Cannabis
I would like to urge people to support Medical Marijuana or Legalizing it. In the latest Rasmussen Poll 56% of Voters favor legalization and that number increases with each poll conducted. We spend over Ten(10) Billion dollars a year alone, against marijuana in the drug war. Over One(1) Trillion Dollars on all drugs, since the war on drugs began. Fact: More than 800,000 people are arrested for marijuana each year, the vast majority of them for simple possession. Police prosecuted 858,408 persons for marijuana violations in 2009, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s annual Uniform Crime Report. Marijuana arrests now comprise more than one-half (approximately 52 percent) of all drug arrests reported in the United States. A decade ago, marijuana arrests comprised just 44 percent of all drug arrests. Approximately 46 percent of all drug prosecutions nationwide are for marijuana possession. Of those charged with marijuana violations, approximately 88 percent (758,593 Americans) were charged with possession only. The remaining 99,815 individuals were charged with “sale/manufacture,” a category that includes virtually all cultivation offenses. Sounds like a very big costly mistake to me. What have we accomplished, nothing. It has not lowered the supply of Cannabis or demand for Cannabis. I would rather decriminalize it, regulate it and tax it, even allow people to grow “X” amount of plants for their own personal use. You cannot legislate morality. Did we not learn anything from Alcohol Prohibition? There are health benefits from marijuana, and that cigarettes and alcohol are way worse for you than marijuana. In fact cigarettes and alcohol are the “gateway drugs” not marijuana. Marijuana should not and cannot be compared to cigarettes and alcohol.
Marijuana is addictive: This myth is another one of the most widely believed myths. But before classifying marijuana as an addictive substance, we must first understand that there are two classes of addictiveness: physical addiction and psychological addiction. In order for a drug to be defined as physically addictive, it must be reinforcing, produce withdrawal symptoms, and produce tolerance.
Reinforcement: A measure of a substance's ability in human and animal tests, to get users to take it again and again, and in preference to other substances.
Withdrawal: Presence and severity of characteristic withdrawal symptoms, such as nausea, depression, pain, etc.
Tolerance: How much of the substance is needed to satisfy increasing cravings for it, and the level of stable, high need that is eventually reached
An example of a physically addictive drug is alcohol. A psychologically addictive drug is a drug that makes the user want to use the drug. In other words, a psychologically addictive drug is a drug that is habit forming. Many things are psychologically addictive, including: coffee, eating, shopping, and marijuana. Obviously, psychological addictiveness is not very serious, since many things can be defined as psychologically addictive, and in order to stop using a psychologically addictive substance, one must merely break their habit of using it. Indeed, marijuana is psychologically addictive, but is it physically addictive? Take a look at the facts:
In 1993, among Americans age 12 and over, about 34% had used marijuana sometime in their life, but only 9% had used it in the past year, 4.3% in the past month, and 2.8% in the past week.
There are 40 million people in the United States who have smoked marijuana before. Yet only 1 percent of Americans smoke marijuana on a daily basis. Most people who smoke marijuana smoke it only occasionally. If marijuana were addictive, then there would be millions of regular users, but there isn't.
On a relative scale, marijuana is less habit forming than either sugar or chocolate, but more so than anchovies.
Sociologists report that marijuana use peaks in the early adult years, but then levels off and gradually reduces in use as the person gets older.
The only evidence that proves that marijuana produces physical dependence and withdrawal in humans is a bit misleading. When human subjects were administered daily oral doses of 180-210 mg of THC, (the equivalent of 15-20 joints per day) abrupt cessation produced adverse symptoms, including disturbed sleep, restlessness, nausea, decreased appetite, and sweating. The authors interpreted these symptoms as evidence of physical dependence. They also noted that these symptoms were very mild, and would not occur if normal amounts of marijuana were consumed. Virtually no one smokes 15-20 joints per day, so these symptoms are not likely to occur. Even if they did occur, they are very mild, and are not dangerous to the user.
When humans are allowed to control consumption, even high doses of marijuana are not followed by adverse withdrawal symptoms. The only way marijuana can be deemed physically addictive is if it is used for a long period of time, and then all of a sudden discontinued. Withdrawal from coffee causes more symptoms than withdrawal from marijuana.
Unlike many other addictive drugs, marijuana wears off gradually. There is no "up" and "down" sequence as there is for drugs such as crack or heroin. Upon ceasing use, marijuana smokers experience a very gradual removal of THC from their brain receptors, which means that there is no sudden withdrawal, as there is for nicotine, etc.
THC can be compared to nicotine patches for cigarette smokers: the patch gradually decreases the nicotine being administered to the person. THC gradually decreases its effectiveness, so the person comes down from the high slowly. When you get high off of marijuana, you are not high one minute, and then completely sober the next. Since the wearing off of THC is slow, withdrawal symptoms never occur. The THC gradually withdrawals.
Marijuana is psychologically addictive, but so are a lot of things. Chocolate, gambling, video games, sex, massages, sports, shopping, soft drinks, nail biting, and watching television are all psychologically addictive. They don't create withdrawal symptoms when they are stopped, but they make the person want to keep doing it. Basically, something that is psychologically addictive is a habit. In order to cease psychological dependence, one must find other things to do instead of doing whatever their habit consists of. So if a marijuana smoker wanted to quit, they would just have to stop thinking about marijuana and find another activity to do.
A lot of people claim that psychological addictiveness to marijuana is strong, so strong that it is hard to quit. This is due to the simple fact that these people are not addicted to marijuana, they are addicted to the high. Marijuana smokers obviously enjoy getting high; this is why they smoke marijuana. But some people want to be high all the time. Of course, this is not healthy.
There are many people out there who can't control their marijuana-smoking habits. There are many people out there who can't control their eating habits or their shopping habits either. An estimated 10% of the population has "addictive" personalities, which means that they don't have very much control over themselves. These people should seek counseling, because it is not healthy if you are a person who can't stop using marijuana.
I hope that now you understand that marijuana is not addictive. If you still think that it is addictive, then go ask the 40 million people in the States who have smoked marijuana before, and you'll see that they all say the same thing: "Marijuana is not addictive; if it was, wouldn't I still be a pot-smoker right now?"
Marijuana is worse than cigarettes; one joint equals 5 cigarettes.
A lot of people say that smoking marijuana is worse for you than smoking cigarettes. This is untrue. A lot of people claim that smoking one joint is like smoking five cigarettes, yet this "fact" is very misleading. There are many facts to show that marijuana IS NOT worse than cigarettes. Take a look at the facts:
You may have heard that one joint is equal to five cigarettes, but this is exaggerated and misleading. Marijuana does contain more tar than tobacco, but tar isn't the ingredient that leads to cancer and other diseases. Low tar cigarettes cause just as much cancer as normal cigarettes.
Scientists have shown that smoking any plant is bad for your lungs, because it increases the number of `lesions' in your small airways. This usually does not threaten your life, but there is a chance it will lead to infections. Marijuana users who are worried about this can eliminate the chances of infections by eating or vaporizing marijuana. Marijuana is completely safe to eat, yet tobacco is not.
More research must be done, but as of now, there is no evidence to prove that marijuana causes cancer the way cigarettes do. No case of lung cancer resulting from marijuana use alone has ever been documented. Current research has proved that there are much more benefits to smoking marijuana than there are harms.
Marijuana smokers generally don't chain smoke, and so they smoke less. Whereas a cigarette smoker would smoke a pack a day, a marijuana smoker might have one or two joints a day. Even if marijuana was just as dangerous as tobacco, most smokers still would not be smoking as much as the tobacco smokers would be.
Tobacco contains nicotine, and marijuana doesn't. Nicotine is addictive. Nicotine may harden the arteries and may be responsible for much of the heart disease caused by tobacco. New research has found that it may also cause a lot of the cancer in tobacco smokers and people who live or work where tobacco is smoked. This is because it breaks down into a cancer causing chemical called `N Nitrosamine' when it is burned (and maybe even while it is inside the body as well.)
Marijuana contains THC, the chemical that gets you high. THC is a bronchial dilator, which means it works like a cough drop and opens up your lungs, which aids in the clearance of smoke and dirt. This is why many people who suffer from asthma find marijuana as an effective treatment to control their coughing and wheezing. Nicotine does the opposite to your lungs; it makes them bunch up and makes it harder to cough anything up. If someone with asthma smoked a cigarette, their asthma would get worse.
There are many benefits from marijuana that you don't get from tobacco. Tobacco isn't really good for anything. People smoke mainly because they are addicted. Some say that cigarettes calm them down, and help them relax. They become relaxed and calm after smoking because they have just satisfied their craving for nicotine. They would never feel relaxed after smoking if cigarettes were not addictive. Marijuana makes you relax, but not in the same way as tobacco does. The THC is what calms you down, not some addictive substance like nicotine.
Even if marijuana had the same health risks as cigarettes, a lot of those risks could be reduced, or even eliminated, if marijuana was made legal. There is no way to tell if you are getting "safe" marijuana from a dealer. It could have been sprayed with all kinds of harmful chemicals. Maybe the grower wasn't very experienced and they added way to much fertilizer, therefore making the soil toxic. By making marijuana legal, better marijuana can be grown.
Paraphernalia laws directed against marijuana users make it difficult to smoke safely. These laws make water pipes and bongs, which filter some of the carcinogens out of the smoke, illegal. This means that these filters are hard to get, so many people aren't smoking marijuana in the safest way possible.
Marijuana can be eaten, thereby reducing ALL health risks associated with smoking it. The main reason why many people don't eat marijuana is because: a) you need to consume more marijuana to get high when you eat it. Many users don't have enough money to use marijuana in this way. They smoke it because they can get more out of it this way. If marijuana were legal, people could grow there own "unlimited" amount of marijuana, and could eat it instead of smoke it. b) When you smoke marijuana, you feel the effects almost instantaneously. When you eat marijuana, you need to wait 15-30 minutes before you start feeling anything. Many people would prefer not to wait.
The bottom line is that marijuana is safe, non-addictive herb that has significant health benefits to users and society. Therefore, I am in favor of any effort to legalize it for medical or recreational and industrial use.
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Re: Time to Legalize Cannabis for recreational and medicinal use.
Originally Posted by boscorama
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