcohol, you must avoid all mood-altering chemicals. If I smoked a joint, it would just be a matter of time, probably minutes, before I was back in the bottle. So for me, pot is a gateway drug.

As for the nicotine thing, again speaking as a recovering alcoholic, I have found giving up nicotine has been an order of magnitude more difficult giving up than alcohol was. And yes, that is anecdotal. I know.

As for other anecdotes, I have had recovering heroine addicts tell me the same thing with respect to heroine vs. nicotine.

 

[mmiller]

That being the case, do you believe there are any drugs that should not be legal, if someone, somewhere wants to use them?

Yes, I do. I personally think that the misuse of antibiotics (not taking the whole prescription, giving someone part of a unused prescription, etc.) should carry stiff penalties (years of jail time). Misusing antibiotics is the only type of drug uses that always carries the chance of the user indirectly affecting many people. I think all other drugs should be available to adults though.

 

[Luke T.]

...in his opinion. People talk about me providing evidence, yet there is none here either. Yes I see he's a PhD, etc and so on, all very impressive, and not to say any of his ratings are wrong per se....but I see nothing backing this up.

ETA: You'll notice that nicotine is ranked number one for dependence. And don't I know it!

Nicotine is more addictive than heroin? Excuse me while I whip out the coaches' challenge flag.

In fact a little digging shows Doc H appears to have a serious ax to grind with nicotine. Not that that's bad mind ya, but I question how his bias may have come into play here...

Okay. How about this:

More research is necessary to learn the true addictive effects of marijuana, but current studies show heavy users will likely experience psychological dependence. Marijuana addiction is not likely to be as intense as the dependence experienced by cigarette smokers.

Although pot has not shown signs of causing severe physical dependence and withdrawal symptoms, associated with drugs like cocaine and heroine, marijuana often causes psychological dependence.

http://www.princeton.edu/uhs/ih_Q_A_drugs_smoking.html

Bolding was my emphasis. Heavy users of any drug are likely to experience psychological dependence.

But it looks like you were right to throw a flag:

Once retrospective data are considered, smoking cessation appears to be much more feasible and commonplace than cessation of heroin. We went on to argue that even if relapse rates of smoking were similar to those of heroin, the inference that nicotine is as addictive as heroin does not follow, either logically or empirically.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/p55344041032582m/?p=4d4d28cbe270406f84a10ce888f3a021&pi=9

 

[bigred]

Okay. How about this:



http://www.princeton.edu/uhs/ih_Q_A_drugs_smoking.html

Bolding was my emphasis. Heavy users of any drug are likely to experience psychological dependence.

But it looks like you were right to throw a flag:


http://www.springerlink.com/content/p55344041032582m/?p=4d4d28cbe270406f84a10ce888f3a021&pi=9

ha - another expert shot down

Interesting, thx. Yeah psychological dependence is a tough thing to get a handle on.....so many factors involved, etc....

Really though for my money, regarding legalization, when you get down to it, the "biggie" here is the risk of people driving (or operating other machinery) while stoned. The health thing and societal whatevers are also IMO very significant, but as pointed out, not enough in themselves to justify not legalizing.

 

[brodski]

Really though for my money, regarding legalization, when you get down to it, the "biggie" here is the risk of people driving (or operating other machinery) while stoned. The health thing and societal whatevers are also IMO very significant, but as pointed out, not enough in themselves to justify not legalizing.

How does keeping cannabis illegal reduce the incidence of stoned driving? Even if we assume that there are a significant number of would be users that don't currently smoke who will immediately light eon up as soon as cannabis is legal, it would be fair to assume that these additional users are very much about the legality of their actions. In which case why do we presume that they will drive stoned, something which is currently illegal and which would almost undoubtedly remain so?

 

[slingblade]

My bad, I'll dig back and check out.

PS lol @ "linky-winkies"

Edit: sorry, I cannot find. Can I impose on you to re-provide?

Sir, at this point, I would lie down and die for you.


http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/mjgate.htm

 

[Dancing David]

Okay. How about this:



http://www.princeton.edu/uhs/ih_Q_A_drugs_smoking.html

Bolding was my emphasis. Heavy users of any drug are likely to experience psychological dependence.

But it looks like you were right to throw a flag:


http://www.springerlink.com/content/p55344041032582m/?p=4d4d28cbe270406f84a10ce888f3a021&pi=9

This is in general and not to Luke in specific.

Well I hate to see them using the term psychological dependance. Addiction is a set of behaviors, physical withdrawl is not needed to be an addiction. And yes there are those who are dependant upon marijuan, but not nessecarily all heavy users. There are people who are definitly addicted to things other than substances. So physicaly addictive is redundant, all addictions are physical, there is no seperate world for the psychological.

The question usualy comes down to "Do you think you can function without the substance/behavior?" , "What happens when you try to stop?"

The only reason I mention this is the whole 'cocaine is not physically addictive' story.