It's Time to Rethink Marijuana Laws

Philadelphia Enquirer ^ | July 9, 2007 | Kathleen Parker

[Eric Blair 2084]

WASHINGTON -- News that Al Gore's 24-year-old son, Al Gore III, was busted for pot and assorted prescription pills has unleashed a torrent of mirth in certain quarters.

Gore-phobes on the Internet apparently view the son's arrest and incarceration as comeuppance for the father's shortcomings. Especially rich was the fact that young Al was driving a Toyota Prius when he was pulled over for going 100 mph -- just as Papa Gore was set to preside over concerts during a 24-hour, seven-continent Live Earth celebration to raise awareness about global warming.

Whatever one may feel about the former vice president's environmental obsessions, his son's problems are no one's cause for celebration. The younger Gore's high-profile arrest does, however, offer Americans an opportunity to get real about drug prohibition, and especially about marijuana laws.

For the record, I have no interest in marijuana except as a public policy matter. My personal drug of choice is a heavenly elixir made from crushed grapes. But it is, alas, a drug.

Tasty, attractive and highly ritualized in our culture, wine and other alcoholic beverages are approved for responsible use despite the fact that alcoholism and attendant problems are a plague, while responsible use of a weed that, at worst, makes people boring and hungry, is criminal.

Pot smokers might revolt if they weren't so mellow.

Efforts over the past few decades to relax marijuana laws have been moderately successful. Twelve states have decriminalized marijuana, which usually means no prison or criminal record for first-time possession of small amounts for personal consumption. (Those states are: Alabama, California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon.)

[buck61]

I just can’t understand someone going 100 after smoking weed. You can usually tell someone is smoking weed and driving because they are usually going 10 mph below the speed limit.

I’m sixty three years of age. I have never smoked weed, had plenty of chances but, just wasn’t interested. But I have observed others who do smoke the stuff and, what I see is as describe above.
I live in a moonshine area of the mountains of east Tn. There is still some of that product being made here but, on a smaller scale. Sense the introduction of marijuana, sells have declined greatly and so has the “fighting”.
There are only two types of moonshine produced, the fighting
type and the loving type, most of the time, fighting type.
Peace has finally come to the mountains due to marijuana. LOL

[buck61]

I some what agree with your assessment on the drug laws.

And, to think how different things wold have been between the Hatfield’s and, the McCoys had they been smoking weed instead of drinking moonshine???

[Hemingway's Ghost]

The people pushing pot here are in no way conservative

Sure we are. And we've enjoyed your moronic postings on FR Drug War threads for years now.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

"Marijuana contains more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than tobacco smoke and because marijuana smokers usually inhale deeper and hold the smoke in their lungs longer than tobacco smokers, their lungs are exposed to those carcinogenic properties longer."

This reasoning is specious, because marijuana smokers do not smoke marijuana cigarettes as often, or in the same way, as cigarette smokers smoke cigarettes. A typical cigarette smoker smokes many cigarettes per day, while a typical marijuana smoker may smoke a total of one or two marijuana cigarettes per week.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

I am not outnumbered in my view here on FR

Yes you are. Badly. And your arguments are childish.

[webstersII]

“Japan has one of they highest amount of smokers and the lowest occurance of lung cancer.”

You are right about that.

They smoke like chimnies over there.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Why would my mother who helped create a prison ministry and many of the prisoners that I myself have spoken with want to tell me all the same supposedly false story about pot and how they often mixed it with other stuff and got in trouble?

1. Your mother needs clients, so of course she wants to perpetuate the myth.
2. Criminals lie, and criminals are apt to pass the buck. There's not a guilty man in prison.

Lay-up.

[Just another Joe]

Seems to me that smoking tobacco puts one at risk of roughly 1 in 11 of contracting lung cancer.

That's an erroneous figure.
Tobacco use puts approximately 10% of tobacco users at risk for ANY type of life threatening illness, this includes cancer.

[tacticalogic]

Give a drunk a loaded gun, and he’ll probably go out and shoot someone. Give a pothead a loaded gun and he’ll probably take it apart to see how it works and then lose the pieces.

[zeugma]

Give a drunk a loaded gun, and he’ll probably go out and shoot someone. Give a pothead a loaded gun and he’ll probably take it apart to see how it works and then lose the pieces.

LOL! Too true.

 

[bajabaja]

1 in 11 is approximately 10%.

[Just another Joe]

But not all with cancer. The 1 in 10 is for ANY form of life threatening illness.

[bajabaja]

One of many studies saying the risk of lung cancer alone is greater than 10% for smokers, not for any disease, but specifically for lung cancer. Several more such studies out there:

Bureau of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, Tunney’s Pasture, Ottawa, Ontario.

Life table methodology was used to estimate the probability of developing lung cancer by smoking status. Lifetime risks of developing lung cancer were estimated for six hypothetical cohorts (males, females, male current smokers, male never smokers, female current smokers, and female never smokers). Estimates of smoking mortality and incidence rates were calculated based on Canadian rates observed over the period 1987 to 1989. It was found that 172/1,000 of male current smokers will eventually develop lung cancer; the similar probability among female current smokers was 116/1,000. For those who never smoked on a regular basis the lifetime risk was substantially reduced. Only 13/1,000 males and 14/1,000 females in this category will develop lung cancer. When smoking status is not adjusted for, the lifetime risk of developing lung cancer is approximately 96/1,000 and 43/1,000 for males and females respectively.

Have a source that supports your claim? Here is one of several supporting that the risk for just lung cancer is greater than just one in eleven:

PMID: 7895211 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Source link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=7895211&ordinalpos=29&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

[Just another Joe]

Give me a little time to take a look at this study.

[bajabaja]

Thank you very much for those site, I was looking for an actual reference to possible psychotic effects. The increased cancer risk is truly interesting. The second article you posted addresses both. Again, thanks. I am going to have to learn to google better. Talking facts about “just pot” usually draws snickers.

[SoldierDad]

You said: ". . . marijuana smokers do not smoke marijuana cigarettes as often, or in the same way, as cigarette smokers smoke cigarettes".

From my post: "Marijuana contains more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than tobacco smoke and because marijuana smokers usually inhale deeper and hold the smoke in their lungs longer than tobacco smokers, their lungs are exposed to those carcinogenic properties longer." You also said: " . . . a typical marijuana smoker may smoke a total of one or two marijuana cigarettes per week".

Must be nice to be an expert on what the "typical marijuana smoker smokes in a week. Of those who I know that "typically" smoke marijuana one or two per week would be an extremely slow week. So, where do you get your "facts" on the "typical" amount that marijuana smokers use in any given week? I seriously question your claim.

[SoldierDad]

Yeah, I know. Those who constantly advocate for legalization either do not explore the effects of the drug, or ignore the facts about the effects, to their detriment.

[Just another Joe]

Life table methodology was used to estimate the probability of developing lung cancer by smoking status.
Lifetime risks of developing lung cancer were estimated for six hypothetical cohorts
(males, females, male current smokers, male never smokers, female current smokers, and female never smokers).
Estimates of smoking mortality and incidence rates were calculated based on Canadian rates observed over the period 1987 to 1989.

Sorry guy, this isn't a "study". This is an estimate based on estimated numbers using hypothetical people.

I'll see if I can dig up the study that I was relating from but don't guarantee that I can since it was about two computers ago
that I was researching things of this nature.

[bajabaja]

Medical statistics are certainly not to be dismissed, there are standard statistical errors associated therewith, but that methodology accounts for such errors and remains a very valid measure of morbidity. The lifetime risk of lung cancer (not for any disease, but lung cancer alone) from smoking is about 1 in 10 (my original statement to which you took issue was 1 in 11).

Here are two other sources, one from the Harvard School of Public Health:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/lungcancer/

(Fifth bullet point says 10% risk on Lung Cancer Susceptibility and Outcome Studies. Note the study is recruiting patients, these are not “hypothetical patients” as you believe statistical estimates are not valid.)

And another of many sources:http://www.chestx-ray.com/Smoke/Smoke.html

There are other risks associated with smoking (which, I maintain is a personal choice for each of us to accept or reject) but the lifetime risk of contracting lung cancer of smoking is about 10%. And these cited sources are not hypothetical.

[Just another Joe]

Sorry again guy, but neither of those is a study.
They are media makeovers.

I can say anything I want but unless I give the studies to back it up, it doesn't mean anything.

I don't look at media makeovers, I look at the studies behind the media makeovers.

I can say with absolute certainty that 100% of all people that breath air die. Therefore, breathing air makes people die.
Statistically, it's true, but the cause of death is erroneous.

Unless you can show me the studies that back up these claims, I have to take the claims with a rather large grain of salt considering the current bais against smokers.