Think of it this way. Chronic smoker goes through 2 -3 packs of cigs a day. You usual pothead, at most might go through 2 -3 blunts a day. It is bad for your lungs just as pork is bad for health, but since you typically only use so much, the harms are minimal.
I would like the details. I would be surprised if those findings were accurate. I have kept up with every study done on this (and other subjects related to drugs) and have seen no evidence whatsoever that mar1juana affects your intelligence in the least.
The major difference is that pot has never been documented to have killed even a single human being in the history of the world. Compare that to cigarettes or even alcohol and you see a HUGE difference.
Andy: Yeah, the potential non-harmfulness of pot is certainly interesting. Could it be that something so good is not harmful? Want to ask you an offtopic question, since you seem very knowledgable about such things. How long can the effects of THC last? Is it just an illusion on my part, or does it have lingering effects even days after inhalation? I read somewhere that MJ can be traced in the bloodstream even months after its been inhaled.
Another thing about the MJ issue is the argument that the harmfulness of MJ itself isn't the problem, but that it leads on to harder drugs. Personally, I fail to see the connection, as from personal experience, it seems pretty hard to get addicted to it. But then I have heard of cases of friend's friends who are mildly addicted, and people do get addicted to cigs, which I also find quite hard to do even if I wanted to. My point is that the bigger issue with MJ is not the direct health problems it poses, but this carry-on effect to harder drugs. From personal experience I would say no, but there is evidence on the other side as well. I think a serious case for the legalisation of MJ would have to deal with this issue.
The only semi-valid point on this is that since its illegal you have to come into contact with people dealing in illicit drugs to get it, increasing your exposure to other illicit activity. Legalize it and you remove this connection - if it has any validity at all. Most of these claims are based on surveys where someone that is a hardcore heroin/coke/whatever addict is asked 'did you smoke pot before you tried heroin?' They say yes and someone then extrapolates that to mean pot use leads to heroin use. You could do the same by asking 'did you drink milk as a child before you used heroin?' Yes? Milk leads to heroin use!
I would not try to claim that there are no harmful effects of smoking pot. There are menay, and most have to do with the pure fact that you ARE inhaling smoke, which could introduce many chemicals. There are also possible harms with driving or operating machinery. However, there is no such thing as a "lethal" dose of pot like there is with alcohol, you cannot get "mar1juana poisoning" like you can with alcohol, and there have been no credible studies that show deletorious effects of long term use. Much of this lack of "proof" of harms is due to the fact that we can't study the effects as a result of prohibition. In people who are not regular users, effects can linger for many hours and many light users also report that they can feel some effects after a day or two, particularly after a day of heavy use. There are also some people who are sensitive to cannabinoids and after they use, they can feel the effects for much longer than others. I have a friend who once ate some "magic" spaghetti and told me that he still felt actively "stoned" the following day. THC (the ingredient they test for) stores itself in fat cells and as such, can be traced longer than other drugs. In irregular users, you can generally detect it for up to two weeks, but for heavy, regular users, the presence of THC can be detected up to 10-12 weeks after ingestion.
The "gateway theory" has been disproven in many, many studies. Here is a pretty good list. http://www.google.com/custom?q=gate...pthedrugwar.org&sitesearch=stopthedrugwar.org
I think the worry is that people who are addicted to MJ might look for the next bigger thing when they no longer get enough of a kick out of it. It's hard to prove, and I don't know how you can prove it. Maybe specify in the survey whether "did smoking pot lead you to trying heroin?" or something. This isn't really so different from alcohol abuse leading onto harder drugs, and alcohol is legal. My stand is that if legalising MJ for everyone comes with other problems such as this supposed carry on effect, then maybe we shouldn't do it - a luxury that we don't really need that causes more problems for society than good. MJ is already easy enough to get anyway. Legalising it may open the floodgates so to speak. We don't need more lives destroyed by drug addiction. But if it can be proven that there's no corrleation between MJ use and harder drugs, and there are no significant health issues with respect to cigs and alcohol, then I'm all for legalisation. This is of course different from legalisation of medical uses of MJ. If the pros outweigh the cons, sure, give it to the patients.
Interestingly enough, not everyone becomes addicted to heroin. There have been studies (don't ask me for the links- this is from the late '70's) that have shown that there are occasional heroin users among the middle class who sometimes use heroin for recreation on weekends, like some might have drinks, or smoke weed. They don't become addicted. I knew someone who did a dissertation on it. She was surprised at what she found. We have a tendency in this country, and I'm guilty of it myself, to lump things into neat groups, or to take as gospel that certain things are true, when there are a host of exceptions. Can you get psychologically addicted to MJ? Sure, just like you can get psychologically addicted to Diet Coke. Heroin is much more risky, but apparently some can use it without getting addicted. Go figure. Hayes' milk analogy probably works. Keep D&D CIvil!!
I'm not sure if this is entirely accurate. They've done studies that have shown that some people cannot become addicted to drugs. They simply cannot. Their bodies lack the thing that would cause a normal person to form an addiction. And if these "recreational" users fall into that category, then to use them as an example that heroin isn't as inherently addictive as people tend to think is wrong and dangerous. People will use heroin, thinking that maybe they won't become addicted to it, but will fail, as they lack the condition that allows them to not form dependencies.
I think a friend of mine is like that. He's tried almost every type of drug there is. He's shot up heroin a few dozen times, but has no problems not using it for long stretches. He hasn't used it in years now. But the thing is that out of the first few times he did it, he would be in a group of about 5 or 6 people, who hadn't tried it at all. Each time at least one out of the 5 or 6 would become a full fledged junkie. I knew one of the guys who become a junkie and was shocked to hear it. The guy was super smart, very confident, rational, and seemingly down to earth. The next thing I hear about him is that he's running around begging people for money, stealing from friends, getting mugged for taking money out of ATM's at 3 in the morning in bad neighborhoods to buy more heroin. Then the people who I knew this guy through, just shut off all contact with him. They couldn't keep staying around him because he was banging on the door until his hands were bleeding to try and get money from them to buy heroin. I would think that after seeing one person out of each group turn into an addict like that I wouldn't want to do heroin with people anymore, even if I never became addicted.
I would tend to agree that one of the best deterrents to drug use is witnessing how others ruin their lives with them.
I said it was very risky, but millions of people used cocaine back when it was fashionable, and didn't all become addicts. Far from it. I think one could just as easily say that there are some people who just have addictive personalities. Give them something they can abuse, and the odds are that they will. I wasn't implying that people should rush out and do heroin. I would also add that about half of the people who did this... maybe a little less, did indeed become addicts. It's very, very dangerous, which I should have made clearer in my post. I saw the research, and the people I described were out there, documented by surveys. They weren't these "people who just can't get addicted," but middle class people, generally in their 30's, if I'm remembering correctly, who did this for a while, on occasion, until they got bored with it. They tended to snort it, like cocaine, not inject it. It was unsurprising that so many got addicted. What was surprising were the number who didn't. Of course, it was a group of the educated middle class, during a period when people tended to try just about anything, and could, if they wished. They tended to be more aware of the danger, perhaps, but that didn't help a whole lot of them. I think the mindset was that addiction was something that happened to others. Not very smart when playing with something like heroin. Keep D&D Civil!!
Not only is it hard to prove, it has been DISproven as shown in many of the links on the Google search I posted earlier. That is certainly the worry, but the facts belie the worries and claims about the "gateway theory." The plain fact is that there are literally millions of people who smoke pot and never move on to other drugs. In addition, the VAST majority of these people are responsible, taxpaying adults who should not have to worry that they might get arrested simply because they prefer an intoxicant other than alcohol, particularly when the harms of alcohol are so well known as is the relative benign nature of mar1juana. The only way we will get accurate numbers regarding the number of people who use one drug and move on to another is to track their sales, something that can ONLY be done in a regulated market. AS far as "caus[ing] more problems for society than good," I would argue that prohibition has been shown to cause FAR more problems than drugs ever have. In places where certain drugs are tolerated, their rates of teen use of those tolerated drugs are about half what we see in the US (Holland) and in Switzerland, they have shown that even heroin addicts can be responsible contributors to society when their habit is not subject to criminal sanctions (prescription heroin) and when they are not exposed to the criminal underground, their criminality drops to nearly zero and their recovery rates are staggeringly good. Prohibition is the problem these days. We can deal with drug use and abuse, but prohibition is causing FAR more harm than good. The real point is that in a black market, drugs are easier for KIDS to get than alcohol. In a regulated market, we can establish reulations that reduce or eliminate the access that kids have to drugs. This is the first step towards reducing drug abuse in our society since one of the two indicators that correlates with lower rates of drug use is age of first use. The older one is when they first try mind altering chemicals (alcohol included), the less likely that person is to get addicted to ANY drug down the line. In a regulated market, we can also affect the other indicator that positively relates to lower drug abuse rates, which is education. In order to be allowed to buy drugs, one should have to attend education classes to learn about addiction, recovery, and the possible consequences of drug use. Then, these people will have a base of knowledge to draw from when making decisions about using drugs. Again, the studies done to date (at least the ones not funded by the PDFA, ONDCP, or DEA) have debunked the "gateway theory" and shown it to be what it is: a bunch of smoke being blown up the collective a$$es of the American people.
I have a very good friend who can use cocaine (powder) when he goes out to a club and not want to do it again for months on end. He has not used any for about 9 months (mostly because his girlfriend isn't into it) and feels absolutely no compulsion to do it at all. I don't understand this at all because, as I proved to myself when I was 17, if I use cocaine, I just keep wanting more and more. People's body chemistry is different and different substances will affect them different ways. There is no good reason to put people in jail for choosing an intoxicant that they do not have a problem with. People who have a problem with certain substances should be in treatment rather than jail. If someone breaks a law because of or while on drugs, they should go to jail, but nobody deserves to be incarcerated for choosing what goes into their own body.
That is where the education comes in. I am not talking about the "drugs are bad, mmmmmkay" mantra that passes for "drug education" in this country, I am talking about real, honest education about what certain drugs do. There is no question that heroin (and cocaine) is a drug with a high potential for physical addiction. Once we educate the potential user to those facts and inform them of the options for treatment should a problem develop, they should have the right to "choose their poison" so to speak.
My buddy Pete in college got Hodgkin's and testicular cancer his junior year. Chemo wiped it out but it was making him miserable. He threw up for 13 straight days. He started eating pot brownies (he's asthmatic so no smoking) for round 2 of chemo and it was a lifesaver. He ended up putting on weight and actually seeming quite happy from time to time. Plus that was when the Discovery Channel first came out, so he was zoning out watching animals in the wild. (Yeah he had the semester off, Vandy was always cool about stuff like that) I dont smoke the stuff but I would never keep it out of the hands of a cancer patient. Pete and his one remaining testicle spawned 3 kids and he's 11 years cancer-free
Hey Andy. I'm quite persuaded by your arguments. Not sure which studies to trust, but you do build a convincing case. This part I don't know though: I don't understand how it'll be easier to keep MJ out of kids hands after its legalised. Take cigs for example, wouldn't it be easier for the kids to have access to it if it was legalised? All it'll take is for some 18y/o to buy it from a store and give re-sell it to kids. Also the part about education, can't you make compulsory MJ classes in school w/o legalising it? Also, how exactly does legalising MJ for recreational use benefit society? Well... besides an improvement in quality of life I guess. I'm specifically talking about MJ here, not heroin. Are you pro-legalising heroin as well?
