Position on cannabis

[Sagakkan]

As a biology teacher this thread honestly breaks my heart.

Marijuana isn't as bad a drug as is often made out, but it still has problems. The most prominent of which is probably paranoia and short-term memory loss, sometimes coupled with aggression - not dissimilar to alcohol.

A few people have mentioned the effect on the brain and it 'not damaging adults because they are full developed', or something along those lines. When do you become an adult? Believe it or not nature doesn't conform to the -18/21- rule, hell puberty can continue in the the mid-twenties, it's not abnormal. Therefore saying it's fine to smoke when 18 is still not a dead cert, in anyway.

For many of those who smoke it, it becomes a psychological crutch (again, alcoholalcoholalcohol) and that is the main reason why I consider it dangerous.

Myth dispelling time! "Nobody has died from smoking Marijuana."

Nobody, on record, had died from a chemical overdose of Marijuana. However, that doesn't mean nobody has died. Marijuana, like other drugs, change your perspectives, rationality and your reaction time - all of which can mean you put yourself in danger, unknowingly. Quite honestly I am disturbed by the fact some people are mentioning driving while high.



Yes.



They should get a warning if it is a small amount, if it is a significant amount then there should be an arrest made. A jury would have to decide the punishment.

I don't think your argument is terribly legitimate.....if you think Marijuana should be illegal, do you think the same about alcohol, which, as you mentioned, impairs judgement significantly? In fact I've never heard anyone who goes home and beats their family after smoking marijuana, yet it happens with alcohol with relative frequency. As a biology teacher you'll probably acknowledge that tobacco/ cigarettes is more hazardous to health than marijuana.....should that be illegal too?

The fact is that it is illegal not because of concern for safety or some kind of moral conviction about drugs, but that private industry has actively sought, and continues to influence legislators to criminalize it.

 

[Mana1]

I don't think your argument is terribly legitimate.....if you think Marijuana should be illegal, do you think the same about alcohol, which, as you mentioned, impairs judgement significantly? In fact I've never heard anyone who goes home and beats their family after smoking marijuana, yet it happens with alcohol with relative frequency. As a biology teacher you'll probably acknowledge that tobacco/ cigarettes is more hazardous to health than marijuana.....should that be illegal too?

Hello!~

Actually, yes. I agree that alcohol is equally damaging - however there are a couple of differences.

1. Alcohol has been a part of many cultures and religions, and has been for centuries. Therefore, although in an ideal world it would be banned, alcohol is in a different situation and legal.
2. Humans have a tolerance to alcohol. Whilst one spliff can get you high, one unit of alcohol is (to the vast majority) ineffective. This tolerance ranges from continent to continent, but it's there. Meanwhile, with Marijuana, tolerance builds up over time and usage.

Unfortunately, people assume that legalising marijuana = everything going there way. However, there should be vast amounts of restrictions and laws to balance it with alcohol. For example, those who are driving whilst high would be cracked down on to the same degree as those driving after drinking.

With the tobacco vs marijuana debate... it's not so clear. I've posted in a thread like this before after finding a piece of research which suggests that a weed-cigarette is three times more likely to cause lung cancer than a tobacco cigarette. Yes, people smoke weed less often but (to me) that suggests that the dangers, cancer-wise, are equal.


tdlr; Alcohol is bad, but already legal. Marijuana is bad. We don't need another bad thing.

In fact I've never heard anyone who goes home and beats their family after smoking marijuana, yet it happens with alcohol with relative frequency.

I don't know many people who have died via housefires but it still happens...? Your point?

Much as fans of TV shows are oblivious to its flaws and plot holes, marijuana users seem oblivious to the dangers of the drug.

 

[Corvus of the Black Night]

because it's cultural its okay

aight

that makes sense

it's also cultural to cut off skin on the end of a baby boy's penis when he's a week old (obviously without consent)

Maybe we should address the fact that maybe people shouldn't give a **** what people do in our spare time, as long as it doesn't involve other people? For ****'s sake it's legal to cut my wrists and bleed to death, but not to go and buy some dope and smoke it at my house. It's also legal to drink yourself to death as well as long as you're at home. It's legal to drink wiper fluid and blind/kill yourself. It's legal to shove ammonia in your eyes, it's legal to sniff glue, it's legal to commit Hari Kari on yourself with a butcher's knife. Okay? It's also legal to go into tanning salons which are known to cause cancer, for an example of a long term effect. There's a lot of ways to go and do harm to yourself that are not illegal, and I think that many of them are worse than the long term effects of marijuana. I mean, honestly, that's why support/disapprove of 90% of the things I do because frankly it's nobody's business if I go home on a Saturday night, smoke something, and go watch television.

Should we outlaw overeating because those people are causing damage to their bodies that in many cases is irreversible and will effect them for the rest of their lives?

I think that "dealers" should be more illegal than using a damn plant. If there is a controlled producer with a consistent track record I would totally be on board with that. But there isn't one that is readily accessible to the people because the government blocks it off. This encourages a black market to form that will cause people do to the same **** that they would have been doing in the first place, regardless of the law, except now "what you see" may not be "what you get". It's like the Moonshine problem from Prohibition, but less severe (I haven't heard anyone dying/going blind from bad dope)

I don't approve of dolts who go around and try to push the drugs on other people, or lace it in people's foods, or drive a vehicle under the influence. Why? Because then, you're moving into someone else's life. You're risking other people's health, well being, or just their moral compass because of your stupid actions.

I'm sorry if I disappoint you because I don't care about my body but honestly, it's one thing out of many. And outside of that I'm a relatively healthy person. I live healthier than most people I know because I eat a balanced diet, exercise, and don't drink or use tobacco regularly (I don't even use tobacco at all). Some of the immediate side effects of marijuana helped me with my serious anxiety and OCD problems which impede my regular every day life, as well as my undereating issue (I have since recovered from that) . Yeah, it's not for everyone and honestly I wouldn't want anyone to just be like "lol daigonite said it was cool I should do it", you should decide for yourself if that's the path you wanna take. But my path is mine alone, and the government should stop giving a damn about the choices I make that influence nobody but myself.

 

[Sagakkan]

Hello!~

Actually, yes. I agree that alcohol is equally damaging - however there are a couple of differences.

1. Alcohol has been a part of many cultures and religions, and has been for centuries. Therefore, although in an ideal world it would be banned, alcohol is in a different situation and legal.
2. Humans have a tolerance to alcohol. Whilst one spliff can get you high, one unit of alcohol is (to the vast majority) ineffective. This tolerance ranges from continent to continent, but it's there. Meanwhile, with Marijuana, tolerance builds up over time and usage.

Unfortunately, people assume that legalising marijuana = everything going there way. However, there should be vast amounts of restrictions and laws to balance it with alcohol. For example, those who are driving whilst high would be cracked down on to the same degree as those driving after drinking.

With the tobacco vs marijuana debate... it's not so clear. I've posted in a thread like this before after finding a piece of research which suggests that a weed-cigarette is three times more likely to cause lung cancer than a tobacco cigarette. Yes, people smoke weed less often but (to me) that suggests that the dangers, cancer-wise, are equal.


tdlr; Alcohol is bad, but already legal. Marijuana is bad. We don't need another bad thing.



I don't know many people who have died via housefires but it still happens...? Your point?

Much as fans of TV shows are oblivious to its flaws and plot holes, marijuana users seem oblivious to the dangers of the drug.

I think your idea of there being no deaths on record not indicating the decreased danger of marijuana as compared to alcohol is also kind of misguided.......there are ALOT of marijuana users, and if the percentage of alcohol consumers who died from alcohol were the same as with marijuana, it would be known. The same would go for marijuana-related auto accidents, which, while they happen, are not nearly as frequent as with alcohol. Most research suggests that alcohol is considerably more addictive and more corrosive to health than marijuana.....the same goes for tobacco......though marijuana and tobacco supposedly contain many of the some components, marijuana (to my knowledge) has never been associated with anywhere near the same degree of impaired lung function as tobacco smokers, possibly because people who smoke cigarettes smoke A LOT more than marijuana smokers, which once again suggests that tobacco is much more addictive. You say you found a piece of research, but one study is fairly insignificant compared to the many that suggest the relative benignity of marijuana compared to tobacco and alcohol.

In addition, Cannabis has been around since antiquity, and probably has an equally long history as alcohol. You argument seems to imply that there is a benefit to be gained from criminalizing things like alcohol and marijuana, but there was a lot of violence associated with the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920's, just as there is with other drugs (marijuana included) right now.

I've never smoked weed (or drank alcohol) but I've been told that, it isn't like alcohol where one can build up a tolerance over time - rather, it can accumulate in one's system such that a long history of smoking weed will make it much easier to get high.

I'll say it again, a considerable part of the reason why marijuana is criminalized is largely because it would spell disaster for pharmaceutical pain relievers and some psychiatric drugs.......there's no reason why industrial hemp should be illegal, except for that it could represent a serious threat to the plastics industry. This country wastes dozens of billions on persecuting people who possess marijuana, which hasn't been shown to be any more dangerous than the majority of FDA-approved medications.

In short, your position seems to me like a really half-hearted apologetic for the status quo.

 

[Star-Lord]

I honestly don't see a problem with marijuana in a recreational use and the fact that so many people in the united states are getting locked up because of a relatively harmless drug is insanely stupid.

That being said there are people who waste their entire lives smoking weed so like Magic Fox said, just because it's not a chemically bad drug doesn't mean that it isn't bad for you? There was a common trend of the "stoners" at my school not graduating because they were too busy smoking weed and weed had basically become their entire life. To say that the drug is completely harmless is also dumb. There are people who waste their lives with it.

 

[T The Manager]

Marijuana isn't as bad a drug as is often made out, but it still has problems.

And caffeine, cheeseburgers, candy, etc doesn't? It's called moderation.

The most prominent of which is probably paranoia

I gotta call ******** on this one. Yea smoking too much CAN cause paranoia but it doesn't happen everytime you smoke. It only happens if your a new smoker, take a t break then smoke again or simply smoke way too much so how is that considered a problem?

and short-term memory loss, sometimes coupled with aggression - not dissimilar to alcohol.

Everybody, gets short-term memory loss from time to time, so ****ing what if someone has short-term memory loss. I still don't classify this as a problem. Aggression? Lololololololol where are you getting this from? Yea maybe if someone had psychological problems then it could be possible but marijuana does not cause aggression, this is 100% false in every way. Marijuana does the opposite of what your saying, **** that makes me lose my temper fast sober makes me chill out when I smoke marijuana because it calms the mind. You know jack **** about marijuana.

For many of those who smoke it, it becomes a psychological crutch (again, alcoholalcoholalcohol) and that is the main reason why I consider it dangerous.

So you would rather someone pop xanax everyday to help with their anxiety? So you'd rather people pop vicodin or oxycontin for pain? People should take loritabs and valiums to calm them down? People should take antidepressants for depression? Adderall for ADHD? All which are extremely addicting and dangerous. I like where this is going...

Nobody, on record, had died from a chemical overdose of Marijuana. However, that doesn't mean nobody has died. Marijuana, like other drugs, change your perspectives, rationality and your reaction time - all of which can mean you put yourself in danger, unknowingly. Quite honestly I am disturbed by the fact some people are mentioning driving while high.

And yet ordering a large cheeseburger, fries, and soda at a fast food restaurant and eating while driving is okay? Eating fast food cheeseburgers and fried and drinking large sodas isn't unhealthy? It's far more unhealthy than smoking marijuana. Most people (id say close to 80%) has self control and can still function perfectly fine while high

Yes.

So it should be a crime to masturbate for pleasure and have that feeling or relaxation when finished? Why should it be a crime to smoke marijuana? Other than the pleasure, it's the same thing, it makes you relax It's just "ignorance" to think marijuana should be a crime. Hell, alcohol and tobacco are LETHAL and yet LEGAL. I don't think they should be a crime tho, let the person do what they want to their body. I'm tired of people saying something should be "a crime or illegal" because their against it. I'm against people saying the word "*****" (even blacks) so that should that be a crime because I'm against it?

They should get a warning if it is a small amount, if it is a significant amount then there should be an arrest made. A jury would have to decide the punishment.

There shouldn't be anything for a small amount, people have their likes and dislike and it seems to me your anti-marijuana to the extremes so you automatically think it should be a crime. The only thing agree with you on is having enough to distribute.

lll

Actually, yes. I agree that alcohol is equally damaging - however there are a couple of differences.

Again, it's called moderation. Alcohol in moderation is actually good for the heart, as a biology teacher I'd think you wouldn't be this mislead-ed but boy was I wrong... But if drunk to the extreme's it's actually "lethal" and can cause "death", but if you have an ounce of marijuana and try to smoke you'll just pass out from sleepiness and get really high... OMG ain't that a shocker??

1. Alcohol has been a part of many cultures and religions, and has been for centuries. Therefore, although in an ideal world it would be banned, alcohol is in a different situation and legal.

And marijuana isn't used in cultures? Hmm, let's see "Cannabis has been used in a religious and spiritual context in India since the Vedic period dating back to approximately 1500BCE but perhaps as far back as 2000BCE. Hinduism - Cannabis or ganja is associated with worship of the Hindu deity Shiva, who is sometimes associated with the hemp plant. Buddhism - In Buddhism, the Fifth Precept is to "abstain from wines, liquors and intoxicants that cause heedlessness." How this applies to cannabis is variously interpreted. Africa - Cannabis and some other psychoactive plants are specifically prescribed in the Mahākāla Tantra for medicinal purposes. According to Alfred Dunhill (1924), Africans have had a long tradition of smoking hemp in gourd pipes, asserting that by 1884 the King of the Baluka tribe of the Congo had established a "riamba" or hemp-smoking cult in place of fetish-worship. Enormous gourd pipes were used. Cannabis was used in Africa to restore appetite and relieve pain of hemorrhoids. It was also used as an antiseptic. In a number of countries, it was used to treat tetanus, hydrophobia, delirium tremens, infantile convulsions, neuralgia and other nervous disorders, cholera, menorrhagia, rheumatism, hay fever, asthma, skin diseases, and protracted labor during childbirth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_and_spiritual_use_of_cannabis

I'll gladly debate with you when you come back with something that isn't pure ********.

 

[Mana1]

Hi there. I think this ends here, since you tore apart even the slightest comment and decided to repeated swear for no apparent reason.

Really, all you have done is highlight both paranoia (about a government out to punish you) and aggression at even the faintest opposition.

Good day.

 

[T The Manager]

Your entitled to your opinions, but you shouldn't treat your "opinions" as "false facts". You've never smoked marijuana (at least it seems you haven't) and that's cool, so don't act like you have the facts cause you don't. Just about everything you posted has been debunked countless of times with proof of evidence. Not by me, scientific proof. You were half right on a few things and I agreed with a couple things you mentioned but the rest is simply government propaganda used as scare tactics.

You didn't answer my questions nor come back with something worth debating so I guess I automatically win by default cause I debunked practically everything you posted?

Good day to you too.

I honestly don't see a problem with marijuana in a recreational use and the fact that so many people in the united states are getting locked up because of a relatively harmless drug is insanely stupid.

I agree with you 100%. I also think it's insanely stupid to blow billions of dollars on taxpayers money to convict someone who had marijuana possession rather than spend the money on real criminals. It's a shame.

That being said there are people who waste their entire lives smoking weed so like Magic Fox said, just because it's not a chemically bad drug doesn't mean that it isn't bad for you? There was a common trend of the "stoners" at my school not graduating because they were too busy smoking weed and weed had basically become their entire life. To say that the drug is completely harmless is also dumb. There are people who waste their lives with it.

This I also agree with. It's not "dangerous" but marijuana isn't "safe" either. Nothing in marijuana is "dangerous" except the smoke intake to the lungs, which gives marijuana the only danger so I'm glad you acknowledge this. But make hemp oil/butter or bake marijuana in food it's 100% harmless. Then for the wasting their life and letting it control them I can also agree with. As I said before, in moderation marijuana is harmless (except for the smoke) physically and mentally so why should it be a crime? I hate how some people don't have self control and allow it control their life, it's called priorities. I never put marijuana as a first priority.

 

[Corvus of the Black Night]

Going back to a comment I said earlier, I honestly don't care whether or not something is harmful at all to oneself because in the end if you're the only one affected by it then maybe it's not a huge deal after all. Kitchen Knives, Ropes, Rubber Cement, Bacon, Glass Bottles, are all things that can and have killed people but since most of those things rarely do (and kitchen knives is kind of pulling it). But the thing is, even if it is more harmful than what we percieve, there's two reasons why I think it should be taken down from illegality (and at least just controlled). One, there are many marijuana users who have been using the stuff for decades and are still relatively healthy, especially in comparison to users of hard drugs (also many never had a "gateway" to other drugs, so there's that), and because outside of operating machinery while high, it's never really done much to kill anyone, outside possible issues with the fact that you're smoking it.


The only instance I can think of Marijuana killing someone besides yourself is if you operate machinery but that's kind of the same thing as Drunk Driving laws.

I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm in on some government conspiracy but seriously the laws are ******** when a guy gets sent to prison for life for smoking weed.

Anyways, we need to calm down man. We should go back to more "peaceful" discussions.

 

[Xander Olivieri]

Saw a comment about hallucinations only being visible for new smokers. I'm sorry but that is false. My brother, still hallucinates when he smokes. He's been doing it for years now. (He has to take it for medical reasons after a car wreck but he cannot take certain amounts because smoking it causes his heart to stop or induces seizures.) His friends all hallucinate when they smoke. The hallucinations set in after a certain amount of chemicals are deposited into your system. The amount slowly changes through out use, but, unlike with alcohol, tolerance build up is much slower with smoking.

As for a have I tried it. Yes. I was forced to try it when enlisted as a part of chemical training. They used cannabis in the smoke chamber to forcefully induce hallucinations with the recruits.

Is smoking as dangerous as drinking, no. Even though it takes longer to build a tolerance, it also take longer for the effects to completely set in. This of course can differ between individuals.

I do not believe it should be illegal as it has a lot of medical use. If properly regulated and taxed the economy could have potential to pull out of the recession we always seem to be in.

The other thing I saw, you don't hear about people beating others because they are high, it does happen. Just because it is not as publicized through media as alcohol doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

We're TRYING to get our neighbors arrested because that's practically all they do. They'll sit outside, smoke pot, then both get into an arguement which always ends up with the husband and wife engaged in a physical fight. Three other families have been evicted from the same area for similar issues of domestic violence after the intoxication through use of illegal substances.

Two of brother's friends are also very aggressive when they smoke. They are more so when they drink so that's more a psychological issue with them personally. All either really do is cause your thoughts to get scrammbled so that you usually do not act in ways that you should.


Bottom line. A lot of people are just stupid and cannot handle themselves while intoxicated whether it be drinking or smoking. I think it should be legal for medical and business reasons.

 

[Corvus of the Black Night]

Lol I still hallucinate if I smoke enough. Usually I don't smoke that much but they're usually auditory hallucinations. Usually though visual stimulus becomes too vibrant so I close my eyes and hallucinate there. If I do that I imagine myself transforming into different shapes or creatures which feels really cool, and it's quite a vivid hallucination. It's not like you see pink elephants, but things get so vibrant, and simple, but fascinating. It also depends on the strain you were smoking, I was smoking some relatively psychoactive stuff. Sometimes I have a "hallucination" that I can't open my eyes, which is more just weird than frustrating, but that's only if I'm really stoned. But yeah. Kids.

THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T DRIVE STONED. DON'T LISTEN TO WHAT PEOPLE SAY BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW YOUR LIMITS.

To build on something I mentioned earlier, there's actually two main ingredients that cause different effects, and strains are different in what amount is there. There's the psychoactive stuff THC and the more sedative/medical stuff (I can't remember the name right now). So depending on what you smoke you might be getting all seeing colours everywhere or just feeling really chill. Or both.

A lot of people make art while they're on the psychoactive highs, I find it too much to really do anything but just look at everything until it tones down most of the way, but once I did manage to draw a bird:

Spoiler:

For reference I usually draw more like this (click here

If you were stoned this would be beautiful but sober it looks like something eye piercing lol

Bottom line. A lot of people are just stupid and cannot handle themselves while intoxicated whether it be drinking or smoking. I think it should be legal for medical and business reasons.

THIS THIS THIS. Like I said I have standards but not everyone does. I know some piece of **** who smokes in front of her kids and they trip on other drugs, and the family is generally abusive. I hope that kid gets taken into a better part of the family because that woman is just absolutely awful as a mother.

 

[T The Manager]

Every now and then I'll hallucinate too. If you hallucinate you know your getting the good bud. I never hallucinated with anything other than dro but I'm sure some people had. One time I smoked some bomb ass dro and those long door curtain things was moving back and forth and I told myself, "dude, I'm trippin so hard" cause it was some freaky **** lol. I've never hallucinated to the point of seeing figures, things melting, pattern and color changes, etc like hallucinogens but I still hallucinate.

 

[Livewire]

The businessman in me wants to see more tolerance of cannabis because of the incredible economic juggernaut that industry has the ability to become, with proper regulations and oversight from an efficient federal agency. Cannabis also extends to hemp. You could literally build a telescope out of temp, it's that versatile. If you want to go smoke, go knock yourself out. Just be reasonable.

I do think we are headed towards tolerance though. We have legal weed in the USA, and Uruguay (IITRC) just legalized it at a federal level. The next 5-10 years will be very crucial to the legalization movement.

 

[PokemonLeagueChamp]

I can easily see the US government changing their mind extremely quick on marijuana due to the possibility of a: yet more tax revenue and b: a more docile populace. It's just a matter of time, in my view. Now, is that a good thing? Not necessarily. The government would probably squander the revenue on things we don't need. As for the second part, well, it goes without saying.

 

[Ephemeral Euphoria]

I am in support of hash 110% and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Granted I got hooked to a degree when doing my senior year in high school but since then I only do it on the weekends if I have nothing else planned for the day at the time.

 

[PknTrainerKevo]

I know you said this wasn't a discussion about the legality of cannabis, but lets focus on something important. No victim, no crime under Common Law. The Declaration of Independance and Constitution guarentee Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness, therefore you are at Liberty to smoke cannabis as long as you're not hurting anyone or stealing/damaging the property of others. Marijuana laws violate the Constitution, therefore they are null and void in law.

 

[Corvus of the Black Night]

I can easily see the US government changing their mind extremely quick on marijuana due to the possibility of a: yet more tax revenue and b: a more docile populace. It's just a matter of time, in my view. Now, is that a good thing? Not necessarily. The government would probably squander the revenue on things we don't need. As for the second part, well, it goes without saying.

It's the government, what do you want. Heck, this whole ******** with marijuana being illegal is partially to blame for the government using money on things that the common good doesn't really want.

 

[PknTrainerKevo]

The government is us, We the People. We run this ish, not Obama. Obama works for us. We tell him what to do. It is the Right of the People to overthrow the government.

 

[Ivysaur]

The government is us, We the People. We run this ish, not Obama. Obama works for us. We tell him what to do. It is the Right of the People to overthrow the government.

...and that's why you have elections every other day.

What you don't have though, it's the power to decide to overthrow the Government without a due process and without a proper reasoning approved by the majority of the People/your representatives. So "the Government did one thing I don't like" it's not a reason to wage revolution alone.

You are free to vote for someone else next time though.

 

[PknTrainerKevo]

...and that's why you have elections every other day.

What you don't have though, it's the power to decide to overthrow the Government without a due process and without a proper reasoning approved by the majority of the People/your representatives. So "the Government did one thing I don't like" it's not a reason to wage revolution alone.

You are free to vote for someone else next time though.

According to the Declaration of Independence: "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

The way I see it, its been more then one thing. Ever since the government killed JFK, we've been sinking further, faster. They've commited treason on numerous counts, including the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. I agree that they should have due process as stated in the constitution, but with plenty of evidence, We the People can make them pay for their crimes against humanity. Why do you think we had an American Revolution in the first place? I know I can't do it by myself, the People must wake up and stand up. We outnumber them and as soon as People realize that, they will demand positive change.