"Harvard University researchers report that the risk of a heart attack is five times higher than usual in the hour after smoking marijuana."" I'm pretty sure eating two Big Macs with some fries and a coke will increase your risk of a heart attack in that hour but that's not illegal.
well weed doesnt relaly mess up your blood pressure, if it did then the fatal dose would be much lwoer than it is
I think it was gattaca? Anyways, the first line: "Marijuana is an addictive drug1 with significant health consequences to its users and others. Many harmful short-term and long-term problems have been documented with its use: " There's 3 major things that piss me off. Marijuana isn't addictive, it doesn't have significant health consequences to it's users, and why does it say "and others". Is my smoking causing health problems in my mom and dad somehow? Does my smoking magically make others sick? The rest of the quotes are all bullshit. But then, what do you expect from a web page at the Dept of "Justice" website?
My favorite: "Consider also that drug use, including marijuana, contributes to crime. A large percentage of those arrested for crimes test positive for marijuana. Nationwide, 40 percent of adult males tested positive for marijuana at the time of their arrest. " Basic rule learned in debate. Correlation does not equal causation!
A few exerpts from the page, with commentary... Pay attention to the words "SHORT TERM" here. These are the effects WHILE YOU ARE HIGH! I especially love the warnings about "distorted perception". Why the hell do they think people smoke the stuff in the first place? Emergency room MENTIONS mean exactly that, when asked if they ever smoked pot, a patient said "yes". The fact that MJ was MENTIONED does NOT mean that it had anything to do with whatever brought the person to the ER in the first place... Perhaps, but now many entered treatment VOLUNTARILY? Nearly all the people who end up in rehab for "MJ addiction" were sent there by the courts as an alternative to JAIL. Would you rather go to jail, or listen to a counselor spouting BS for a few weeks? Even assuming that there is some truth to this (a dangerous assumption given the DEA's track record), why is this a bad thing? More potent pot means that you need to smoke less of it to get high, right? Nearly all of the negative health effects that MJ can cause are related to SMOKING IT, not GETTING HIGH. More potent pot=Less smoke inhaled=Fewer negative effects. A VERY selective interpretation of the IOM report, indeed. While smoking is not the optimum way to deliver marijuana, it is the best option CURRENTLY AVAILABLE, except for the use of vaporizers. All of which are more expensive than cannabis, and have equal or greater risk of side effects. But at least the medical lobby can cash in, right? A study using oral THC (in patients who were violently vomiting whatever they swallowed) is NOT going to give the same results as smoked marijuana... Of course they do. Lost profits are a powerful motivator....
And as long as the studies are designed to show how "dangerous" MJ is, they will get funding. This is funding from the Nayional Institute on DRUG ABUSE, after all. Anyone who believes that government drug studies are unbiased needs to look into the recent scandal around George Ricaurte's MDMA studies.... It is also nowhere near as EFFECTIVE or FAST ACTING as smoking marijuana, either. But again, it IS an expensive ($30 per dose!), patentable pharmaceutical, which is preferable to a plant that anybody could grow for themselves, right? Funny, no mention of the recent Australian study that found that moderate MJ use actually IMPROVED driving skills in most subjects, by improving focus and attention... The presence of MJ residue in the driver's body does NOT mean that the MJ use contributed to the accident, just that they smoked sometime in the last few weeks. Unlike alcohol, MJ metabolites tend to hang around a lot longer than the impairing effects do. Talk about circular arguments! Since MJ use is, by definition, a CRIME, all MJ users are CRIMINALS. I would not be surprised that a large percentage of those arrested for "crimes" (including drug offenses, which account for the majority of arrests, after all) would test positive for MJ use. And most people who smoke pot drank beer first. Is beer a "gateway drug"? As George Carlin once observed: "Mother's Milk leads to EVERYTHING!"
"More teens are in treatment for marijuana use than for any other drug or for alcohol." yea theyre parents find it, get scared, and throw em in treatment some kids parents will find weed and be like DRUGS! and think of marijuana on the same level of heroin and take to get help it happened to my best friend :\
and another thing "Q. Is marijuana a gateway drug?" im so fucking sick of hearing that its your decision to do acid everytime i hear someone bitch about weed its always "BUT ITS A GATEWAY DRUG!" thats total bullshit Fuck the DEA
Yeah, this shit infuriates me as much as the next guy. A few comments, although I could probably write a lengthy essay dissecting the whole page: Wait, so does smoking marijuana increase the user's heart rate or not? I need more clarification. This is surprising. Because obviously when someone argues that suffering people should be able to use marijuana to alleviate their pain, they're secretly pushing for heroin and PCP for all Americans (especially young and innocent kids, our favorite prey!). Blech. When's the last time any of you stayed high for 24 hours after smoking? Plus, if marijuana were legalized, the government could implement a law banning the operation of cars while high. As is, people are going to smoke and drive, and that's that. In addition to EllisDTripp's comments on this section (marijuana can stay in the body for weeks, doesn't mean that pot had anything to do with the crash), the study they choose to reference here is pretty odd. For one, its from 1990, and I know there have been more recent and comprehensive studies conducted since then. Secondly, the survey sample is ridiculously small; they only looked at truck crashes for one, and only 182 of them to boot. What a crock. If there is any such thing as a gateway effect, the government itself would be almost completely at fault. Firstly, by spouting out bullshit "information" about marijuana like this, they are simply undermining their own credibility. Therefore, if someone discovers that marijuana really isn't nearly as harmful as the government claims, won't they be significantly less likely to trust the government's warnings about truly dangerous drugs? And secondly, marijuana prohibition forces nearly all pot smokers to go to the black market to attain their drug of choice, thereby increasing their risk of exposure to other drugs. Fuckin DEA. Fuckin propoganda. Fuckin illogical bullshit. I'm out.
if only the act of a stoner telling another stoner how good weed was managed to magically make an anti-druggie change their mind... let us stop telling eachother all the problems with these thigns and start making it more public. no conservative parent is going to come to hipforum marijuana section and read these threads and go 'hmm these junkies have a point' though i guess most stoners done even know anything about what theyre takin anyway
