Posted on 03/07/2015 1:12:44 PM PST by Ken H
For the first time, the General Social Survey -- a large, national survey conducted every two years and widely considered to represent the gold standard for public opinion research -- shows a majority of Americans favoring the legalization of marijuana.
In interviews conducted between March and October of last year -- when the legal marijuana markets in Colorado and Washington were ramping up -- researchers asked 1,687 respondents the following question: "Do you think the use of marijuana should be made legal or not?"
Fifty-two percent said pot should be legalized, 42 percent opposed it, and another 7 percent were undecided. Support is up 9 percentage points from 2012 the last time the survey was conducted.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I'd be surprised if anyone I know uses that stuff. And most of the people I know *are* doctors.
We are discussing cannabis use, and you throw out the term addictions and these people becoming unemployable? Cannabis is not chemically addictive like, alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, sugar (some will disagree on sugar), opiates, cocaine, hundreds of prescription drugs. Do you want to prohibit all these addictive drugs? Do you want to make users of these drugs criminals and ruin their futures for personally consuming these substances?
There are millions of Americans who use cannabis and work and run businesses just like the alcohol users and the caffeine users.... and the....
Ok.
I bet you would!
Do you think that all of them never used a drug they are authorized to prescribe for their own personal use?
I really don’t know why some people want to drug themselves into a stupor, befitting a Zombie, and into some “altered state of consciousness”.
Our Creator God gave us a perfectly functioning brain and body and there’s no need to create some kind of “Zombie-state” in oneself!
Um, marijuana is most certainly addictive. And the reason these people become unemployable is that they damage their brains--they develop psychiatric disorders that make them unemployable. But even in the absence of overt psychiatric disorders, marijuana use affects the ability to find and keep a job.
This study looked at unemployable youth, and found that (not surprisingly) marijuana use was significantly associated with unemployability: Not in education, employment, or training status among young swiss men. Longitudinal associations with mental health and substance use.
A problem with marijuana is that it inhibits both ambition and initiative. Being unmotivated to do anything really does make people unemployable.
Me neither.
There is so much that you can accomplish, and so much enjoyment to be gained from the accomplishment, if you just stay sober and work hard. The opportunities I have had, and the things I have had the fortune to do, would never have happened had I gone into a life of addiction.
I do think that. The hospital where I used to work did a full pharmacy inventory of class II, III, and IV drugs every month, precisely for the purpose of finding inappropriate use of the drugs. In the inventories that I personally conducted, I never saw evidence that prescription drugs were used by anyone other than the patients to whom they were prescribed. I did hear one story of a nurse who diverted drugs to her own use (they were prescribed, but the patient never received them), and she lost her job and was probably prosecuted over it.
In the medical field, we take potential provider abuse of drugs very seriously.
How does Marijuana effect future children? How is it worse than mothers who smoke cigs or drink alcohol?
Yep, and the ones they prescribed for themselves and close ones are fully accounted for. It was all legal.
Yes there is some concern for impaired brain development in adolescences who are ‘heavy’ cannabis users. HEAVY USE! Heavy use of any psychoactive substance during adolescence causes impairment of brain development and the same is true of a host of non-psychactive substances. The last link you provided is not a medical study but a theory and uses the terms “may”, “possibly”, “further studies should”.
There are other anti-cannabis studies that have been used that had no data and still others proven to be a pact of lies.
The medical studies of the medical uses of cannabis which is completely non-toxic are in the thousands. The Israeli’s are years ahead of the rest of the world in the use of medical cannabis and the success of the treatments in their health care system are utterly amazing. Educate yourself!
Some peoples brains are not fully developed till age 25 that is not a figure that can be used universally for brain development.
Here is why I bring up alcohol. Millions dead from the use of! Over a dozen deadly diseases because of alcohol use. Alcohol is chemically addictive unlike cannabis. The violence, abuse, property destruction and murders caused by those under the influence of alcohol is known by all. Who doesn’t know someone who died from alcohol use...or someone who was harmed or killed by someone intoxicated by alcohol? We all do! Add to that the billions of dollars wasted in health care and criminal justice system and other areas of society from alcohol use. Yet there is a double standard by people like you who won’t address the alcohol problem and yet attribute unsubstantiated problems with cannabis use. Why? None of those problems or costs are caused by cannabis use! But we have spent close to 100 billion dollars making people criminals for smoking a plant.
Do you want to prohibit alcohol and make those who consume alcohol criminals? How about answering the question?
I agree with you 100% !!
So do you agree with Ted Cruz that it is up to the state to decide legalization, or do you want fedgov to decide?
Please alert Portugal and Steve Forbes that what they measured as a success was really a failure. You tell them!!
Cannabis is not chemically addictive! I work with addicts. Heavy use can produce a form of dependency, resulting in heavy users thinking they cannot get through the day or a stressful situation without using cannabis. Cannabis users DO NOT have to be chemically detoxed off cannabis ...there is NO chemical addiction. Even a heavy user of cannabis can quit using at anytime without the medical dangers or detox symptoms of those who are chemically addicted such as, alcohol, tobacco, hundreds of prescription drugs, opiates, cocaine.
Your conclusions and the ones at the link you provided fly in the face of tens of millions of cannabis users who are employed or own businesses, thus the link is bs. Yes being intoxicated on any psychoactive substance impairs ones ability to perform certain tasks, such as the all drunks who are unemployable and all the drunks that somehow manage to hold unto jobs...amazing!
I would much prefer everyone abstain from getting intoxicated on anything, but I don’t want to throw them in prison because they did get intoxicated nor do I want to empower govt to have that authority. That is not to say I don’t want those who are intoxicated and commit crimes such as robbery or assault or murder not arrested and prosecuted just like non-intoxicated people. What substances adults put in their own bodies is their business not mine, not yours, not the govts.
If someone wants to grow and eat tomatoes or cannabis it is nobodies business. Cannabis is plant and I stand with free people even if they are stupid enough to want to get high on it.
You want to google addicted doctors and nurses, it is not a small problem. I have helped both get clean.
Portugal the One success story in the whole world. That is the model we need, not this WOD shite that is providing billions to drug cartels and the anti-drug profiteers.
It is all about money, billions a year, that is why it is demonized with such massive effort.
The drug war in a nutshell.
December 16, 2014
Teen alcohol and drug use -- including marijuana use -- was down across the board in 2014.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/16/teen-marijuana-use-falls-as-more-states-legalize/
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