Posted on 06/07/2019 7:40:00 PM PDT by Persevero
Most of all, advocates have told you that marijuana is not just safe for people with psychiatric problems like depression, but that it is a potential treatment for those patients. On its website, the cannabis delivery service Eaze offers the “Best Marijuana Strains and Products for Treating Anxiety.” “How Does Cannabis Help Depression?” is the topic of an article on Leafly, the largest cannabis website. But a mountain of peer-reviewed research in top medical journals shows that marijuana can cause or worsen severe mental illness, especially psychosis, the medical term for a break from reality. Teenagers who smoke marijuana regularly are about three times as likely to develop schizophrenia, the most devastating psychotic disorder.
(Excerpt) Read more at imprimis.hillsdale.edu ...
Well if you don’t have time for it not sure why you are discussing it...you could avoid the thread.
It is true that correlation isn’t causation.
But what you do with research, if you don’t want to use common sense, is have control groups. One group just smokes tobacco, the other tobacco and marijuana.
If you read the article you’ll see that several decent studies are cited and they have merit.
Or we can all admit that marijuana gets you high and tobacco does not.
And we can all admit that part of being high is decreased inhibition and rationality.
And we can all admit that long term alteration of your brain chemistry has serious and permanent consequences in regards to your behavior.
I don’t think all the violence is between potheads.
Shall we say that since most gang members kill each other that is should be legal to be part of criminal conspiracy gangs?
No, there is a lot of collateral and direct damage due to gang activity.
Similarly there is a lot of collateral and direct damage with drug activity.
As the article details of its arguments will be considered.
Imprints is not an hysterical or fear mongering publication.
I’m glad you read the article but I see no specific disagreements I e “this study was flawed because...” or “this conclusion is wrong because..”. Reefer Madness is not cited nor is the tone of the article carrying on in that vein. It’s scholarly, well documented, logical.
There have not been studies with twins or random large control groups that showed any permenent differences from even the heaviest levels of cannabis use.
One negative effect we are sure of is that it makes people inebriated. However it is not even close to the level of inebriation with alcohol abuse. Some road tests even showed that it makes people drive safer than when sober. While EVERY study of driving under alcohol is negative. Alcohol is also directly tied to countless acts of inebriated violence during “blackouts”.
The other negative effect we know if that some people will choose to use cannabis compulsively. However since there is no withdrawal pain, this is psychological addiction rather than physical. Equivalent to an addiction to video games, sex or internet. Meanwhile alcohol addiction has such strong withdrawal symptoms that users can DIE from attempting to go sober.
To protect people from themselves and others due to acts done during inebriation, the logical path is to also call for the ban/limit of alcohol along with cannanis.
However human nature is not always logical. A huge percentage of people will forever want to mentally escape their lives once in a while. They will do nearly anything to do so. IF you were somehow succesful in banning all intoxicating plants or a compound that exists everywhere in nature (alcohol), people who wish to escape will simply use more dangerous ways- medicine abuse, research drugs, inhalants, solvents. I can go into any pharmacy or hardware store and come out with a shopping cart full of things to get me stoned as long as I feel like it. However these things come with far greater permanent side effects than cannabis or alcohol.
In places where cannabis is more restricted, you see incidents of people using fake cannabis laced with toxic chemicals. People have died or turned into permanent street zombies from these toxins. People hear of the risks but are willing to put their lives at stake to escape.
The only choice in line with human nature is to allow grown adults a few of the safest substances for escape with the lowest side effects. Then regulate the substances for toxicity and dosage rather than ban them into the hands of shady dealers. Stopping alcohol prohibition and allowing legal, regulated production was a move in the right direction but not everyone enjoys alcohol
I think twins is asking a bit much. We don’t need twin studies to determine whether things have negative impacts. This is not required for any other drug.
Of course it is comparable to alcohol. A puff or two and you are generally ok. It is the dose that is most critical. So we need a standard for what is inebriated? Just like with alcohol. Field tests or blood or similar.
As for withdrawal I understand there is an increase in er rooms for excessive use which I find comparable. I imagine people could die from the violent retching but I don’t know.
Anyway I’m not here to defend alcohol abuse. I support public intoxication laws, no drinking when operating machinery laws, laws against drinking when in care of dependents. I agree that drunkenness is very bad for people, and not just the drinkers. Many suffer and some die due to the alcohol abuse of others. There are of course bans and limits on alcohol already.
That doesn’t mean we should now be ok with marijuana abuse.
I agree that all anti social behavior will continue as long as man exists. However we must do what we can to minimize it. Murder is illegal too, so is theft, obviously it continues. But it must be contained and eliminated as much as reasonable. I say reasonable because we don’t want the cure to be worse than the disease. We don’t want everyone in a single cell from birth to prevent them committing murder for example.
HOW is subtracting a mind altering substance *not* BETTER? Should we ban alcohol?
The current debate is not about making a legal substance illegal but about legalizing that which is illegal.
Feeble dodge - the debate is about what principles should determine the legality or illegality of substances.
As you are arguing that the legality of alcohol should allow the legalization of marijuana
I'm not - I'm pointing out that the principles YOU have cited for banning marijuana apply equally well to banning alcohol.
As for other substances: we should proceed no more than one step at a time, alcohol having been the first and marijuana being the second; and if legalizing marijuana leaves us a War on Fringe Drugs we can actually win, then the argument for further legalization will be greatly weakened to say the least.
Statistics are blind. Blind to emotional street diagnosis by amateurs.
The Mexican drug cartel has killed thousands bringing in illegal Bud Lite.
Tht’s a mean looking dope head.
ROTFLOL!!
HOW is subtracting a mind altering substance *not* BETTER? Should we ban alcohol?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Never argue against dope with a dope head.
But then statistics lie in the hands of an agenda.
The self medicating is destroying the dopamine receptors in their brains. Unfortunately the brain damage not only causes insanity and depression, but for a large part is permanent.
It is not medicine, its poison. Methamphetamine and opioids are a one way street to the streets.
Unlike uninformed opinions that spring from good intentions.
Yeah, the hundred thousand in LA and Frisco were never noticed in small towns... righttt...
So where did the great influx come from?
Fentanyl and meth labs.
Oh, by the way, statistically Trump has not got a chance in hell to win against Hillery. Just ask her and her sycophants polls.
Statistics in the hand of an agenda is a weapon, not a tool of discovery.
Might as well just want the same “public intoxication laws and laws regarding those in charge of minors and vulnerable adults as well” for pot then - despite the current laws, alcohol destroys much more than pot...
Understood but what is your solution for mentally ill who refuse treatment? We tried imprisoning them and it resulted in huge costs/abuse.
Note that methamphetamine and opiods can be prescribed by a doctor to anyone. Including children. They are indeed medicines and help people with certain brain chemistries when properly used.
Now imagine IF we somehow could manage to keep all of these abused medicines off the streets. IMO it is impossible due to the profit margin and demand but let’s imagine for one second:
The mentally ill who cannot find or afford street drugs would simply use even more damaging substances with absolutely no medical value. Things like gasoline, glue, solvents and industrial gases. One could even inhale the gases from decomposing garbage/feces sitting in a trashbag to get high. The effects of huffing the toxic sewer gases are actually stronger and more damaging than most street drugs. And you can’t ban feces.
The “war on drugs” is the most pointless exercize and only results in people using more toxic/dirty drugs and stealing more to obtain them. Those resources would be far better spent to reduce the root causes that make people destroy their own minds. Identify and help suffering/abused people before they fall into the cycle of unstoppable mental illness with self medicating chemical abuse.
Every other drug has direct identifiable damage from abuse. Things like tissue necrosis and internal bleeding. This is not the case with cannabis and ONLY with cannabis.
A twin study is necessary for a contol to prove things like mental illness and brain “differences” are not merely a correlation in drug abusers. Just like the 300-500% higher rate of tobacco use found in schizophrenics does not mean we should ban tobacco.
There are zero field tests for countless OTC and Rx drugs that are far more impairing than cannabis when abused. We don’t have checkpoints to see if people are driving after too many ambiens, cough syrup, etc, etc. Nobody is panicking about this or even talking about it.
“I say reasonable because we don’t want the cure to be worse than the disease.”
Unlike laws against murder, the WOD is 100% worse than the disease. It only pushes people who wish to escape to use dirtier and more dangerous substances from which there is no coming back.
Even if you banned every single street drug, people would use industrial chemicals. And IF you somehow regulated all chemicals, they would simply use fermented urine/feces from their own body. Sewer gases are more inebriating and damaging than most drugs.
The war on drug abuse is an inconvenient truth to abusers. It’s not a war on drugs, it’s a war on criminals who get wealthy selling addicting poisons.
I would agree to ratcheting down the war on the victims, as long as they start executing the dealers.
For the legions of brain damaged victims there is little hope, they are little more than zombies now.
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