Marijuana debate

[jaredfogle]

Who is Bill O'Reilly?

Taking in illegal substance is extreme violence- to yourself. Shouldn't you be concerned about yourself just as much if not more than others?

Not if you're a Christian.

But seriously, you ought to consider whether an illegal substance should be illegal or not. A good case could be made for the prohibition of, say, methamphetamine. But marijuana is not nearly as dangerous. Did you know that marijuana is actually under a stricter federal classification than methamphetamine? The dangers of marijuana are certainly marginal when compared to alcohol or tobacco, yet these two remain legal. Why?

Marijuana prohibition is not a pubic health issue. It is a political issue.

No one is trying to chase you away or hurt your feelings, but don't expect bad points to hold up in a discussion like this. As far as I can tell, your beliefs about marijuana are without foundation.

Can I ask how you would vote on a new federal or state repeal of marijuana prohibition?

[bizzle]

I'll use the example of Alprazolam (Xanax). It's legal, extremely easy to obtain both legally and illegally, extremely addictive and withdrawal can KILL YOU. This drug is perfectly legal but extremely dangerous because when you get hooked and don't taper off you could have a seizure and die and dangerous because it's extremely addictive. Believe me, I know.

I started with a dosage of 0.25mg 3 times a day and within about a week I was up to 27mg a day. I got extremely addicted and went through withdrawal a few times in the next two months between refills and just trying to stop taking it. Usually after a few days I gave up because of the way I felt without it. After my second script ran out I stopped completely and was sick for weeks. It's been about 6 weeks since my last dosing and I still can't sleep properly and get cravings for it.

Marijuana on the other hand isn't even close to that.

[mankrip]

Taking in illegal substance is extreme violence- to yourself. Shouldn't you be concerned about yourself just as much if not more than others?

Not always. In my opinion, people should have the right to deliberately harm themselves. It's okay to check if they know the consequences of what they're doing, but I don't think we should dictate what people do with their private lives.

However, I'm not saying that it's okay to break the law. When a law is unfair it must be changed, not broken.

[Lartrak]

Taking in illegal substance is extreme violence- to yourself

[/quote]

"Extreme violence"? Yeah, ok. The effects on casual marijuana users are so minor as to not even be worth mentioning.

[APE]

Taking in illegal substance is extreme violence- to yourself

"Extreme violence"? Yeah, ok. The effects on casual marijuana users are so minor as to not even be worth mentioning.[/quote]

Weed isn't heroin or cocaine which really do fuck you up pretty fast. When was the last time you saw a pothead with extreme weight loss and fucked up teeth?

Yeh I thought so.

[melancholy]

Honestly, I didn't read most of this thread, and my two cents might not be worth much considering my morals on other things. However I feel that if alcohol is legal, then marijuana might as well be too. The government would save millions, new jobs would be created, it would be much cleaner than buying it from a dealer, and if they put the same amount of taxes on it that they have on cigarettes, the government would actually make a fortune that could be used for more useful things. Not only that, but hemp is so damn useful in other applications.

[LizzyCamizzy]

Thanks, I appreciate your thoughts on stating that you're not trying to chase me away, but you obviously missed my posts with merit where I actually backed my statements with medical study. That has merit. I'm not Christian, so I don't fall under the same rules as Christians do, please don't assume so. Also mentioned at one point. No one has any argument with substance (you know, medical reviews, whatever, just more than opinion) who reads what I said, and says I'm unfounded when I had medical cites listed. I worked a long time gathering the cites, so, forget it. Burns too many precious calories and I wish to keep mine. Nothing against you guys, it's just that I'm in a room full of pot addicts who probably smoked while reading the thread. How can I even hope to be listened to with that going on?

man.. I'll just go back to being the token chick with a happy disposition and no political views seems to be the better route since I don't know any of you and well, I guess I have better things to do than argue against pot smoking with a bunch of ppl who smoke pot and don't fully read what I type

I figure you guys needed more explanation of my removal from the debate since I keep getting asked questions...

Still love you guys, though!

[mankrip]

Nothing against you guys, it's just that I'm in a room full of pot addicts who probably smoked while reading the thread. How can I even hope to be listened to with that going on?

man.. I'll just go back to being the token chick with a happy disposition and no political views seems to be the better route since I don't know any of you and well, I guess I have better things to do than argue against pot smoking with a bunch of ppl who smoke pot and don't fully read what I type

My dad died of lung cancer when I was 5. I never smoked anything and never will. Same for illegal drugs. And I rarely drink alcohol; I only had 3 or 4 cans of beer during this whole year. But this doesn't mean I want everyone to be like me. I respect everybody's opinions, as long as they doesn't affect others negatively.

Yes, I'm offended at what you said. But I won't hold it against you.

[LizzyCamizzy]

I apologize for offending you, and am sorry for your loss. A dear friend of mine died due to an allergic reaction to pot, probably why I'm overly sensitive on the subject

I didn't name names, which obviously some won't have done the substance since statistically speaking I can't be the only one, and several had out and out said they did pot on this thread. Gods, I wish I never opened my mouth (or typed, whatever).

APOLOGIES TO EVERYONE. I've obviously hit something with everyone today it seems

for reals this time- no more pms or whatever, I'm not looking at this thread again... yeeze... makes me all unwelcome feeling

[Wagh]

Don't just back out. That's stupid. If you really hold these beleifs dear then do it. Doesn't make them anymore right but everyone is intitled to their voice.

[JellyWarrior]

I apologize for offending you, and am sorry for your loss. A dear friend of mine died due to an allergic reaction to pot, probably why I'm overly sensitive on the subject

I didn't name names, which obviously some won't have done the substance since statistically speaking I can't be the only one, and several had out and out said they did pot on this thread. Gods, I wish I never opened my mouth (or typed, whatever).

APOLOGIES TO EVERYONE. I've obviously hit something with everyone today it seems

for reals this time- no more pms or whatever, I'm not looking at this thread again... yeeze... makes me all unwelcome feeling

It's sad that you have to back off like this, people should be able to accept that smoking pot carries risks, especially risks of mental illness. It's true people, deal with it and get on with life.

Does that mean that you should never smoke pot? No it doesn't, smoke away, get high as much as you want. Marijuana should NOT be thought of as safe, telling people it is safe is a lie, and encouraging people to use it without them or yourself knowing the risks is both ignorant and irresponsible.

Surely if you're going to put a substance in your body you'd want to know the risks and you'd want to make sure that your friends know the risks (if you care about them). If you or they use it afterwards then at least you know and you've warned people.

Would you give a friend something that might mentally damage them without telling them first?
How is not warning people about the danger any different?

Perhaps people don't like knowing risks because then it gives them responsibility for their actions?
eg. if you do have an episode, or you do start suffering schizophrenia and damage yourself or someone else then you have no one to blame besides yourself?

Also, of course there are risks with many more substances and activities, including drinking alcohol, doing other harder drugs, driving, skydiving, popping pimples on your face (yes that can kill you), but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't know the risks associated with having a toke as well.

[Calavera]

Marijuana does impair your driving abilities, but not as much as alcohol does. How many times have you heard of people dying from car accidents while someone was high on pot?

viewtopic.php?p=716220#p716220

[not just souLLy now]

Personally I don't smoke weed but know a few people who do. I've seen consistent negative effects on all long term users though- paranoia, depression and lack of motivation to do anything- yes it's in varying degrees, worse for those who were more unhinged to begin with but it is consistent. It's definitely not the side effect free drug lots of people say it is, but not necessarily worse than drinking alcohol in excess over long periods of time. etc.
Never liked the smell either actually, doesn't bother me otherwise.

[Wagh]

Marijuana does impair your driving abilities, but not as much as alcohol does. How many times have you heard of people dying from car accidents while someone was high on pot?

viewtopic.php?p=716220#p716220

Hey.

Not Cool.

I've learned a lot more about the actual court case. And how the accident happened. The guy was not high on marijuana when he was driving but rather cocaine. 2lbs of marijuana was found in the back of his car. He was on his way to deal it I'd assume. Pot doesn not make you speed at 70-80 miles per hour through an interesection. I did a lot of blaming on marijuana. Tried to deal with it that way. I learned and moved on with my life. If anything the accident showed me just how fucked up United States judicial system is. Guy gets away scott free, and that's justice.

It's sad that you have to back off like this, people should be able to accept that smoking pot carries risks, especially risks of mental illness. It's true people, deal with it and get on with life.

Does that mean that you should never smoke pot? No it doesn't, smoke away, get high as much as you want. Marijuana should NOT be thought of as safe, telling people it is safe is a lie, and encouraging people to use it without them or yourself knowing the risks is both ignorant and irresponsible.

Get. the fuck. over yourself.
Weed does not cause mental illness. People react to weed differently. Hell there''s thousands upon thousands of kinds of weed out there. All of them different potencys and breeds. So everyones experience will be different. If weed isn't for you, Don't Smoke It. Is it that hard for you to accept that people will do with their lives what they will? Grow up and move on man.

[|darc|]

I apologize for offending you, and am sorry for your loss. A dear friend of mine died due to an allergic reaction to pot, probably why I'm overly sensitive on the subject

I didn't name names, which obviously some won't have done the substance since statistically speaking I can't be the only one, and several had out and out said they did pot on this thread. Gods, I wish I never opened my mouth (or typed, whatever).

APOLOGIES TO EVERYONE. I've obviously hit something with everyone today it seems

for reals this time- no more pms or whatever, I'm not looking at this thread again... yeeze... makes me all unwelcome feeling

I think statistically about 70% of Americans have smoked pot. Its illegality is a joke. It's everywhere, just like underage alcohol drinkers.

I'm not offended but you are making us all out to be potheads, but we aren't. I can count the amount of times I've smoked pot on one hand. We're not ignoring your posts because we're stoned, it's because you can just stick a name and number in parentheses behind a sentence and it's automatically true. Like stated earlier, this is a highly political issue. Even if weed was proven to be 100% safe beyond a doubt, there would still be people trying to keep it banned in the government. There's a lot of bias. I don't just trust something because it looks official. Hell, in the case of marijuana, I tend to ignore anything that looks official because of the way our government speaks about it.

And like I said, I'm sorry for your loss, but allergic reactions don't prove that something is unsafe. Many people are allergic to peanuts, but I would call them safe.

Does that mean that you should never smoke pot? No it doesn't, smoke away, get high as much as you want. Marijuana should NOT be thought of as safe, telling people it is safe is a lie, and encouraging people to use it without them or yourself knowing the risks is both ignorant and irresponsible.

Honestly, there doesn't seem to be anything you can put in your body that is safe by your standards. Everything has risks. I don't know how the media is in Australia, but here in America I hear on TV all day about how some type of food doubles your risk for heart disease but decreases your risk for liver failure by 50%. New studies have shown that chocolate helps this, that alcohol helps this, eggs hurt this, etc. I still consider chocolate, alcohol, and eggs to be safe food products.

Do you consider alcohol to be safe?

Marijuana does impair your driving abilities, but not as much as alcohol does. How many times have you heard of people dying from car accidents while someone was high on pot?

viewtopic.php?p=716220#p716220

Yes, I remembered that thread as I typed. However, you just proved my point. You remembered that one distant argument from over 2 years ago when you thought of high driving. When it comes to drunk driving I'm sure you think of all sorts of more recent incidents that are all over the news and stuff.

Personally I don't smoke weed but know a few people who do. I've seen consistent negative effects on all long term users though- paranoia, depression and lack of motivation to do anything- yes it's in varying degrees, worse for those who were more unhinged to begin with but it is consistent. It's definitely not the side effect free drug lots of people say it is, but not necessarily worse than drinking alcohol in excess over long periods of time. etc.
Never liked the smell either actually, doesn't bother me otherwise.

But the question is whether or not that really has anything to do with the effects of marijuana itself or is that a side effect of being mentally dependent on pot? Abuse of ALL mind-altering substances produces this same effect. I don't believe that it's actually the substances doing this; it's a side effect of being dependent on something.

[not just souLLy now]

Personally I don't smoke weed but know a few people who do. I've seen consistent negative effects on all long term users though- paranoia, depression and lack of motivation to do anything- yes it's in varying degrees, worse for those who were more unhinged to begin with but it is consistent. It's definitely not the side effect free drug lots of people say it is, but not necessarily worse than drinking alcohol in excess over long periods of time. etc.
Never liked the smell either actually, doesn't bother me otherwise.

But the question is whether or not that really has anything to do with the effects of marijuana itself or is that a side effect of being mentally dependent on pot? Abuse of ALL mind-altering substances produces this same effect. I don't believe that it's actually the substances doing this; it's a side effect of being dependent on something.

I don't agree, addiction to chocolate/video games doesn't make you paranoid, this clearly is more than that. Not that I'm a militant anti-marijuana person or anything but saying its usage has no long term negative effects is false.

[|darc|]

Personally I don't smoke weed but know a few people who do. I've seen consistent negative effects on all long term users though- paranoia, depression and lack of motivation to do anything- yes it's in varying degrees, worse for those who were more unhinged to begin with but it is consistent. It's definitely not the side effect free drug lots of people say it is, but not necessarily worse than drinking alcohol in excess over long periods of time. etc.
Never liked the smell either actually, doesn't bother me otherwise.

But the question is whether or not that really has anything to do with the effects of marijuana itself or is that a side effect of being mentally dependent on pot? Abuse of ALL mind-altering substances produces this same effect. I don't believe that it's actually the substances doing this; it's a side effect of being dependent on something.

I don't agree, addiction to chocolate/video games doesn't make you paranoid, this clearly is more than that. Not that I'm a militant anti-marijuana person or anything but saying its usage has no long term negative effects is false.

It would make sense to me that if there's a substance that makes you feel good and you can't have it, that if you did get it you would use it a lot and be wary about those who are going to want to take it away from you.

Someone centering their life around doing something that's illegal and socially ostracized sounds like a perfect candidate for paranoia.

I am not saying that excessively smoking pot over a long period of time is perfectly safe. I don't think you should do anything excessively over a long period of time. And my post above is just a hypothesis, I don't necessarily think it's absolutely true but it's my belief. I wouldn't be surprised if marijuana did have negative effects. So I don't necessarily disagree with you there. I just think a lot of the popular issues associated with marijuana use may be more to do with the circumstances under which it's used rather than the marijuana itself.

[JellyWarrior]

It's sad that you have to back off like this, people should be able to accept that smoking pot carries risks, especially risks of mental illness. It's true people, deal with it and get on with life.

Does that mean that you should never smoke pot? No it doesn't, smoke away, get high as much as you want. Marijuana should NOT be thought of as safe, telling people it is safe is a lie, and encouraging people to use it without them or yourself knowing the risks is both ignorant and irresponsible.

Get. the fuck. over yourself.
Weed does not cause mental illness. People react to weed differently. Hell there''s thousands upon thousands of kinds of weed out there. All of them different potencys and breeds. So everyones experience will be different. If weed isn't for you, Don't Smoke It. Is it that hard for you to accept that people will do with their lives what they will? Grow up and move on man.

I think you're entirely missing the point, because I am not arguing that people shouldn't smoke it. I am saying that the evidence that links it to mental illness is strong, and you should know the risks before using it. I am totally open to the fact that it might be safe, but it is very very unlikely.

When you know the risks and then you use it then at least you've made an informed decision and you know the consequences.

Why is it so hard for people to accept that pot could cause mental illness?

[APE]

It's sad that you have to back off like this, people should be able to accept that smoking pot carries risks, especially risks of mental illness. It's true people, deal with it and get on with life.

Does that mean that you should never smoke pot? No it doesn't, smoke away, get high as much as you want. Marijuana should NOT be thought of as safe, telling people it is safe is a lie, and encouraging people to use it without them or yourself knowing the risks is both ignorant and irresponsible.

Get. the fuck. over yourself.
Weed does not cause mental illness. People react to weed differently. Hell there''s thousands upon thousands of kinds of weed out there. All of them different potencys and breeds. So everyones experience will be different. If weed isn't for you, Don't Smoke It. Is it that hard for you to accept that people will do with their lives what they will? Grow up and move on man.

I think you're entirely missing the point, because I am not arguing that people shouldn't smoke it. I am saying that the evidence that links it to mental illness is strong, and you should know the risks before using it. I am totally open to the fact that it might be safe, but it is very very unlikely.

When you know the risks and then you use it then at least you've made an informed decision and you know the consequences.

Why is it so hard for people to accept that pot could cause mental illness?

Probably because there aren't any studies considered valid by the majority that say so?

[|darc|]

Why is it so hard for people to accept that pot could cause mental illness?

Why is it so hard for people to accept that pot could not cause mental illness?