Posted on 06/22/2011 11:34:42 PM PDT by AustralianConservative
Government Senator Marc Bean recently called for a debate on the merits of decriminalising drugs in the wake of a report from the Global Commission on Drug Policy. A distinguished panel that wrote the report said the war on drugs had failed and recommended partial legalization as a solution to the blight of the illegal drugs trade on communities around the world.
Not so fast, warn medics.
Side effects of marijuana can include a heightened risk of psychotic illnesses like schizophrenia, depression, damage to memory and judgement and heart problems. Neurologist Dr Keith Chiappa said: “The use of marijuana, especially in younger age groups, should not be encouraged by any legalisation and should continue to be discouraged by specific programmes.”
Consultant psychiatrist Dr Chantelle Simmons said: “Cannabis use has been shown to be associated with difficulties in thought processes in 15-20 year olds.
“When you have a young adult, whose brain is still developing, there is a five times greater risk of schizophrenia.”
“It particularly adversely affects the developing brain and it’s also closely associated with psychosis.”
The Mid Atlantic Wellness Institute doctor added: “As a clinician, I try to focus on medical implications only, but I would have concerns that decriminalization would send a message that it was okay to encourage marijuana use.”
Dr Simmons added that studies had shown that marijuana use caused higher rates of depressive illness in adult women – four times the rate of depression found in non-users.
Teenage marijuana smokers have also been found to be less likely to complete high school and more likely to make poor career and life choices.
Dr Simmons said: “People say ‘it’s only weed, it’s natural’. It is a natural substance, but it can have significant adverse effects. It can not only cause psychosis, but exacerbate existing phychoses.”
(Excerpt) Read more at bermudasun.bm ...
I grant you a tiny percentage don’t actually practice the vices they promote.
I would say count me in that tiny percentage, but you are still confusing the issues of legalizing and promoting. You do understand there is a difference, do you not?
Example:
Until the mid to late 60s (not sure of dates), pornography was not legal in the US.
But thanks to the commie founded ACLU and porn producers, porn is now saturating the society, and has caused tremendous harm.
The US gov is not “promoting” porn - no gov ads for it - but the leftist agenda is to legalize every bit of depravity and vice, destroy the family and societal restraint and morality and voila! Ripe for tyranny.
“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 of 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 the will and appetite is 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 can not be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
— Edmund Burke
My personal view about mj is that people should be allowed to grow it but SOLELY for their own use. No buying, no selling, no “giving away”. That would bring the price down to almost nothing. So people who want to become stupid and mentally ill will be free to do so but no drug pushing, no narco cartels, no banks enriching themselves with money laundering and no politicians taking bank money to continue with the WOD that keeps the prices nice and high.
And penalties for selling dope?
Public canings.
If this was enacted, in one year there would be no mj problem. Additionally, any employer who would want to do drug tests to eliminate mj users, fine. You play, you pay.
Other drugs such as for instance meth, anyone selling or manufacturing - death sentence.
Opium? Let people grow their own poppies and get stupid.
But no one likes my plan. Takes every penny out of the trade, but people can use if they want to be stupid. People sometimes whine about poor disabled people who cant’ grow it.
Too bad. Even someone in a wheelchair can grow potted plants.
I partialy agree and will offer that parenting has a big influence also. Good parents produce children that will abuse drugs at a lower rate. Crummy parents will produce children that abuse drugs at a higher rate. Not rocket science!
Really? In notes made by George Washington (Thomas Jefferson?) he remarked that he had waited too long to pull the male plants up. That isn't done for a fiber crop and it isn't done for a seed crop. The only reason to do that is to prevent the females from producing seed resulting in seedless flowers. Sensamilla - without seed.
You have no respect for the truth or this forum's rules. Plain and simple; you're a scumball with no character at all.
Really, that is your proof for pot being used to get high in Western Civilization?
Pot clearly destroys you people.
I may have to use my Sawzall! Corded. ;^)
And deal with all the paperwork to obtain a saw blade that is up to the job? No thanks!
We know very little definite information about the brain and the way most “brain scans” are presented is pure rubbish.
AustralianConservative claims that such studies exist but he will not or cannot ever produce them for examination. He has followed that pattern on numerous threads that he has initiated. Essentially, he is the red herring and straw man master.
That is absurd. As I said; numerous friends of mine have done just fine.
An unsupported opinion.
Saved by bureaucracy!
I think the Government commercial depicting an egg frying was pretty much the most substantive piece of evidence that the government possessed on the effect of drugs on the human brain.
IMHO, within a century the entire anti-drug regime will be seen as having been an enormous criminal conspiracy to maximise the revenues of the conscienceless grandees of the drug bizness. After all, who benefits financially from the current system? Criminals. What keeps prices high and entry costly? Why, taxpayer’s money spent on “fighting the drug dealers”
The lawyers, police, and prison and social service personnel catch a few crumbs and grab a little grease from this bizness, but the steak is eaten by powerful and protected cartels, who operate with apparent impunity wherever they go on this planet.
The money must flow to very high stations in life indeed for such immunity to persist.
IMO the Medical Marijuana movement has complicated the inevitable process of moving towards more rational views about cannabis use both medicinally and recreationally. It has succeeded in softening the law in many places for certain circumstances of possession but it has disingenuously, and IMO, intentionally confused the truth about both medicinal and recreational use.
There is indeed some crossover just as alcohol and caffeine are simultaneously used both socially and medicinally. But the MM movement is almost as guilty of misleading propaganda as the drug warrior element in the government has been.
Your mind, what is left of it from 40 years of marijuana smoking, must be totally destroyed. See post 60 from this very thread where you bring up another thread first.
Now you cry like a baby with your usual whine about "lies".
The only lie around here is you. There is no justification for a fanatical drug cheer leader who sides with Barney Frank and brags of "40 years of pot smoking experience" like you on FR.
You are as big a pig as Barney Frank and by all rights you should be ZOTTED.
Maybe someone with a set of crayons will come along and draw you a map to the abuse button. LOL
That is another lie. I ridiculed both Frank and Paul on that thread.
You are the one crying forum abuse in post 266 so I responded.
Seriously, it gets old each time I have to remind you of the recent past.
How does the person who changes your diaper stand you?
Yea probably one of the many asinine posts we seen in these threads that goes like this:
I can’t believe I agree with Barney frank but he is right...blah blah blah.
Bottom line is you want the same thing.
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