Posted on 08/20/2014 10:40:32 AM PDT by ConservingFreedom
Like it or not, marijuana use has increased exponentially since President Nixon declared a war no drugs in 1971. Today, marijuana — or weed, pot, cannabis, Mary Jane — is the third most popular recreational drug in the United States, behind only alcohol and tobacco. Upward of 24 million people have used it, based on the latest estimates, with 14 million using it regularly. But despite a growing warmth toward the drug, and two states (Washington and Colorado) legalizing its recreational use, there are still some people on the fence about its safety and usefulness. So, to educate you nonbelievers out there, here are five marijuana myths debunked.
This may be the biggest farce cooked up by marijuana opponents, but it makes sense. People who have tried marijuana may eventually go on to try harder drugs in search of a stronger high, and their experimentation leads them down a dangerous path toward addiction. But the science behind whether or not this is true overwhelmingly shows that it’s not.
“Because it is the most widely used illicit drug, marijuana is predictably the first illicit drug most people encounter,” a report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) said. “In the sense that marijuana use typically precedes rather than follows initiation of other illicit drug use, it is indeed a ‘gateway’ drug. But because underage smoking and alcohol use typically precede marijuana use, marijuana is not the most common and is rarely the first ‘gateway’ to illicit drug use. There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs.”
So what is the cause of other illicit drug use? As the IOM report suggested, other studies have also implicated alcohol and tobacco use as gateway drugs. But an alternative gateway may just be the trials and tribulations some kids face while growing up. “Whether marijuana smokers go on to use other illicit drugs depends more on social factors like being exposed to stress and being unemployed — not so much whether they smoked a joint in the eighth grade,” Dr. Karen Van Gundy, an associate professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire, told CBS News.
Although smoking weed won’t mess with a person’s body too much, it can cause a couple of the same issues that tobacco smokers experience, with the most likely one being respiratory problems. Ailments like bronchitis may sometimes develop as users inhale the tars from the rolling papers in joints and blunts. Because of this, eating marijuana-infused foods or smoking from a vaporizer, which heats the weed up just enough to release the THC (its active ingredient), may be healthier.
Smoking weed and getting behind the wheel is also relatively dangerous, with a number of studies this year finding that teens who drove while high were likely to get in crashes. One of the studies found that the number of people who crashed their cars while high tripled over the past 10 years. A person who drives while high can be up to two times more likely to crash. When accounting for teens only, another study concluded that a teen’s lack of driving experience paired with marijuana’s (or alcohol’s) effects led many teens to drive recklessly, even when not impaired, thus increasing their risk of a crash.
When it comes to more serious illnesses, marijuana may have more benefits than harms (we’ll get into that later). Despite a controversial study earlier this year suggesting it causes brain damage, other studies have shown no correlation, let alone cause. “Results indicated no significant effect of cannabis use on global neurocognitive performance,” one 2012 study said. Other opponents argue it can cause lung cancer, a condition not one study has found a link to yet.
With the majority of drugs being addicting — alcohol, tobacco, heroin, cocaine, etc — it’s easy to go ahead and say that marijuana’s addicting, too. But it’s a little more complex than that, and no, it’s not addicting. But users can develop a dependence, or a bad habit of lighting up. According to a 1994 study on the topic, however, only four percent of users develop this dependence. Compared to weed, alcohol and tobacco dependence was found among 14 and 24 percent of study participants. In a more recent study from 2007, only about nine percent of users developed dependency to the drug, whereas 15 and 24 percent of cocaine and heroin users went back again and again.
Breaking any habit can be really difficult, a recent study showed, but it’s possible with some dedication.
The stereotypical stoner is all too real, unfortunately. At 30 years old, he still lies in his parents’ home, unemployed, smoking weed in his room while playing video games. Although marijuana users may never get rid of the reputation of being lazy, some evidence points to it not affecting a person’s motivation at all.
But first, supporting evidence that it does get people lazy. A study from July looked at the brains of 19 users and measured concentrations of dopamine, the chemical linked to reward, pleasure, and motivation. They found that longtime and frequent users, who tended to have more THC in their bodies were also the ones who had lower levels of dopamine in their brains. The researchers suggested that marijuana could cause a controversial — and not entirely official condition — called “amotivational syndrome,” characterized by laziness.
But amotivational syndrome may affect other non-marijuana users just as much. One study published in the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors found that the syndrome affected about five to six percent of the population, both users and nonusers. These findings were later supported by another study, which also found there was no difference in motivation.
What it comes down to is, if you’re lazy when you smoke weed, you were probably lazy before, too.
To say marijuana has no possible health benefits is to deny hundreds, if not thousands, of pages' worth of proof. Simply looking at this Collective Evolution article will point you in the direction of 20 studies proving its cancer-fighting benefits. According to the National Cancer Institute, cannabinoids may inhibit tumor growth by causing cell death, blocking its growth, and blocking the development of blood vessels that aid in metastasis. These marijuana ingredients may also help reduce inflammation in the colon, reducing colon cancer risk, as well as killing some kinds of breast cancer cells. And that’s only cancer.
Marijuana has also been implicated in treating glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, PTSD, anxiety, and a host of other conditions. Its medical use has already been approved in 23 states, even as leading politicians begrudgingly admit its benefits.
As more states sign on for medical marijuana and local governments notice the revenue pulled from recreational weed — sales in Colorado are expected to reach $1 billion during this fiscal year — it’s likely to become a slippery slope toward the end of prohibition.
It's not all or nothing - if it were, the drug alcohol would be illegal.
What gives you the sole decision/ authority with your brethren to tell someone else that their underage kid has a right to smoke it
Nobody here supports legalization for minors.
What you do in your own private domain; that action doesn’t involve another citizen being injured or abused, it’s your business to carry on your life.
That's exactly what relegalization for adults would achieve.
I'm just clarifying what you are saying. This is it in it's simplest most reduced form. A Child's whining about someone else getting away with something. That is the ONLY reason you keep bringing up alcohol. Because THEY are getting away with it, so you should too!
"WAAAAAAAAAH!!!! They get Alcohol! I want my WEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDD!!!!!"
You really don't know your history. The Temperance/Anti-Saloon league was made up of "progressives" who we would nowadays call women's libbers.
Sounds like you're agreeing with me.
and proved to cause more ills than it cured.
Yeah, because were losing a LOT MORE THAN 90,000 PEOPLE PER YEAR BACK THEN, WEREN'T We?
First, you need to adjust for population; second, deaths are not the only ill in the world.
No, you're not.
If I could give you plots for another country I would, but up till now, no others have been so stupid as to allow drug addiction to evolve in it's normal manner.
China is pretty much what we got, and that much smaller experiment in Switzerland. Again, nobody has been stupid enough to try that disaster again, but people like you would. Of that I have no doubt. You either can't learn or don't care about past mistakes.
I do not find it embarssing at all to point out that you and your dope advocates are nothing but whiny little children who needs to grow the F*** up!
As a little child, I suspect the only thing that is going to work on you is the humiliation of pointing out just how much very like a whiny brat you are.
"WAAAAAAAAAH!!!! They get Alcohol! I want my WEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDD!!!!!"
Of course it was the 1890’s when physicians started writing about addictions, just as the Progressive “promotion of moral improvement” was getting warmed up. The same arguments were made against drink, and proved invalid. And, in fact, the experience with alcohol prohibition shows the social harms created by a prohibition regime.
Can you provide some more recent photos from, say Colorado or Washington? A photo of a park trashed by dope-heads rejoicing at no longer being criminals is about as valid an argument for marijuana prohibition is as Hogarth’s etching “Gin Lane” is an argument alcohol prohibition. Honestly, I know I can find closing-time photos from the bar district in Cardiff, Wales, that make you social-collapse in Zurich picture look literally like a picnic in the park in comparison. (You can, too, just do a Google image search on these search terms: closing time Cardiff drunks.)
So have you abandoned your claim that in late-19th-century America drug problems "were getting worse with each passing year"?
There is no such thing as a totally free country. People have to respect the rights of others, and in my opinion people ought to especially respect the right of others not to get into their pockets to pay for the bad behavior of stupid people.
Here, let me put you on to the Father of Social Conservatism. You might learn something, but I doubt it. You appear to be a whiny little brat that doesn't like being told "No" when he wants something.
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity, — in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, — in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.-Edmund Burke- 1791
I remember for 3 years, myself and 2 others trying to help our friend. The three of us even decided on our own to get them signed in treatment while taking care of the financial side. The friend kept saying, “I want to stop.” “I want to get well. "I need help!" It's a bad thing for people because not everyone is mature enough or have proper guidance. I think the government should not open the laws up to make this legal. If they do, I guess they know how to thin out our population while making us into a more liberal country. Drugs do catch up with a lot of people. Why anyone wants to fight that cause, is very foolish and selfish knowing in the long run, it will hurt many many others.
You make that argument every time you bring up the problems with alcohol. There is no other legitimate reason for you to bring up the problems caused by alcohol other than to point at it as justification for your favorite drug.
I have distilled your argument into it's essence, right here.
"WAAAAAAAAAH!!!! They get Alcohol! I want my WEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDD!!!!!"
That is exactly what you are saying.
How is taking a toke any different?
Taking a toke is a lot like butt secks. In both cases someone is sticking a burning cylindrical object in a hole where it doesn't belong.
For legalizing butt secks, we got the AIDS epidemic and epidemics of other STDs such as herpes, syphilis,gonorrhea, etc. Not to mention that we get to see these fairy's prancing all over television nowadays and teaching their culture in the schools.
How is that legalizing butt secks working out for us? I expect legalizing pot to work out just about as well.
Anarchy is scary. You think it's "freedom" because you apparently have little understanding of history.
We will get a dictator out of this. They always come along to restore "order" when a society goes insane.
You also have the attention span of a child, not the historical sweep of an adult. All you libertarians have the attention span of children, and seemingly have no ability to fathom anything which takes longer than your short existence.
Opium didn't wipe out China in six months. It took closer to six decades, but in the end, it took China down.
I suppose if Libertarians had a grasp of history larger than their own, they wouldn't be libertarians. They would know better.
You are lyingly presenting false information and conjecture as true, and you resent the fact that other people come along and point out that you are a propaganda source, not a reasonable or objective thinker.
All laws are enforced morality. All of them. There is no such thing as a law that is not an attempt to enforce a moral behavior.
Laws are not an effort to make people moral. Laws are there to deal with people who cause problems by not being moral.
Yes, but it wasn’t until the last fifty years or so that there was widespread use of pot. And of course, since it was illegal just about everywhere, few would admit to using the stuff. Now that the legalization of weed has begun in some states, I’m sure many more will follow. In five to ten years much more will be known about the effects since the use of pot will be far more open and prevalent.
I think "burden" is a pretty general term in the context in which I used it. I'm objecting more to the feeding, clothing and sheltering the worthless dirt bags than I am about paying for the medical care. That is automatically a non-starter for me.
I'm opposed to socialized medicine in all of it's forms.
Oh, I dunno, how about the SALES RECORDS FOR COCAINE COLA?
How about the MILITARY RECORDS OF MEDICINES DISPENSED?
I said there were no good records for YOUR claims, I did not say there were no good records for MY claims.
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