"WAAAAAAAAAH!!!! They get Alcohol! I want my WEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDD!!!!!"
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.
You are giving the pot warriors theme. You can’t stop it, so go with it.
I disagree, we also try to stop theft, murder and rape. I think those will never go away either.
Who said it would?
See China during their opium era for an example...
See the USA when opium was legal - nothing like China's problems.
You are giving the pot warriors theme. You can’t stop it, so go with it.
No, that's not my argument. My argument is closer to: When in a hole, stop digging.
I disagree, we also try to stop theft, murder and rape. I think those will never go away either.
Two-thirds of murders are solved - the proportion of drug "crimes" that are even detected is assuredly orders of magnitude smaller.
100 years ago was 1914, in 1914 the only parts of America where there were anti-marijuana laws were DC (1906) Massachusetts (1911), New York and Maine (both 1914). And even in those instances sale was generally restricted but not prohibited entirely.
People who socially drink several times a week for a decade or more, no binging, just 1-3 drinks, several times a week, will be fine. People who smoke the equivalent of pot will have affected memory. Some of it just for the time they were stoned, which gets close to 100% because it takes so long for pot to leave the brain. When they are only slightly affected, the next day, they don’t feel high at all, yet the brain is affected. But some of that memory problem can be permanent.
Unless you love memory loss, I’d not smoke pot too regularly.
Your logic is flawed.. honesty is suspect.. and point is mute..
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How is my honesty suspect?
You appear to be against legalization, yes, that is only my assumption.
You raised the issue of benefit, in the negative, so again, I assumed that is at least one of the reasons you favor keeping it illegal. Otherwise, why bring it up?
And the honest question that followed is about your threshold for making/keeping things illegal, is it related to the object’s relative benefit?
It would appear that you simply choose not to address the question, hence you are correct that your response is mute.
Alcohol and drugs are mutually exclusive. We tried banning alcohol once, remember? People can drink without the goal of mind alteration (ie, getting drunk)
Just because one is harmful doesn’t justify adding another harm. Don’t we have enough cultural/behavioral problems without adding more? Legalization isn’t the answer, all it would do is create more dependencies and addictions and a host of political problems.
We did fine without dope in the 60s. Then came the 70s and all the associated problems. Ban it for good, get rid of it. It’s simply not worth the costs.
And here you are once again pushing drug propaganda on everybody.
That and the fact that every pot head they know is a worthless bag of crap sucking on the government's teat and constantly trying to beg borrow or steal from everyone around them.
But mostly the fact that pot heads are worthless bags of crap sucking on the government's teat.
Only by the artificial construct of legality. Pharmacologically, alcohol qualifies by every objective measure as a psychoactive drug.
And you are saying this stuff doesn't cause any trouble?
Yes - remember how it failed in pretty much the same ways that pot criminalization is failing?
People can drink without the goal of mind alteration
When that drug was illegal, people drank almost exclusively with the goal of mind alteration.
"WAAAAAAAAAH!!!! They get Alcohol! I want my WEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDD!!!!!"
"WAAAAAAAAAH!!!! They get Alcohol! I want my WEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDD!!!!!"
I'll just let your witless evasion speak for itself - and for you.
You can’t even begin to compare the two
FAR MORE people enjoy alcohol than pot. Most adults stop using pot once they grow up because they see the stupidity of its use. We still enjoy a drink or two, taste and socializing without the need for mind alteration. Yet even alcohol had to be far more regulated, note the increase in DWI laws over 20-30 years. You want a repeat of that with respect to dope? Because that will happen with legalization.
I sure hope not you or anyone in your family becomes part of the 9-16% who gets addicted by this shyte. Stop defending or rationalizing it, it’s another scourge on our society.
Relevance?
Most adults stop using pot once they grow up
16% of 30-34 year olds smoked pot in the last year (http://www.samhsa.gov/data/NSDUH/2012SummNatFindDetTables/DetTabs/NSDUH-DetTabsSect1peTabs1to46-2012.htm#Tab1.12B).
Yet even alcohol had to be far more regulated, note the increase in DWI laws over 20-30 years. You want a repeat of that with respect to dope?
Absolutely - nobody should drive while significantly impaired by anything.
I sure hope not you or anyone in your family becomes part of the 9-16% who gets addicted by this shyte.
No idea where you got 16%; the 9% for pot is much less than alcohol's 15%.
Whoops, glazed right over that! Thanks.
I don’t buy that it can’t do anything to the lungs. Our lungs were meant for air, not smoke. No matter what it is, it has to do damage.
Only 1.The rest I’ve known since they were users. They very well could have been slackers before-hand. Maybe slackers are just more attracted to it; because they are slackers after all.
It is right that government help to deter marijuana use, through education, but criminalizing it and all who partake of it has not been worth the cost of the effort and its horrendous results.
This crap is constantly repeated by Libertarians in an effort to legalize drugs. They keep saying over and over again that we are achieving NO BENEFIT and we are suffering GREAT COSTS.
That there is, and has always been a benefit is simply lost on people who have never really contemplated this subject very much.
Do you know what is this?
That is what addiction looks like when you don't stop it. Do you know what ours looks like? It's a flat 2% since 1900. It didn't rise. Do you want proof that the normal condition is rising addiction? Here.
Here's another one.
Now what were you saying about those horrendous results? Do you know what kind of horrendous results China got for not stopping drugs? By 1900 50% of the adult male population of Manchuria was addicted to Opium. 100 million dead was the eventual result.
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