EagleEyeHamThrust
Active Member
Ok, I like pot as much as the next guy on this forum, and I do believe that it has a lot of valid medicinal uses such as:
I also think it has a great recreational use like alcohol does.
That said, I feel like there's an annoying culture that gives marijuana too much credit and puts it on a pedestal. I'm on this board because I didn't want to have to risk getting arrested for buying a little pot every now and then, and the high cost generated by prohibition is ridiculous. That said, I think there are a lot of bullshit justifications and myths surrounding marijuana, and I wonder if the other people on this board, who are users I'm assuming, have similar feelings.
1. Since marijuana is non-addictive, that means you can't have a problem with it.
Ok, this is a big one with me. I believe in responsible drug use, not drug abuse. If you're toking regularly early in the morning, then at lunch time, then in the afternoon, then at night, you might have a marijuana problem. Sure, every now and then we all like to go on a little pot-bender and spend a day in a couch-coma, but when you start ending up late to work, shirking your responsibilities, neglecting your relationships and spending rent money on ganja, then you have a problem because it's having indirect adverse effects on your life.
2. Pot slows things down, therefore I'm good to drive while blazed.
Another big one for me is the avalanche of bullshit anecdotal evidence of people saying "I drive high all the time, but I'm a safer driver because I'm more paranoid of getting in a wreck and I slow down." Now I'm not saying I'm holier than everyone here. I've done dumb things such as drive drunk and drive high when I was younger and much dumber than I am now. I can easily claim that the dozen or so times I've driven significantly drunk or high, I was extremely cautious because I know that I could kill someone and also what a DUI can do to my record. I drove religiously 5 under the speed limit, and I was constantly talking to myself and scanning the roads ahead the entire time.
If you look at the drummer study on Table 2, you'll see that they specifically check for levels of THC high enough to indicate someone had smoked in the last 2-4 hours and found they were at roughly the same risk of an accident as someone at the legal alcohol limit. There are other studies, but they do not correlate the actual blood-THC level with impairment. Perhaps this study was performed poorly and all the others are correct, but think about how high you've ever gotten, and then ask yourself would you trust yourself behind the wheel of car?
Drummer study links:
http://www.canorml.org/healthfacts/drugtestguide/drugtestdetection.html#blood
http://www.ukcia.org/research/DoseRelatedRiskOfCrashes.pdf
3. Pot is a 100% pure natural substance, therefore it can't hurt my baby.
To the whole "natural" argument, I like to cite Nightshade, Belladonna and Hemlock as other 100% natural substances that would not be so good for your baby, or you for that matter. When you're pregnant, whatever is in your blood is in your baby's blood, and when you're getting high, you're baby is getting high too. Probably during some key developmental stages in their life. I wonder if the same people who smoke regularly during pregnancy would think of getting their newborn a vaporizer so that every time he/she cries, they can get a hit of THC and calm them down. Studies on this are extremely rare and hard to come by because most people are pretty ashamed or scared of the consequences of admitting to a medical authority that they're getting high with baby.
This is an extremely touchy subject for most people. People who smoke during pregnancy don't like to be accused of harming their baby, and they'll say just about anything to defend their actions. "My son turned out to have an IQ of 150!" or "They're the best, most well adjusted child I could ask for." Those are subjective and biased anecdotes that hold no merit whatsoever. Most times when a parent claims their child is "exceptional", their child is pretty average. You rarely hear parents claiming their child is a fat lazy idiot (at least until they're teenagers and they've wrecked the car, don't have a job and give them ungrateful backtalk on a regular basis
)
Countless mothers have drank and smoke cigarettes to a high degree during pregnancy, and lucked out by having a perfectly healthy child. There have been lots of cracked out mom's that avoided having a crack baby. Sometimes genetics and circumstance can overcome, and sometimes, they can't. My fiance's mother was born from a 3-pack a day chimney and is successful and intelligent, yet despite this, studies done scientifically and on a large scale have shown that smoking is pretty risky for your pregnancy. The same studies that show marijuana is good for preventing cancer cite the fact that THC promotes brain cell death, effectively increasing the chance that a malignant cancer cell would die before metastasizing. Promoting brain cell death during a crucial developmental stage in your baby's life? Sounds like it could at least be a concern.
Would you take a prescription drug after the doctor said that there are no significant studies proving it's safe? Until significant studies are done, it's probably a good idea to stay sober and give your child the best possible chance.
4. Marijuana is panacea!
There have been some good studies out there showing that marijuana can treat some conditions. Check this list for some interesting finds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_cannabis#Alzheimer.27s_disease
I don't have much to say on this topic other than it won't cure or treat everything. Sure, it feels great to get high when you're in pain, but what if a study came out to show that your particular condition might be hampered by THC or the smoke that's associated with it? Just like smoking cigarrettes hampers the mending of broken bones, there could be an unknown side effect.
5. Prohibition is never the answer. Science is!
Prohibition has caused all of these gripes I've had, and if science were allowed to do its work, we'd know the answers to all these questions. Maybe getting high cures cancer, makes your dick bigger, gives you super babies with off-the-chart abilities and makes you a safer driver, but will never know because the studies themselves are so regulated that they can never be performed. The other big factor is that studies aren't done because there's no corporation pushing for them, because they can't sell marijuana. If Marlboro were to start growing pot tomorrow, I could guarantee you that there would be countless studies done to prove how safe it truly is for the most part, so that they could put it in their advertisements. Sadly, until that day, we'll have to keep on guessing.
---
I know I've been harsh, and I truly think marijuana is like anything else: it has its good uses and its bad. Hopefully people will neither worship or condemn it, but rather accept it and use it appropriately.
Anyone else feel this way?
- Pain relief
- Nausea relief
- Stress relief (sometimes if you don't smoke to much and get the spins
)
I also think it has a great recreational use like alcohol does.
- It's generally regarded by the scientific community as not chemically addictive, only habit forming.
- It's effects are typically short term, and by about 2-6 hours after your last toke (depending on your physiology and the amount smoked), no significant effects can be measured.
- The psychoactive agents in marijuana are non-toxic barring massive doses such as eating a pound of hash
That said, I feel like there's an annoying culture that gives marijuana too much credit and puts it on a pedestal. I'm on this board because I didn't want to have to risk getting arrested for buying a little pot every now and then, and the high cost generated by prohibition is ridiculous. That said, I think there are a lot of bullshit justifications and myths surrounding marijuana, and I wonder if the other people on this board, who are users I'm assuming, have similar feelings.
1. Since marijuana is non-addictive, that means you can't have a problem with it.
Ok, this is a big one with me. I believe in responsible drug use, not drug abuse. If you're toking regularly early in the morning, then at lunch time, then in the afternoon, then at night, you might have a marijuana problem. Sure, every now and then we all like to go on a little pot-bender and spend a day in a couch-coma, but when you start ending up late to work, shirking your responsibilities, neglecting your relationships and spending rent money on ganja, then you have a problem because it's having indirect adverse effects on your life.
2. Pot slows things down, therefore I'm good to drive while blazed.
Another big one for me is the avalanche of bullshit anecdotal evidence of people saying "I drive high all the time, but I'm a safer driver because I'm more paranoid of getting in a wreck and I slow down." Now I'm not saying I'm holier than everyone here. I've done dumb things such as drive drunk and drive high when I was younger and much dumber than I am now. I can easily claim that the dozen or so times I've driven significantly drunk or high, I was extremely cautious because I know that I could kill someone and also what a DUI can do to my record. I drove religiously 5 under the speed limit, and I was constantly talking to myself and scanning the roads ahead the entire time.
If you look at the drummer study on Table 2, you'll see that they specifically check for levels of THC high enough to indicate someone had smoked in the last 2-4 hours and found they were at roughly the same risk of an accident as someone at the legal alcohol limit. There are other studies, but they do not correlate the actual blood-THC level with impairment. Perhaps this study was performed poorly and all the others are correct, but think about how high you've ever gotten, and then ask yourself would you trust yourself behind the wheel of car?
Drummer study links:
http://www.canorml.org/healthfacts/drugtestguide/drugtestdetection.html#blood
http://www.ukcia.org/research/DoseRelatedRiskOfCrashes.pdf
3. Pot is a 100% pure natural substance, therefore it can't hurt my baby.
To the whole "natural" argument, I like to cite Nightshade, Belladonna and Hemlock as other 100% natural substances that would not be so good for your baby, or you for that matter. When you're pregnant, whatever is in your blood is in your baby's blood, and when you're getting high, you're baby is getting high too. Probably during some key developmental stages in their life. I wonder if the same people who smoke regularly during pregnancy would think of getting their newborn a vaporizer so that every time he/she cries, they can get a hit of THC and calm them down. Studies on this are extremely rare and hard to come by because most people are pretty ashamed or scared of the consequences of admitting to a medical authority that they're getting high with baby.
This is an extremely touchy subject for most people. People who smoke during pregnancy don't like to be accused of harming their baby, and they'll say just about anything to defend their actions. "My son turned out to have an IQ of 150!" or "They're the best, most well adjusted child I could ask for." Those are subjective and biased anecdotes that hold no merit whatsoever. Most times when a parent claims their child is "exceptional", their child is pretty average. You rarely hear parents claiming their child is a fat lazy idiot (at least until they're teenagers and they've wrecked the car, don't have a job and give them ungrateful backtalk on a regular basis
)Countless mothers have drank and smoke cigarettes to a high degree during pregnancy, and lucked out by having a perfectly healthy child. There have been lots of cracked out mom's that avoided having a crack baby. Sometimes genetics and circumstance can overcome, and sometimes, they can't. My fiance's mother was born from a 3-pack a day chimney and is successful and intelligent, yet despite this, studies done scientifically and on a large scale have shown that smoking is pretty risky for your pregnancy. The same studies that show marijuana is good for preventing cancer cite the fact that THC promotes brain cell death, effectively increasing the chance that a malignant cancer cell would die before metastasizing. Promoting brain cell death during a crucial developmental stage in your baby's life? Sounds like it could at least be a concern.
Would you take a prescription drug after the doctor said that there are no significant studies proving it's safe? Until significant studies are done, it's probably a good idea to stay sober and give your child the best possible chance.
4. Marijuana is panacea!
There have been some good studies out there showing that marijuana can treat some conditions. Check this list for some interesting finds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_cannabis#Alzheimer.27s_disease
I don't have much to say on this topic other than it won't cure or treat everything. Sure, it feels great to get high when you're in pain, but what if a study came out to show that your particular condition might be hampered by THC or the smoke that's associated with it? Just like smoking cigarrettes hampers the mending of broken bones, there could be an unknown side effect.
5. Prohibition is never the answer. Science is!
Prohibition has caused all of these gripes I've had, and if science were allowed to do its work, we'd know the answers to all these questions. Maybe getting high cures cancer, makes your dick bigger, gives you super babies with off-the-chart abilities and makes you a safer driver, but will never know because the studies themselves are so regulated that they can never be performed. The other big factor is that studies aren't done because there's no corporation pushing for them, because they can't sell marijuana. If Marlboro were to start growing pot tomorrow, I could guarantee you that there would be countless studies done to prove how safe it truly is for the most part, so that they could put it in their advertisements. Sadly, until that day, we'll have to keep on guessing.
---
I know I've been harsh, and I truly think marijuana is like anything else: it has its good uses and its bad. Hopefully people will neither worship or condemn it, but rather accept it and use it appropriately.
Anyone else feel this way?
