Some of the folks who argue for it would do better for their cause not to argue for it. If you look at the RKBA movement, it’s generally lead by the people who are most into shooting. Most bloggers either are active competitive shooters, or have been competitive shooters at some point. In other words, shooting is a big part of our lives, so we are quite motivated to protect it. This is probably also true of marijuana legalization. But it presents a problem when having it be a large part of your life interferes with the ability to make good and coherent arguments.
For those of you who still have any doubts as to the miraculous healing powers of cannabis and THC Oil or do not believe that there is an ongoing international effort dead set on keeping this free and 100% organic medicine, along with all organic foods, supplements, and natural medicines from a diseased and dying global population… I am about to BLOW YOUR MINDS……
Apparently the government has a patent on some cannibinoid research. Unfortunately Cannabinoids are a class of compounds, and not necessary compounds which are psychoactive. There’s a fair amount of research into these classes of compounds and their receptors, with a goal to make drugs that can specifically target them. For instance, pot gives you the munchies. That’s a specific receptor. If it could be targeted specifically, it would be beneficial to people who, for medical reasons, need to enhance their appetite and eat more. None of this research is a good reason to legalize pot. In fact, the whole medical marijuana argument is a giant scam.
THC is not difficult to synthesize, and a synthetic version is already available as a Schedule III Compound, and an inhaler version will soon be on the market. For those who point to natural THC as being 100% organic, I would point out that Hemlock is also 100% organic. So is the extract of the castor bean. Nature can kill you, folks. She makes some of the most potent poisons known to man. While THC is not poisonous, inhaling smoke into your lungs will tend to damage your health.
That said, I support medical marijuana and decriminalization of weed, but just on general freedom principles, rather than on the principal that it’s necessary strictly from a pharmaceutical viewpoint. Some folks in the legalization movement act like if we just unschedule weed, it will be the end of human disease as we know it, and that’s just patently ridiculous.
Some of us are not particular big into guns. (Well, at least compared to most Idahoans, I’m not. Would I rather spend the money on a Barrett Light .50 or a 10″ refractor? Easy choice. Telescope.)
And yes, one of the strongest hints that marijuana might interfere with good judgment are writings like you describe! For some people, marijuana is a religion.
In fairness, plenty of people manage to write like that stone sober.
I agree with the overall judgment that pot advocates can be their cause’s worst enemies, though.
(I’ve seen ridiculous claims by them in their propaganda; I don’t call them lies only because I’m sure they really are just credulous, but…)
I have a friend locally who is a retired chemistry professor. He and his team at Clemson University developed a number of synthetic cannabinoids. His goal was to find substances that could be used in the treatment of MS, AIDS, and the side effects from chemo.
John also developed the compound that is now marketed as “K2” or “herbal incense.” He told me that it was never intended for human consumption but rather to used in calibrating the machines used for drug testing. The fact that it is being abused does concern him greatly as he never did research on the effects of the compound on humans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Huffman
Marijuana is no more medicine than bourbon or turnip greens.
Does it have therapeutic value? Sure.
Is it Medicine by FDA Standards? HELL NO! Not the “medicine itself” (an unrefined dry weed) nor the dosing regime (smoke), and there is NO way to regulate the therapy, nor control the other chemicals ingested.
Still I’m all for people using it for whatever they want, as a therapy, or just to get crazy-high. It isn’t any issue to me, and we can spend a LOT less money having the Po-Po and the court system dealing with stoners, and put the more serious drug dealers out of work.
Some or all of the cannabinoids listed in that patent are present in marijuana. The claims for medical benefits in that patent directly contradicts the government’s official claim that there is no recognized medical purpose.
Really? How is it a scam? Marijuana is the safest and most effective drug to relieve pain and suffering from nearly every ailment and disease there is. How is that a scam?
It would be the biggest step forward since penicillin…and within a few years of development, it will be the biggest advance in medicine since basic hygiene and sanitation.
I once knew a woman who suffered from endometriosis, she had tried marijuana for recreational/social purposes and did not care for it. I saw her try marijuana out of desperation to try to relieve her pain and suffering and the result was miraculous. There is no other drug that makes people bed ridden with pain and suffering be able to function and function well with little to no dangerous side effects. How is this one of a kind unmatched palliative miracle drug not pharmaceutically required?
You have just made Sebastian’s point, and probably don’t even realize it.
I do not doubt that for some ailments, marijuana might well be an effective palliative. But the over the top rhetoric you use is what I talked about earlier on.
I read the scientific studies – they continue to document that marijuana is of unmatched safety and effectiveness. There’s too many benefits to list – what about the anti-depressant and anti-anxiety uses? What about it’s amazing benefits for PTSD sufferers? And how about that anti-inflammatory action?
It’s not over the top rhetoric when there’s multiple scientific studies providing documentation for each claim.
See Weer’d’s comment right above yours: Marijuana is not a drug, it is a weed that contains several different drugs. There is little to no control over the overall composition, the overall and relative concentration of active ingredients, or the dosage of active ingredients taken in during administration. Since the same drugs in different doses can have significantly different effects (see Dopamine(pdf warning) for a great example of this effect), regulating dosage is important. The same drug combinations in different relative combinations can have wildly different results in their interactions, so controlling that is important in medicine as well.
Research into the medical benefits of the various compounds found in marijuana, and into ways to extract, refine, and administer those compounds in a controlled fashion is important. But smoking marijuana is not a substitute for the clinical administration of those compounds any more than drinking foxglove tea is a substitute for the clinical administration of digoxin.
You have it backwards.
The standardized single component extracts, i.e. Marinol, have little to no positive benefits and they have substantial negative side effects. Marijuana has substantial to major positive benefits and little to no side effects. Which one to take – the one that doesn’t work and has lots of unpleasant unintended consequences, or the one that does work and has lots of pleasant unintended consequences?
The shortcomings of Marinol and lack of an “adequate substitute” for imbibing marijuana are a result of government interference in medical research and practice. It’s also an excellent example of what I said about how different combinations and concentrations of active ingredients can make a significant difference – it is very likely that other compunds in marijuana mitigate the undesireable side-effects experienced with Marinol. That does not make smoking/etc. marijuana valid medical practice. Medicine would involve isolating the correct combinations, concentrations, and dosages of the relevant compunds for achieving the desired theraputic results, and a method of delivering those combinations in a controlled and consistent manner.
I am all for further research into the uses of marijuana and the chemical compounds it contains, medical or otherwise. The current government restrictions and interference in this area of research are inexcusable. I also support the decriminalization of marijuana for recreational purposes, because it’s really none of the government’s business as long as users aren’t harming anyone else. But don’t conflate the ingestion/smoking of raw plant material with actual medicine.
My statement still stands: Smoking marijuana is not a substitute for the clinical administration of its compounds any more than drinking foxglove tea is a substitute for the clinical administration of digoxin.
That is false.
Marijuana is medicine for these reasons:
1) It has medical benefits
2) People use it for the medical benefits.
QED.
It works, it works well, it works safely, and it works for that end.
You could say, fairly, that it is crude medicine, not refined medicine, but still, it is medicine.
Right, and I shouldn’t confuse the ingestion of raw plant material with actual food, right? Or the ingestion of willow bark with actual painkillers? Or the ingestion of raw opium poppies with actual painkillers?
The notion that medicine is not medicine simply because it hasn’t been refined, purified, and standardized is very foolish. Oh, it’s very sophisticated, but it is really very foolish. If I make soap and it’s just a crude lump, does it wash any less well than the soap in a fancy shape with a fancy package and fancy advertising? Is it no longer soap because it doesn’t have the exact same qualities as mass manufactured standardized brand product soap? No, and it’s incredibly foolish to say “That’s not soap!”
It’s not a substitute – it’s a vastly superior choice.
I could be taking 3-5 prescription drugs each with multiple severe negative effects at a huge expense. These drugs would meet your criteria of “medicine” – which should I use – the “medicine” that will harm me for little to no gain or the “not a medicine” that will work for me with little to no side affects?
Your position is untenable – by your definition poisons are medicines and remedies are not medicines. That makes no sense.
Your claim that marijuana has little to no side effects is dubious at best. There are studies that demonstrate that marijuana adversely affects long-term memory, as well as studies that suggest that marijuana can cause schizophrenia to certain people who are predisposed to it.
Certainly, we need to study it further, but you shouldn’t gloss over these potential problems as “little to no side effects”. If the link between mariquana and schizophrenia is confirmed, for example, it would be a pretty darn major side effect, no?
Since I happen to come from a family with a demonstrated predisposition to mental illness (including a sister who has schizophrenia, voices and all), I, for one, will not touch marijuana with a three-and-a-third yard pole.
The studies about long term memory that I’ve read about come from research teams with conflicts of interest (i.e. working for the government’s anti-drug office). The schizophrenia risk is marginal at worst – and it only effects a very tiny portion of people.
For the vast majority of users there are no negative side effects. For those who do have negative side effects, including the risk of schizophrenia, it appears that the low or no THC high CBD marijuana strains will reduce or eliminate the negative side effects.
Wise choice…but if the chemo or cancer is about to end your life you might want to reconsider…especially once they’ve perfected the low or no THC high CBD strains and done the research (in Europe/Israel etc) to prove the efficacy.
In fact, the whole medical marijuana argument is a giant scam.
Really? How is it a scam? Marijuana is the safest and most effective drug to relieve pain and suffering from nearly every ailment and disease there is. How is that a scam?
It’s a scam because nobody’s fooled for a second into thinking that “medical marijuana” as a movement is anything but an incremental scheme for legalization so people can get high.
It’s not a scam in the sense of marijuana having no various uses (nausea control and the like), no. But in the sense of the claim that it’s just about medical uses, come off it. Nobody believes that for a second, about the “movement” as a whole – too many of the people involved are far too transparent about their advocacy for marijuana-as-marijuana, not just marijuana-as-medicine.
(And Mr. Cramer is right. The “miracle drug” and “most effective”* rhetoric makes Sebastian’s point perfectly. Modulate the rhetoric and you’ll be a thousand times more effective.
I mean, I’m on your side for pot legalization and I think you sound like an obsessed crank. Imagine what someone on the fence or opposed is going to think?
Your anecdotes and hyperbole are doubtless completely sincere, but the scientific-minded among us will note that they’re indistinguishable from snake-oil.
And those of us who know – or are/were – marijuana smokers will note that the analgesic effects don’t seem to be earthshakingly profound automatically, let alone superior to opiate painkillers.)
Modulating the rhetoric is not an option for members of the weedfaith-based-community.
So all of the sick and dying people who use medical marijuana and who beg for it to be legal are actually conspiring to get stoners stoned?
Is there any popular political movement which is composed of a monolithic opinion?
There are quite a few medical marijuana patients who oppose legalization for any other purpose. There are even many who support it being legal for their condition but not the ones that afflict other people. And yes, there are those who use it solely for recreational purposes and who support the medical marijuana movement solely for that end…but they are rare and don’t invalidate the struggles of the sick and dying and the compassionate.
The science backs me up. What you want me to do is to censor and spin – no thanks. The fact that the truth is not politically palatable is no reason to lie.
They’ll think what they are programmed to think – just as they will if I modify my comments. People don’t change their minds about medical marijuana because of reason, logic, medicine, or science – they change their minds when they or a loved one gets sick and the only thing that works is medical marijuana.
Dismissing all observations of the real world as “anecdotal” is a pathetic excuse for ignorance.
The correct word isn’t “anecdotal” – it’s “phenomenal”. I have seen other sick people use medical marijuana. Results were not quite as impressive but still there was a self evident marked improvement in their condition. You can dismiss the huge number of claims – or you can watch sick people use medical marijuana and make your own observations and reach your own conclusions.
I have days where the pain is so bad that I can only lie in bed or at most sit in a chair unable to do anything but suffer. My experience has been that NSAIDS and opiates take the edge off (the opiates more so) and marijuana radically reduces the pain, improves mobility and range of motion, and allows me to function. People with a wide range of problems that cause pain say the same thing – opiates work but only at unpleasant and incapacitating doses, and marijuana works at small and non-incapacitating doses.
And the effect isn’t automatically analgesic – it doesn’t seem to keep one from feeling new pain, it does seem to lessen existing pain.
It’s hard to organize political rallies with all the short-term memory loss: “Oh wow, man, that was TODAY? Duuuude….”
Medicine…blah, blah, blah. You are correct about most of them defending their stance. I’ve always thought that that was a rouse and should not be the argument for legalization.
The best and only reason to legalize “pot” is that it is NOBODY’S effing business what one does in ones own private life, as long as one does NOT harm anyone else. That and it would put a SERIOUS hurt on the cartels profit margin. It would also stop the incarceration of people for committing victimless crimes.
Once worked with a man who used/grew/sold marijuana, and according to him it had all the miraculous properties described. It seems as if marijuana has become the “good for what ails ya” cure all of the modern age. According to him, driving stoned had no ill effects upon driving capability (if anything, it made you better), or had any other short or long term side effects. One has only to look at some of the hard core tokers after decades of use to see otherwise.
If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.
> While THC is not poisonous, inhaling smoke into your lungs will >tend to damage your health.
Sebastian, I really hope you are joking with this one. Mostly because smoking marijuana is not the only delivery means, it’s not even the only delivery means used by recreational users.
Medical marijuana often comes via vaporizers or can even be made into an edible form. I’ve seen at least one documentary about how the more serious types of dispensaries actually favor vaporizers as their main form of delivery.
I always like it when someone brings out a “there’s a patent for it!” claim, too. It ignores basic things as:
1) You’d be surprised at what ends up as patented. Do you *really* expect me to believe this particular patent is special?
2) Patents expire. Thus, if you wait it out, eventually people will be in a position to exploit any valuable “knowledge” it contains.
3) Patents can be notorious to enforce. If these treatments are so fantastic, why not pursue it? After all, marijuana is called a “weed” for a reason, and I would expect you can extract the chemicals rather easily, if you are determined enough.
In any case, it doesn’t matter what the patent is for, whenever someone says “I have a patent, so it’s good” or “there’s a patent, and the oil companies/pharmaceuticals/government owns it so they can supress the use of it”, I always take the accompanying claims with HUGE grains of salt.
I suspect that the fact of the patent is only brought up to show the contradiction between the part of government that says there is no use for the weed and the part of the government that says there are all these broadly-phrased benefits from the weed. The situation is like a lawyer espousing contradictory positions for the same client in the same facts and circumstances.
Since the post involves a case that marijuana cures everything, and a bit of government conspiracy against marijuana, though, bringing up the patent has the effect of emphasizing both “I have a cure-all snake-oil for you!” and “there’s a conspiracy, I tell ya!” aspects of the post.
Like others on this thread, I’m not against legalizing marijuana, per se. It’s just that, when I see arguments like this, I have a tendency to disregard the claims.
I don’t know what it would take to convince the public that marijuana shoud be legalized, but I’d like to think that the best approach is the “marijuana may be Devil Incarnate, but we have rights, and trying to ban the Devil has only trampled on those rights”, as opposed to the “marijuana is the cure of everything, and it’s perfectly safe, but the government is supressing evidence” approach.
So a person grows marijuana in his bedroom in his house on his own property, bakes it into a brownie, and eats it in front of his own television in his own living room without ever leaving the house. Should that be illegal?
I don’t think so. But that’s a separate issue as to whether it’s a healthful thing to do.
The ineffectiveness of some proponents is not the reason why marijuana remains illegal. The real reasons are three groups of people: politicians, their tools such as the police and prison guard unions and pharmaceutical companies, and the masses of fools who support the tools and the psychopaths in charge.
There are no people in the Pharmaceutical business who are afraid legalizing pot will put them out of business.
They should be. Marijuana is the ultimate disruptive innovator – it reveals the pharmaceutical and medical industries as the crocks of BS that they are. No wonder you are in denial – the crude unrefined flowers of a common weed made and distributed by idiots and other people without even a college education is vastly superior to anything produced by your entire industry. Ouch!
It’s claims like this that makes me raise an eyebrow, in an amused sort of way. There are a lot of medicines. Are you really all that prepared to demonstrate that marijuana is better than each and every one, for treating every single ailment?
If legalizing marijuana is going to open the door to snake-oil-types to sell it as a cure for everything, then maybe I’m wrong…perhaps it shouldn’t be legalized.
I jest, of course! If there’s one thing I would do, it would be to remove the power that has been claimed by the FDA, which takes it upon itself to ban substances they decide are unsafe. I would much rather have the FDA say “This stuff will kill you; if you still want to take it, knock yourself out!” and leave the doctors and their patients decide what substances they are willing to take, and what risks they are willing to take as well, to alleviate their ailments.
I would much rather have the FDA say “This stuff will kill you; if you still want to take it, knock yourself out!†and leave the doctors and their patients decide what substances they are willing to take, and what risks they are willing to take as well, to alleviate their ailments.
I’ve thought about this as well. But then you have the patent medicine problem, where if your doctor falls for the slick marketing, and the thoroughly smoking hot pharmaceutical sales rep, he could be telling patients to take something that either doesn’t work, or at worst is dangerous. You get to the point that you have to either compel speech (warning labels) or suppress speech (restricting advertising only to claims which are proven).
A big problem not being considered here, especially by pot advocates, is that the FDA requires double blind studies for a reason. If I fill capsules with confectioners sugar, and give it to you, and tell you it will cure your pain, a large percentage of people are going to say it’s a miracle drug, and really helped them. This is called the placebo effect, and when you study a new drug, you have to control for it. The way to control for it is double blind studies, where neither the person taking or administering the drug have any idea whether they are part of the study group or the control group. Efficacy is if, with the drug, you beat placebo with statistic significance. Efficacy trials generally happen in Phase II, with Phase I being safety, and figuring out what your maximum tolerated dosing is, studying the pharmacokinetics, etc. Phase III is generally a much larger study to define what the drug’s side-effect profile is.
No one has ever done these studies on cannabis, so there is absolutely no scientific proof as to its benefits. That it works for some people is unremarkable. Some people will take sugar pills and get relief. The mind is a powerful thing.
That said, there have been studies on a lot of the individual cannibinoids, and some of them seem to have medical benefits. There is also an approved synthetic on the market called Marinol.
One reason, even as a somewhat libertarian person, I don’t have too much of a problem with the FDA process per se (though I do with how the FDA is currently administering it from a risk/reward point of view), is because it’s ultimately aimed at preventing fraud. The process basically ensures that if you’re selling a drug to treat X, that you have scientific proof that it actually treats X, and won’t harm you. The latter part is becoming a problem, because I think manageable side effects aren’t a problem as long as they are known. Also rare, but severe adverse reactions aren’t a reason to deny a drug to the vast majority if the benefits are high enough. Again, it just a matter of making sure people are aware of the risks and can weigh them. But the FDA is basically trying to remove risk from the equation, which is next to impossible when it comes to drugs.
FALSE. Unequivocaly and irrefutably FALSE. You should have the ability to do a through review of the scientific literature. You could start here: http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000884. It sure seems to me that 12 pro medical marijuana double blind human studies is a very different thing than what you said – and that’s only a very limited selection of the research already done.
The FDA commits fraud about medical marijuana – and you have fallen for it. This is a fundamental and major and systemic error that brings into question the fundamental and major purposes of the system. If it’s really about preventing fraud, why is it the biggest medical fraud organization around?
I said “these studies,” meaning the Phase I, Phase II, and large scale Phase III studies I describe above. I did not say there’s never been a double-blind study ever on medical marijuana.
The studies you present here provide evidence of effecacy, but none of these are large scale studies, such as would be required if someone had just discovered cannabis and wanted to market it as a drug. You would also, and I don’t agree with this, but the requirement is there, be required to show its efficacy compared to other things already on the market across a large number of people. Not just 20 or 30.
There’s also no doubt that THC has significant CNS side-effects, which, generally, speaking, if you’re going to use a drug for pain, is undesirable. Like I said, I’m not in favor of using marijuana being a criminal act. But I think researching and isolating the mechanism responsible for this, and then developing a compound that targets those receptors in a specific way, to eliminate the CNS side-effects of THC, would be a net improvement over encouraging people to smoke weed for medical purposes.
I would oppose such a requirement but favor such research. I’d really like to see a large scale study comparing the long term survival rates of cancer patients who use marijuana in conjunction with chemo/radiotherapy versus those who don’t use marijuana with such therapy. Soon enough.
That is a solution that would take years in the best case scenario and decades in the current realpolitik scenario. Better: develop and grow low or no THC strains with high CBD content (and other cannabinoids heavy varieties), turn them into lozenges, lollipops, salves, and ointments, and give them to seriously ill people. This is happening right now and it won’t take FDA approval and it won’t take years. From the reports I read online it appears that these improved forms of marijuana and marijuana products will be readily available in CA and CO by the end of the year. Israeli scientists claim to have recently created a no-THC marijuana and there will probably be multiple no-THC strains from CA and CO by the end of next year. This is a major breakthrough that just might make me move back to CA.
People’s lives are on the line – why wait years or decades for people in white lab coats with fancy letters after their name to do what savvy gardeners can do today?
@Sebastian,
I’m sure you are sick of this but I obviously failed to make my point, and I’d like to try again.
It will be years before that process begins, then it will be years for that process to end, and then years for it to be approved and hit the market.
I don’t like to talk about myself, but please consider my current situation: I’m the survivor of a childhood chock full of psychological and sexual abuse. The trauma left me with brain damage called DID, PTSD, depression, general anxiety disorder, and as part of the last group of symptoms, severe muscle tension, pain, inflammation, pulled muscles, pinched nerves, and poor circulation (my limbs go numb if I sit/stand/lie at the slightly “wrong” angle that’s well within normal). My normal state of being is one of stark terror and and misery and incredible mental and physical suffering.
Smoking marijuana relieves all of my symptoms – not perfectly, but two or three orders of magnitude more than any of the prescription drugs I tried, and with no harmful side effects. The benefits are powerful, tangible, and real. Other patients with the same problems report the same benefits, the studies such as have been done have verified these benefits, and the studies of the cannabinoids also show some of the mechanisms by which they work.
You said “In fact, the whole medical marijuana argument is a giant scam.” You really think I am lying and taking advantage of the abuse I suffered as a child in order to manipulate people in order to remove a non-obstacle to my getting high? And you really think that waiting at least ten years or more for me, all of the other trauma victims including the war veterans, and all of the other seriously ill people – you really think that waiting and suffering and dying and suicide are superior options to using and advocating the use of the thing that works right now?
I have no problem with the study aspect provided by the FDA. As you say, though, the key problem with the FDA is an attempt to remove all risk from drugs. I would also have no problem with the FDA requiring warnings about the potentially adverse side effects of a given drug, once those side effects are known to occur.
It’s been several years since the FDA has removed a certain drug, used for treating arthritis pain, from the market, because further tests showed that it caused heart attacks and strokes if used long-term. I still remember the stories given from one person, talking at the funeral of a loved one, about how the drug may have caused the heart attack that killed him, but the drug also gave him a significant boost in quality-of-life that he otherwise wouldn’t have had, because of the drug, and the risk was worth it.
I also remember another person who had arthritis problems, talking about how she had to take large doses of ibuprofen to control the pain, and that those doses were likely destroying her kidneys. Thus, it is literally a “choose your poison” situation, or at least ought to be!
While “A Critic” would say “this is why marijuana should be legal!” I would almost agree–but he doesn’t seem to be ready to admit that marijuana has potential side effects of its own. When treating arthritis, I see no reason why the choices couldn’t be suffer without treatment, risk killing you kidneys (ibuprofen), risk killing your liver (acetaminophen), risk killing your heart/brain (that one drug I cannot remember the name of), or risk schizophrenia and memory loss (marijuana).
There is no risk of memory loss from using marijuana.
For most people the biggest consequence is getting too high or paranoid. Low or no THC strains will solve that problem.
There’s a lot of factors – but especially for the tens of millions who smoked pot as a youth and didn’t go schizo – choosing between a drug that destroys your body and a drug that has no discernible negative side effects is an easy choice. Every other drug out there if used in large quantities over a long period of time WILL have negative consequences for most if not all users – marijuana doesn’t. Which one to use?
I remember someone making a comment that, when a certain person learned of a study that demonstrated that safety inspections for cars in Pennsylvania did nothing to actually make cars safer, he tried very hard to end safety inspections. He failed miserably! Why? Because no one cared, and politicians couldn’t be bothered to change anything. Indeed, one politician said “Everyone is used to it, so why bother repealing it?”
That the three groups of people you mention–politicians, tools, and fools–are far smaller, combined, than the single pool of people that matter: the mass of people that vote for politicians, and may even have a vague sense that marijuana should be decriminalized, or something, but they really don’t care one way or the other, because we have these laws, and life moves on just fine.
If it’s an issue that doesn’t move the voters, it’s not going to move the politicians. And this is something that affects all laws that ought to be repealed, and even some where laws ought to be passed.
It slices, it dices, it cops, it juliennes
Seriously, I get it. It cure racism, ends wars, elevates the poor from poverty, it install the fairness doctrine non-legislatively, it makes the rich pay their fair share … but wait, there’s more …
Whatever. Sounding like the Clark Stanley is not an effective method.
There are over 13 psycoactive compounds in MJ, not just THC. More importantly to be a schedule 1 drug, there can be no medical uses whatsoever. That’s clearly not the case.
The War on Drugs failed $1 Trillion ago! This money could have been used for outreach programs to clean up the bad end of drug abuse by providing free HIV testing, free rehab, and clean needles. Harmless drugs like marijuana could be legalized to help boost our damaged economy. Cannabis can provide hemp for countless natural recourses and the tax revenue from sales alone would pull every state in our country out of the red! Vote Teapot, PASS IT, and legalize it. Voice you opinion with the movement and read more on my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2011/01/vote-teapot-2011.html
Legalize it! Tax benefits, end to violence, less filtered into kids, government distribution and potency control, the list goes on.
All those saying “legalize it” are, pardon the expression, but patent morons. People advocating the legalization are deliberately LYING about the considerable negative effects it has, which are apparent in EVERY person who regularly smokes weed I’ve ever met in my life & which have been proven over and over again by medical science. (Unfortunately for me, I’ve met quite a few).
Pretty much everyone who smokes pot regularly has some kind of problem with co-ordination, which usually manifests in shaky hands / crude motor movement of the hands.
People who’ve been smoking pot for quite a while start talking differently, get this stupid “heyy yeahh” kind of speech, sound like they’re impaired idiots, and quite possibly by that stage already are. Weed can cause mental impairment. FACT.
Like the blog post states, it’s a psychoactive drug, and as such has markedly negative effects on your cognition, as it does on your cardiovascular and nervous system. Scientifically proven FACT. And yes, it makes you hungry, do we really need yet another contributing factor to obesity?
People denying or downplaying any of this in an effort to argue for the legalization of weed are exactly as bad as tobacco companies denying and downplaying the negative effects of smoking in order to continue peddling their stuff to the clueless masses. Except weed is more immediately and more apparently damaging, and there have been reports of mental retardation early in with weed smoking, at least regular smoking doesn’t make you look parkinsonian and mentally delayed after a few years of consumption. At least smoking does NOT cause delusions, hallucinations, impaired memory and the likes after a few years.
The fact that this is a free country and weed should be a personal choice is NOT an excuse, or if it is, one should be able to argue for the legalization of many equally harmful and devastating psychoactive drugs on the same grounds.
I will never stand for a drug that can deteriorate you into a gimped psychotic who is extremely likely to develop health problems after mere years of continual use, and cannot see why anybody who’s bothered to do even rudimentary research into the drug would, either.
Would anyone in their right minds HIRE someone who regularly smokes pot? Can’t see why as it has an apparent effect on motor and mental functioning, and people smoking pot have a much higher risk of calling in sick with all kinds of infections. Why would I want someone working for me who is already proving to me that they’re the antithesis of responsible behaviour?
Legalizing this would send the message to kids that it’s OK to take such a horrendous drug, bad enough regular smoking is legal. This is NOT the message society should be giving the young, unless your aim is an even more unhealthy and ill society. People who advocate the legalization of weed are irresponsible idiots who ignore what science has proven in order to peddle their POISON.
I am sympathetic to the notion that addiction to a psychoactive compound is a net social negative, but I’m tired of incurring the cost in civil liberties to stop people from getting high. Alcohol is a fairly destructive drug, and yet that’s legal. Nicotine is highly addictive, has many of the same downsides as pot for health (because you smoke it) and that’s legal.
Sorry, I just don’t think the downside is worth the cost in civil liberties, when you consider what the state has to be able to do to stop a commonly committed crime where there is no victim. If people want to destroy themselves, that’s not my business. We’re still free to educate people on the danger, and I still believe in keeping it off limits for kids.
@ Sebastian
What about for medical purposes? i.e. 8 year old boy has leukemia and chemotherapy and the resultant side effects that are threatening his life. Should he be allowed to consume medical marijuana under his parents and doctors supervision? Or should he suffer and perhaps die?
How do you explain the many world class musicians who play very complex and sophisticated music while being very stoned?
How do you explain the successful, often wealthy, 40-80 year olds who are pillars of their community and otherwise upstanding citizens who are still as sharp as ever who get stoned every day?
How do you explain the many artists, scientists, and other people who use marijuana for enhancing creativity and other cognitive functions?
And how do you explain the research showing that pot smokers are less obese than the general population? http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20102773-10391704.html
Your claims are classic propaganda and there isn’t any credible study to back up your position.
I’ve reviewed 120+ years of research and I do my best to stay up to date with the latest – your views about pot smokers are as accurate as the Brady Campaign’s are about armed citizens.
I would most certainly hire someone who smokes. For many jobs/people I would even hire them if they were high on the job. Why? Responsible behavior has a vastly larger scope than the limits of your comprehension of the real world.
Most kids already think smoking pot is okay. They see their parents, grandparents, siblings, other relatives, friends, neighbors, community leaders, celebrities, and representatives of every social group and demographic smoking weed with little to no negative consequences and they think “what’s the big deal?”
Yeah, I’ll believe you are serious when you favor prohibiting tobacco, alcohol, and caffeine.
I get the impression that she would favour banning those too (“bad enough regular smoking is legal”), along with large sodas and big meals (“do we really need yet another contributing factor to obesity?”).
[sarc]Mama Government knows what’s best for us, after all.[/sarc]