Research helps dispel marijuana myths

Sober Talk ^ | Thursday, August 1, 2002 | By BECKY CLARK, MSW, CSW

[Behind Liberal Lines]

As we endeavor toward a more lucid and informed discussion of substance abuse, let's deconstruct the mystique of marijuana and recognize it for the dangerous drug that it is.

Marijuana is a substance that's worthy of our concern. It is the most prevalent of all illicit drugs used in the country. The 2000 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse reported that 34 percent of Americans have used marijuana in their lifetime and 5 percent are current users.

[Zon]

That , my friend is what the interview cycle is for. You interview a person technically and personally and check references. If this person is technically strong enough and is personable enough to get along with fellow workers ... that should be the extent of the exam and that potential employee is NOT a total stranger.

That's how I'd run my business, unless I knew the employee was a heroin addict or alcoholic or my insurance company raised my rates beyond what I was willing to accept because I wouldn't ensure that my employees took a drug test. In that case I would refuse the insurance company and look for another or refuse to hire an employee that didn't take a drug test.

BUT Peeing in a bottle to prove drug cleanliness IMHO is a violation of MY 4th amendment rights.

The government can force you to do that and you are not free to refuse. A business can ask you to do that and you are free to refuse.

As far as companies being honest and ethical in todays environment ... ever hear of Enron or Worldcom

Individuals, businesses and society don't need government to "fix" the market or economy. For kripes sakes, they are the problem, not the solution. The government will forever be the all time undisputed champions at cooking the books...No company could ever even come close to matching that wholesale fraud. And all companies combined that until recently had been cooking their books are still dwarfed by the government cooking its books.

As far as book-cooking fraud goers the private sector businesses are the tip of the iceberg and government is the rest of the iceberg.

[newcats]

If we want to compare anecdotes, I can list several that show pot does impair thought processes, reaction time and so on.

Bring 'em on! Just be prepared to back them up with facts...

In fact, I was a pot smoker in my younger days, so I know from personal experience. Put bluntly, those who claim that it does not are either not speaking from experience or are not being honest.

Personal experience is not a very good bass to make an argument. I know people who get falling down drunk off of two beers...while others can consume a 12 pack with very little effect. I make the above claim...Now call me a liar if you wish, but I guarentee I have way more "experience" than you.

[Zon]

Sorry, but don't make other people's weaknesses my problem, or use them to tell me what I can and cannot do. By saying that you don't want to be forced to take care of those weak people, you are trying to make their weakness MY problem, OUR problem, instead of making sure that their weakness, their choices, are THEIR problem, with direct consequences to THEM, not you and me.

What you say is almost exactly how politicians and bureaucrats go about doing their jobs. It's also championed by mainstream media reporters, journalists and academics.

[headsonpikes]

"There's that disorientation again."

Should I consider that a personal attack, or a snarky witticism?

Seriously. You don't seem malicious to me; do I to you?

[knighthawk]

On the ZDF (A German TV station) there was last week was a documantary about a police officer who's job it was to search besides the road for discarded cannabis. It were roads near the German border and junks throwed the cannabis out of the car when there was a suspected police check.

There are big differences in the German law and the Dutch one on drugs, like the Dutch differentiation on hard and soft drugs. The Germans complained in Brussels (EU 'capital') about the soft laws in the Netherlands, just as France did. And I think they are right about it.

On Rotterdam: during the local elections in May it was announced that 42% of the people felt unsafe to walk the streets at night (source Algemeen Dagblad and Dutch national TV). This played into the hands of Livable Rotterdam, which was a new party who too 32% of the votes.

The thing is that there should be no crime here anymore, at least according to the people who legalized the soft-drugs. They promised it, crime would be much less. But after 25 years of legalized drugs it is proven that the Netherlands have more crime than European countries who did not legalized drugs, like Austria (twice as much).

But the legistlators became very silent lately after all the stats came out on crime in the Netherlands. I wonder why.

Legislation is NOT the answer, the only ones who got a good deal are the junks, the coffee-shop owners and the organized crime.

"How does Amsterdam compare to London, Paris, Burssels, Berlin, Madrid, and Copenhagen?"

Nice you ask:
Last year Amsterdam was announced as 'the murder capital of the European Union' (taking the title from London)!

http://krant.telegraaf.nl/krant/archief/20010830/teksten/bin.moorden.hoofdstad.amsterdam.html

In Rome there are 1,22 murders/100.000 citizens, in Amsterdam 5,4.

"Well, you have a long way to go before you beat many of the cities we have here."

That's very true, it still is 9 times as less as Washington, having 50,82 and thereby is the 'murder capital of the world'. But in the Netherlands the Kurds and Turks (who contribute half of our murders) are working on it, ensuring that every year there are more drug-related murders.

[Virginia-American]

Would that be the same wing that thinks Harry Anslinger was a stand-up guy, and FDR was the first president to correctly interpret the Commerce Clause?

Your political references elude me. Drugs are for losers...

The references are to the people responsible for the mj tax act, which was rammed through the New Deal Congress over the objections of the Republicans, who argued that it was unconstitutional. Now that the GOP has become as conservative as FDR was, they no longer make this argument.

[Dakmar]

Sounds more like an immigration problem. Do Dutch potheads go around shooting people as a general rule? Maybe the problem isn't pot, but people who don't value human life. I've been a smoker for about 20 years now and would never kill anyone except in defense of myself or my family.

[William Terrell]

Put bluntly, those who claim that it does not are either not speaking from experience or are not being honest.

Of course, it's possible to smoke enough strong cannabis to impair your consciousness for anything except inner revelations, but you can also drink enough coffee to make you a nervous wreak. You can drink enough whisky to feel good or enough to pass out.

Just smoking enough cannabis to relax, or so to say "get a head on" does not impair even driving skills. There is enough research results to indicate that people who have smoked that much pot are actually safer on the road.

Even the extreme instant use of cannabis is not enough to make it illegal or immoral or justify the damage done to otherwise innocent people. There is no evidence that it's destructive to society in any area such that it calls for the use of police powers.

[cinFLA]

The country is filled with marijuana users leading normal wasting, unproductive lives. Haven't you noticed

[tacticalogic]

Your political references elude me.

Harry Anslinger was a career bureaucrat working in alcohol prohibition at the Treasury Department. His discover of the evils of marijuana came about, coincidentally, right after the repeal of prohibition. Originally it was supposed to be a tax act, and hemp growers would purchase a federal tax stamp. That's what was presented to Congress, and what they voted to approve. It became a defacto prohibition when Anslinger refused to issue the stamps. Suddenly an army of embarassingly idle T-men found themselves back in the prohibition enforcement business.

The reference to FDR and the CC is because the Marihuana Tax Act, as well as the modern day Controlled Substances Act and the DEA itself rely wholly on FDR's New Deal interpretation of the Commerce Clause for their authority.

"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."

Harry J. Anslinger, testimony to Congress, 1937

[liberallarry]

The country is filled with marijuana users leading xxxxx wasting, unproductive lives. Haven't you noticed

Yes, I've noticed.

The country is also filled with cigarette-smoking, junk-food eating, religious, non-religious, car-driving, drunken, teetotaling, bicycle-riding, honest, thieving, employed, unemployed, healthy, sick, married, single, etc. people leading xxxx wasting, unproductive lives.

Inotherwords, all kinds of people lead wasting, unproductive lives. It has little to do with whether or not they smoke marijuana. And if it did, at what point does the government step in and tell me how to live my life? And since when is the government an expert on such things - especially to people who call themselves conservatives?

[Virginia-American]

The country is filled with marijuana users leading xxxxx wasting, unproductive lives. Haven't you noticed ... And since when is the government an expert on such things ...

Bureaucrats are the world's experts when it comes to wasting lives and resources.

[liberallarry]

"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."

Harry J. Anslinger, testimony to Congress, 1937

That what Harry Anslinger was worried about when marijuana was banned in '37 (and jobs for he and other soon to be unemployed T-men). Not health, not addiction, not productive lives. And that's what still bothers you and others who think like you.

[dcwusmc]

And the self-righteous rants of the Drug Warriors are just as amusing, considering that your whole house of cards is built on a foundation of lies, distortions and half-truths and nothing else. For the sake of LIES you would tear down and destroy this country, killing or imprisoning much of its youth in your misguided zeal to protect them from themselves. You hypocrites of the first water, you are like sepulchres, full of rot and dead men's bones. You mouth your righteous platitudes with not one thought as to the truth of them, indeed you seem to take joy in your falsehoods... Whenever you are challenged with facts and proofs, you attack the messengers, hurling epithets such as doper, druggie, libertine. You have not one fact on your side so you resort to strawmen, ad hominems and just plain lies. You are disgusting and I am sorry I have to share my air with the likes of you. Please be so good as to stop breathing for at least a few hours so the rest of us (who do not use drugs but do not wish to see our Republic destroyed) can get some relief... Besides, if you hold your breath long enough, you'll no longer have to worry about inhaling your neighbor's second-hand smoke...

[dcwusmc]

I am reminded of what one washingtoonian brain said during the Vietnam war: "We had to destroy the village in order to save it..." You seem bent on destroying our country in order to save it from some nebulous "evil" that is all in your mind.

[tahiti]

Whilom you stated:

"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."

You are correct. The 9th amendment states it best:

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain RIGHTS, shall NOT be construed to DENY OR DISPARAGE others (rights) retained by the PEOPLE."

Nothing of your other remarks speaks of liberty. I do not know how you portend to be "viligant" of liberty when you advocate the prohibition of a citizen's right to ingest the substance of their choice?

[Texasforever]

It's amazing how those who claim that libertarians represent more than anti-drug law idiots can't see that their own integrity goes up in smoke when their golden calf of marijuana is ridiculed.

It's their religion.

[Dakmar]

My religion centers more around getting loaded on whiskey, marijuana smoke serves about the same purpose as incense does in some of the more well-known Christian Denominations.