right, cuz it's so easy to sue the government for legalization of tobacco and alcohol
What are the pluses and minuses of marijuana
- Thread starter Yoga Face
- Start date
it's 1.35% not 13.5, so, out of those who get it, more than 90% smoke.
*late entry - I see that you've already noticed it
Adults who smoke pot know the consequences. You don't need to go door to door or thread to thread informing everyone over and over again.
Yes, smoking cannabis will get us high and is not the same as taking vitamins. We get it. We don't really have short term memory problems and need you sounding the warning on every page in every thread on marijuana.
How the heck did you even find TERB?! You probably do not know already so I feel compelled to inform you that having sex with prostitutes also carries some risks to long term health. And children should not be allowed to partake, it could damage their development and lead to later psychological problems.
I should repeat this to you every time you post another redundant and obvious warning about smoking pot.
Good thing too, cause if I'd of quit over a lousy few percent less chance, I'd be right pissed about it. And probably chain smoking several packs of Player's Lights as I type this.
edited to add: Player's Lights, nothing! If it was only a few percent difference, I'd be smoking Export A Greens. Out of every orifice at once!
Last edited:
the only thing the evidence noted says os that it's less hazardous than previously thought, not less than tobacco.
Organized crime will have to deal other controlled substances to compensate for the lost revenues with the legalization of cannabis. Grow ops which supply the American market will continue to operate. The marijuana industry in BC is bigger than fishing, lumber or tourism in that province in terms of revenue and employment with most of the product being smuggled into America. Legalization in America or Canada could put alot of BC resident out of work, perhaps on to welfare. Washington state's relaxation of there laws is already hurting the BC economy.
I'm all for industrial use of hemp to replace the use of forests cut down. But pot seems to make my friends all stupid. I've no time for that.
Most probably, they were stupid to start with, but hid it well... until marijuana broke down their inhibitions!
Perry
I am unaware of definitive studies stating it is the THC that has medicinal values
Do you know of any ?
My MD wants me to use marijuana foe apnea so my interest is not just casual
As to your second point .... AHEM ..... lets all get stoned to solve the worlds problems is absurd
Though it is yet far from conclusive, there is a great deal of research that suggests THC is an anti-carcinogen, that it reduces and impairs the growth of all types of cancer cells.
Rastafarian lore is that ganja "cures" cancer.
It is certainly a thesis worth exploring... it would not be the first time in history that we discover that (primitive or ancient) cultural traditions and beliefs hold truths unknown to us and our "precious" sciences.
Perry
Rastafarian lore is that ganja "cures" cancer.
It is certainly a thesis worth exploring... it would not be the first time in history that we discover that (primitive or ancient) cultural traditions and beliefs hold truths unknown to us and our "precious" sciences.
Perry
Back up your conclusions (prejudices?) with reasons and evidence...
As for evidence, studies, etc., Google is your friend!
Perry
How Marijuana Became Illegal
W.R. Hearst pulled a fast one on the American Medical Association
http://wafreepress.org/article/090304marijuana.shtml
Unraveling the story of marijuana (a.k.a. cannabis, hemp) is easier to do with a few little known facts in mind. For instance, hemp is the number one biomass source on earth and could easily provide the US with all its oil and gas needs, thus ending America’s dependence on fossil fuels. That’s probably one of the main reasons it’s still illegal today. But the story of how it became treated like an herbal pariah is yet more interesting.
It’s often told to us Americans, throughout grade school and high school, that marijuana is bad for our health and that the government has to put all this effort into putting so many people in jail for smoking it. But I no longer believe that the laws against marijuana have anything to do with concerns for health.
According to Ronald Reagan, “the most reliable scientific sources say permanent brain damage is one of the inevitable results of the uses of marijuana” (LA Times). He based his statement on the Heath/Tulane University Study of 1974. For six years, it was withheld from public knowledge that this study was actually measuring carbon monoxide poisoning, not the effects of marijuana. In 1980 Playboy magazine and the pro-legalization group NORML--after suing the government--finally received an accurate account of what the research procedures really were.
There are also the reports about how marijuana is more dangerous than tobacco. I’d say that the two are pretty hard to compare, given that one is illegal and the other legal. (By the way, NORML has posted counterevidence to these health claims at http://norml.org/index,cfm?Group_ID=6891 and http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7503.)
It’s horrible ironic that marijuana is branded as “unhealthy.” In fact, it is the only safe and effective medicine for cancer patients suffering pain and nausea.
Cancer patients have a hard enough time with treatment. They lose a lot of weight due to the nausea that commonly results from chemotherapy. Dr George Wagoner, in Manistee, Michigan, a practicing physician of 29 years, recently wrote in the Lansing State Journal (19 Oct 2008) that his wife of over 50 years--after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer last year--couldn’t keep anything down. She was losing considerable weight and was wasting away. She could not tolerate the synthetic THC pill, Marinol, because the hallucinations were too distressing for her.
He procured some natural marijuana and after taking the smallest amount her nausea was gone, which he felt was miraculous. In arguing for legalizing medical marijuana for seriously ill patients, he said that the debate should be about science and compassion for seriously ill patients suffering debilitating pain. To keep the only safe and effective medicine away from sick people is inhumane.
Scott Paplowski, another example, was diagnosed with a rare form of childhood cancer when he was 16. After eight months of treatment his weight dropped from 220 pounds to 86 pounds. Medical marijuana saved his life by easing his nausea, diarrhea, and stomach pain enough to restore his appetite. He currently weighs 193 pounds and at 39 he is believed to be the oldest living survivor of rhabdomysocarma, the form of cancer that he has.
So how did this good medicine become illegal? Jack Herer’s book The Emperor Wears No Clothes (readable for free online at www.jackherer.com/chapters.html) is a comprehensive source of information about marijuana and its long history.
When powerful businesses don’t like something, they can usually get something done about it. The 1937 criminalization of marijuana is a case where this manipulation is obvious, according to Herer. Hemp threatens certain powerful businesses today, just as it did in 1937.
As the methods for processing hemp into paper and plastics were becoming more readily available and affordable, business leaders including William Randolph Hearst and DuPont stood to lose fortunes. They did everything in their power to have it outlawed. Luckily for Hearst, he was the owner of a chain of newspapers. DuPont’s chief financial backer Andrew Mellon (also the Secretary of the Treasury during President Hoover) was responsible for appointing Harry J. Anslinger, in 1931 as the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.
Hearst’s papers deplorably published enhanced accounts of marijuana-crazed black men raping white women. With these sensationalist newspaper stories as his support, Anslinger testified before Congress that, “Marijuana is the most violence causing drug in the history of mankind.”
Anslinger completely contradicted himself later--before Congress again in 1948—when he testified that marijuana caused its users to become peaceful and pacifist, and that Communists would use marijuana to weaken America’s will to fight.
A very interesting piece of that history is that only two days before the 1937 marijuana hearings, the American Medical Association (AMA) had just realized that the plant that Congress intended to outlaw was known medically as cannabis, which from 1850 to 1937 had been recorded as being the prime medicine for more than 100 different types of illnesses or diseases in the US pharmacopoeia. Dr James Woodward, who besides being a physician was also an attorney, testified that there wasn’t any real evidence being used to justify the new law and that the whole reason the AMA hadn’t come out against the law sooner was that “marijuana,” the new name given to cannabis by Hearst papers, was always described as a “killer weed from Mexico.”
Dr Woodward and the AMA were quickly denounced by Anslinger and eventually, after more than 3,000 AMA doctors were prosecuted by Anslinger for illegal prescriptions, the AMA came around to “support” Anslinger’s views on marijuana.
If things had turned out differently, I wonder if we would be at the mercy of big oil companies today. Knowing that hemp could easily provide the US with all its oil and gas makes me upset and feel all the more foolish for being taken in by the anti-marijuana propaganda taught to me in school.
There are some illicit drugs that are truly dangerous and violence inducing, like crystal meth, but drug-education programs discredit themselves by continuing this unwarranted campaign of lies against marijuana. It is not too much to ask that their lessons be based on truth.
Smoking marijuana leads to harder drugs? By that logic does eating meat lead to cannibalism? It seems a waste of time and tax dollars for our police and our court systems to continue criminalizing marijuana when it is obvious that there are far worse crimes being committed. •
The Wonder Weed
Hemp (marijuana) could substitute for all wood paper, all fossil fuels, and most of our fibers. It can make everything from dynamite to plastic. It grows in all 50 states. For long-term cellulose harvesting ability, one acre dedicated to hemp equals 4.1 acres of trees.
In 1935 alone 116 million pounds of hemp seed were used in America just for paint and varnish. But after 1937 most of all that business went to chemicals produced by DuPont.
Plastic plumbing pipe can be manufactured using renewable hemp cellulose as the chemical stock, replacing non-renewable petroleum-based chemical stocks. The many, many uses of hemp are an endless subject. See http://NORML.org to investigate further. •
W.R. Hearst pulled a fast one on the American Medical Association
http://wafreepress.org/article/090304marijuana.shtml
Unraveling the story of marijuana (a.k.a. cannabis, hemp) is easier to do with a few little known facts in mind. For instance, hemp is the number one biomass source on earth and could easily provide the US with all its oil and gas needs, thus ending America’s dependence on fossil fuels. That’s probably one of the main reasons it’s still illegal today. But the story of how it became treated like an herbal pariah is yet more interesting.
It’s often told to us Americans, throughout grade school and high school, that marijuana is bad for our health and that the government has to put all this effort into putting so many people in jail for smoking it. But I no longer believe that the laws against marijuana have anything to do with concerns for health.
According to Ronald Reagan, “the most reliable scientific sources say permanent brain damage is one of the inevitable results of the uses of marijuana” (LA Times). He based his statement on the Heath/Tulane University Study of 1974. For six years, it was withheld from public knowledge that this study was actually measuring carbon monoxide poisoning, not the effects of marijuana. In 1980 Playboy magazine and the pro-legalization group NORML--after suing the government--finally received an accurate account of what the research procedures really were.
There are also the reports about how marijuana is more dangerous than tobacco. I’d say that the two are pretty hard to compare, given that one is illegal and the other legal. (By the way, NORML has posted counterevidence to these health claims at http://norml.org/index,cfm?Group_ID=6891 and http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7503.)
It’s horrible ironic that marijuana is branded as “unhealthy.” In fact, it is the only safe and effective medicine for cancer patients suffering pain and nausea.
Cancer patients have a hard enough time with treatment. They lose a lot of weight due to the nausea that commonly results from chemotherapy. Dr George Wagoner, in Manistee, Michigan, a practicing physician of 29 years, recently wrote in the Lansing State Journal (19 Oct 2008) that his wife of over 50 years--after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer last year--couldn’t keep anything down. She was losing considerable weight and was wasting away. She could not tolerate the synthetic THC pill, Marinol, because the hallucinations were too distressing for her.
He procured some natural marijuana and after taking the smallest amount her nausea was gone, which he felt was miraculous. In arguing for legalizing medical marijuana for seriously ill patients, he said that the debate should be about science and compassion for seriously ill patients suffering debilitating pain. To keep the only safe and effective medicine away from sick people is inhumane.
Scott Paplowski, another example, was diagnosed with a rare form of childhood cancer when he was 16. After eight months of treatment his weight dropped from 220 pounds to 86 pounds. Medical marijuana saved his life by easing his nausea, diarrhea, and stomach pain enough to restore his appetite. He currently weighs 193 pounds and at 39 he is believed to be the oldest living survivor of rhabdomysocarma, the form of cancer that he has.
So how did this good medicine become illegal? Jack Herer’s book The Emperor Wears No Clothes (readable for free online at www.jackherer.com/chapters.html) is a comprehensive source of information about marijuana and its long history.
When powerful businesses don’t like something, they can usually get something done about it. The 1937 criminalization of marijuana is a case where this manipulation is obvious, according to Herer. Hemp threatens certain powerful businesses today, just as it did in 1937.
As the methods for processing hemp into paper and plastics were becoming more readily available and affordable, business leaders including William Randolph Hearst and DuPont stood to lose fortunes. They did everything in their power to have it outlawed. Luckily for Hearst, he was the owner of a chain of newspapers. DuPont’s chief financial backer Andrew Mellon (also the Secretary of the Treasury during President Hoover) was responsible for appointing Harry J. Anslinger, in 1931 as the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.
Hearst’s papers deplorably published enhanced accounts of marijuana-crazed black men raping white women. With these sensationalist newspaper stories as his support, Anslinger testified before Congress that, “Marijuana is the most violence causing drug in the history of mankind.”
Anslinger completely contradicted himself later--before Congress again in 1948—when he testified that marijuana caused its users to become peaceful and pacifist, and that Communists would use marijuana to weaken America’s will to fight.
A very interesting piece of that history is that only two days before the 1937 marijuana hearings, the American Medical Association (AMA) had just realized that the plant that Congress intended to outlaw was known medically as cannabis, which from 1850 to 1937 had been recorded as being the prime medicine for more than 100 different types of illnesses or diseases in the US pharmacopoeia. Dr James Woodward, who besides being a physician was also an attorney, testified that there wasn’t any real evidence being used to justify the new law and that the whole reason the AMA hadn’t come out against the law sooner was that “marijuana,” the new name given to cannabis by Hearst papers, was always described as a “killer weed from Mexico.”
Dr Woodward and the AMA were quickly denounced by Anslinger and eventually, after more than 3,000 AMA doctors were prosecuted by Anslinger for illegal prescriptions, the AMA came around to “support” Anslinger’s views on marijuana.
If things had turned out differently, I wonder if we would be at the mercy of big oil companies today. Knowing that hemp could easily provide the US with all its oil and gas makes me upset and feel all the more foolish for being taken in by the anti-marijuana propaganda taught to me in school.
There are some illicit drugs that are truly dangerous and violence inducing, like crystal meth, but drug-education programs discredit themselves by continuing this unwarranted campaign of lies against marijuana. It is not too much to ask that their lessons be based on truth.
Smoking marijuana leads to harder drugs? By that logic does eating meat lead to cannibalism? It seems a waste of time and tax dollars for our police and our court systems to continue criminalizing marijuana when it is obvious that there are far worse crimes being committed. •
The Wonder Weed
Hemp (marijuana) could substitute for all wood paper, all fossil fuels, and most of our fibers. It can make everything from dynamite to plastic. It grows in all 50 states. For long-term cellulose harvesting ability, one acre dedicated to hemp equals 4.1 acres of trees.
In 1935 alone 116 million pounds of hemp seed were used in America just for paint and varnish. But after 1937 most of all that business went to chemicals produced by DuPont.
Plastic plumbing pipe can be manufactured using renewable hemp cellulose as the chemical stock, replacing non-renewable petroleum-based chemical stocks. The many, many uses of hemp are an endless subject. See http://NORML.org to investigate further. •
Cannabinoids as novel anti-inflammatory drugs.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20191092
Abstract
Cannabinoids are a group of compounds that mediate their effects through cannabinoid receptors. The discovery of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) as the major psychoactive principle in marijuana, as well as the identification of cannabinoid receptors and their endogenous ligands, has led to a significant growth in research aimed at understanding the physiological functions of cannabinoids. Cannabinoid receptors include CB1, which is predominantly expressed in the brain, and CB2, which is primarily found on the cells of the immune system. The fact that both CB1 and CB2 receptors have been found on immune cells suggests that cannabinoids play an important role in the regulation of the immune system.
Recent studies demonstrated that administration of THC into mice triggered marked apoptosis in T cells and dendritic cells, resulting in immunosuppression. In addition, several studies showed that cannabinoids downregulate cytokine and chemokine production and, in some models, upregulate T-regulatory cells (Tregs) as a mechanism to suppress inflammatory responses. The endocannabinoid system is also involved in immunoregulation. For example, administration of endocannabinoids or use of inhibitors of enzymes that break down the endocannabinoids, led to immunosuppression and recovery from immune-mediated injury to organs such as the liver. Manipulation of endocannabinoids and/or use of exogenous cannabinoids in vivo can constitute a potent treatment modality against inflammatory disorders. This review will focus on the potential use of cannabinoids as a new class of anti-inflammatory agents against a number of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases that are primarily triggered by activated T cells or other cellular immune components.
Cannabinoids as pharmacotherapies for neuropathic pain: from the bench to the bedside.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19789075
Abstract
Neuropathic pain is a debilitating form of chronic pain resulting from nerve injury, disease states, or toxic insults. Neuropathic pain is often refractory to conventional pharmacotherapies, necessitating validation of novel analgesics. Cannabinoids, drugs that share the same target as Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (Delta(9)-THC), the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, have the potential to address this unmet need. Here, we review studies evaluating cannabinoids for neuropathic pain management in the clinical and preclinical literature. Neuropathic pain associated with nerve injury, diabetes, chemotherapeutic treatment, human immunodeficiency virus, multiple sclerosis, and herpes zoster infection is considered. In animals, cannabinoids attenuate neuropathic nociception produced by traumatic nerve injury, disease, and toxic insults. Effects of mixed cannabinoid CB(1)/CB(2) agonists, CB(2) selective agonists, and modulators of the endocannabinoid system (i.e., inhibitors of transport or degradation) are compared.
Effects of genetic disruption of cannabinoid receptors or enzymes controlling endocannabinoid degradation on neuropathic nociception are described. Specific forms of allodynia and hyperalgesia modulated by cannabinoids are also considered. In humans, effects of smoked marijuana, synthetic Delta(9)-THC analogs (e.g., Marinol, Cesamet) and medicinal cannabis preparations containing both Delta(9)-THC and cannabidiol (e.g., Sativex, Cannador) in neuropathic pain states are reviewed. Clinical studies largely affirm that neuropathic pain patients derive benefits from cannabinoid treatment. Subjective (i.e., rating scales) and objective (i.e., stimulus-evoked) measures of pain and quality of life are considered. Finally, limitations of cannabinoid pharmacotherapies are discussed together with directions for future research.
There are many research articles on the National Institute of Health (NIH) site regarding the effectiveness of cannabinoids. https://www.google.ca/webhp?source=search_app#q=cannabinoids+nih
RUN FROM THE CURE - Full Version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0psJhQHk_GI
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20191092
Abstract
Cannabinoids are a group of compounds that mediate their effects through cannabinoid receptors. The discovery of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) as the major psychoactive principle in marijuana, as well as the identification of cannabinoid receptors and their endogenous ligands, has led to a significant growth in research aimed at understanding the physiological functions of cannabinoids. Cannabinoid receptors include CB1, which is predominantly expressed in the brain, and CB2, which is primarily found on the cells of the immune system. The fact that both CB1 and CB2 receptors have been found on immune cells suggests that cannabinoids play an important role in the regulation of the immune system.
Recent studies demonstrated that administration of THC into mice triggered marked apoptosis in T cells and dendritic cells, resulting in immunosuppression. In addition, several studies showed that cannabinoids downregulate cytokine and chemokine production and, in some models, upregulate T-regulatory cells (Tregs) as a mechanism to suppress inflammatory responses. The endocannabinoid system is also involved in immunoregulation. For example, administration of endocannabinoids or use of inhibitors of enzymes that break down the endocannabinoids, led to immunosuppression and recovery from immune-mediated injury to organs such as the liver. Manipulation of endocannabinoids and/or use of exogenous cannabinoids in vivo can constitute a potent treatment modality against inflammatory disorders. This review will focus on the potential use of cannabinoids as a new class of anti-inflammatory agents against a number of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases that are primarily triggered by activated T cells or other cellular immune components.
Cannabinoids as pharmacotherapies for neuropathic pain: from the bench to the bedside.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19789075
Abstract
Neuropathic pain is a debilitating form of chronic pain resulting from nerve injury, disease states, or toxic insults. Neuropathic pain is often refractory to conventional pharmacotherapies, necessitating validation of novel analgesics. Cannabinoids, drugs that share the same target as Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (Delta(9)-THC), the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, have the potential to address this unmet need. Here, we review studies evaluating cannabinoids for neuropathic pain management in the clinical and preclinical literature. Neuropathic pain associated with nerve injury, diabetes, chemotherapeutic treatment, human immunodeficiency virus, multiple sclerosis, and herpes zoster infection is considered. In animals, cannabinoids attenuate neuropathic nociception produced by traumatic nerve injury, disease, and toxic insults. Effects of mixed cannabinoid CB(1)/CB(2) agonists, CB(2) selective agonists, and modulators of the endocannabinoid system (i.e., inhibitors of transport or degradation) are compared.
Effects of genetic disruption of cannabinoid receptors or enzymes controlling endocannabinoid degradation on neuropathic nociception are described. Specific forms of allodynia and hyperalgesia modulated by cannabinoids are also considered. In humans, effects of smoked marijuana, synthetic Delta(9)-THC analogs (e.g., Marinol, Cesamet) and medicinal cannabis preparations containing both Delta(9)-THC and cannabidiol (e.g., Sativex, Cannador) in neuropathic pain states are reviewed. Clinical studies largely affirm that neuropathic pain patients derive benefits from cannabinoid treatment. Subjective (i.e., rating scales) and objective (i.e., stimulus-evoked) measures of pain and quality of life are considered. Finally, limitations of cannabinoid pharmacotherapies are discussed together with directions for future research.
There are many research articles on the National Institute of Health (NIH) site regarding the effectiveness of cannabinoids. https://www.google.ca/webhp?source=search_app#q=cannabinoids+nih
RUN FROM THE CURE - Full Version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0psJhQHk_GI
A minor correction, it is cannabinoids that are effective medicine, not the THC. Cannabinoids are destroyed when marijuana is smoked. It is best to take weed (hemp) oil orally.
And if dupont had not been successful in shutting down the hemp industry,we most likely would not have the pacific patch.For those of you who have never heard of the pacific patch,it is a floating island of tiny plastic that has drifted together and is larger than the state of texas.It is floating in the pacific near Hawaii.But hey,out of site ..out of mind.
It was also just the other day ,on the news that microscopic plastic particulate is showing up in the great lakes.
Yes the damnation of cannabis is a result of powerful political and business ideology.Not that it is harmful when used responsibly.
It was also just the other day ,on the news that microscopic plastic particulate is showing up in the great lakes.
Yes the damnation of cannabis is a result of powerful political and business ideology.Not that it is harmful when used responsibly.
