#24
Post
by lpmasamune666 » Wed Apr 28, 2004 8:03 pm
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P A R T T H R E E
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The next question would normally be ``Why is it _still_ not
legal,'' but since we have uncovered an understanding of the
history, it is time to take a little detour. Politicians
love to tell us that marijuana must remain illegal for our
own good. In the next section we will examine some of the
so-called facts about marijuana so that you can decide for
yourselves whether you agree or not. Is marijuana
prohibition there to protect the people, or is it just the
result of decades of refusal to admit our
mistakes?
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DOES IT? DOESN'T IT? IS IT TRUE THAT?
1) Doesn't marijuana stay in your fat cells and keep you
high for months?
No. The part of marijuana that gets you high is called
`Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol.' Most people just call this
THC, but this is confusing: your body will change
Delta-9-THC into more inert molecules known as
`metabolites,' which don't get you high. Unfortunately,
these chemicals also have the word `tetrahydrocannabinol' in
them and they are also called THC -- so many people think
that the metabolites get you high. Anti-drug pamphlets say
that THC gets stored in your fat cells and then leaks out
later like one of those `time release capsules' advertised
on television. They say it can keep you high all day or
even longer. This is not true, marijuana only keeps you
high for a few hours, and it is not right to think that a
person who fails a drug test is always high on drugs,
either.
Two of these metabolites are called
`11-hydroxy-tetrahydrocannabinol' and
`11-nor-9-carboxy-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol' but we will
call them 11-OH-THC and 11-nor instead. These are the
chemicals which stay in your fatty cells. There is almost
no Delta-9-THC left over a few hours after smoking
marijuana, and scientific studies which measure the effects
of marijuana agree with this fact.
2) But ... isn't today's marijuana much more potent than it
was in the Sixties?
(Or, more often ... Marijuana is 10 times more powerful than
it was in the Sixties!)
GOOD! Actually, this is not true, but if it were, it
would mean that marijuana is safer to smoke today than it
was in the Sixties. (More potent cannabis means less
smoking means less lung damage.) People who use this
statistic just plain do not know what they are talking
about. Sometimes they will even claim that marijuana is now
twenty to thirty times stronger, which is physically
impossible because it would have to be *over* 100%
Delta-9-THC. The truth is, marijuana has not really changed
potency all that much, if at all, in the last several
hundred years. Growing potent cannabis is an ancient art
which has not improved in centuries, despite all our modern
technology. Before marijuana was even made illegal, drug
stores sold tinctures of cannabis which were over 40% THC.
Even so, the point is moot because marijuana smokers engage
in something called `auto-titration.' This basically means
smoking until they are satisfied and then stopping, so it
does not really matter if the marijuana is more potent
because they will smoke less of it. Marijuana is not like
pre-moistened towelettes or snow-cones. There is nothing
forcing marijuana smokers to smoke an entire joint.
Experienced marijuana users are accustomed to smoking
marijuana from many different suppliers, and they know that
if they smoke a whole joint of very potent bud they will get
`TOO STONED'. Since being `too stoned' is a rather
unpleasant experience, smokers quickly learn to take their
time and `test the waters' when they do not know how strong
their marijuana is.
3a) Doesn't Marijuana cause brain damage?
The short answer: No.
The long answer: The reason why you ask this is because you
probably heard or read somewhere that marijuana damages
brain cells, or makes you stupid. These claims are untrue.
The first one -- marijuana kills brain cells -- is based on
research done during the second Reefer Madness Movement. A
study attempted to show that marijuana smoking damaged brain
structures in monkeys. However, the study was poorly
performed and it was severely criticized by a medical review
board. Studies done afterwards failed to show any brain
damage, in fact a very recent study on Rhesus monkeys used
technology so sensitive that scientists could actually see
the effect of learning on brain cells, and it found no
damage.
But this was Reefer Madness II, and the prohibitionists were
looking around for anything they could find to keep the
marijuana legalization movement in check, so this study was
widely used in anti-marijuana propaganda. It was recanted
later.
(To this day, the radical anti-drug groups, like P.R.I.D.E.
and Dr. Gabriel Nahas, still use it -- In fact, America's
most popular drug education program, Drug Abuse Resistance
Education, claims that marijuana ``can impair memory
perception & judgement by destroying brain cells.'' When
police and teachers read this and believe it, our job gets
really tough, since it takes a long time to explain to
children how Ms. Jones and Officer Bob were wrong.)
The truth is, no study has ever demonstrated cellular
damage, stupidity, mental impairment, or insanity brought on
specifically by marijuana use -- even heavy marijuana use.
This is not to say that it cannot be abused, however.
3b) If it doesn't kill brain cells, how does it get you `high'?
Killing brain cells is not a pre-requisite for getting
`high.' Marijuana contains a chemical which substitutes for
a natural brain chemical, with a few differences. This
chemical touches special `buttons' on brain cells called
`receptors.' Essentially, marijuana `tickles' brain cells.
The legal drug alcohol also tickles brain cells, but it will
damage and kill them by producing toxins (poisons) and
sometimes mini-seizures. Also, some drugs will wear out the
buttons which they push, but marijuana does not.
4) Don't people die from smoking pot?
Nobody has ever overdosed. For any given substance,
there are bound to be some people who have allergic
reactions. With marijuana this is extremely rare, but it
could happen with anything from apples to pop-tarts. Not
one death has ever been directly linked to marijuana itself.
In contrast, many legal drugs cause hundreds to hundreds of
thousands of deaths per year, foremost among them are
alcohol, nicotine, valium, aspirin, and caffiene. The
biggest danger with marijuana is that it is illegal, and
someone may mix it with another drug like PCP.
Marijuana is so safe that it would be almost impossible to
overdose on it. Doctors determine how safe a drug is by
measuring how much it takes to kill a person (they call this
the LD50) and comparing it to the amount of the drug which
is usually taken (ED50). This makes marijuana hundreds of
times safer than alcohol, tobacco, or caffiene. According
to a DEA Judge ``marijuana is the safest therapeutically
active substance known to mankind.''
5) I forgot, does marijuana cause short-term memory impairment?
The effect of marijuana on memory is its most dramatic
and the easiest to notice. Many inexperienced marijuana
users find that they have very strange, sudden and
unexpected memory lapses. These usually take the form of
completely forgetting what you were talking about when you
were right in the middle of saying something important.
However, these symptoms only occur while a person is `high'.
They do not carry over or become permanent, and examinations
of extremely heavy users has not shown any memory or
thinking problems. More experienced marijuana users seem to
be able to remember about as well as they do when they are
not `high.'
Studies which have claimed to show short-term memory
impairment have not stood up to scrutiny and have not been
duplicated. Newer studies show that marijuana does not
impair simple, real-world memory processes. Marijuana does
slow reaction time slightly, and this effect has sometimes
been misconstrued as a memory problem. To put things in
perspective, one group of researchers made a control group
hold their breath, like marijuana smokers do. Marijuana
itself only produced about twice as many effects on test
scores as breath holding. Many people use marijuana to
study. Other people cannot, for some reason, use marijuana
and do anything that involves deep thought. Nobody knows
what makes the difference.
6a) Is marijuana going to make my boyfriend go psycho?
Marijuana does not `cause' psychosis. Psychotic people
can smoke marijuana and have an episode, but there is
nothing in marijuana that actually initiates or increases
these episodes. Of course, if any mentally ill person is
given marijuana for the first time or without their
knowledge, they might get scared and `freak.' Persons who
suffer from severe psychological disorders often use
marijuana as a way of coping. Because of this, some
researchers have assumed that marijuana is the cause of
these problems, when it is actually a symptom. If you have
heard that marijuana makes people go crazy, this is probably
why.
6b) Don't users of marijuana withdraw from society?
To some extent, yes. That's probably just because they
are afraid of being arrested, though. The same situation
exists with socially maladjusted persons as does with the
mentally ill. Emotionally troubled individuals find
marijuana to be soothing, and so they tend to use it more
than your average person. Treatment specialists see this,
and assume that the marijuana is causing the problem. This
is a mistake which hurts the patient, because their doctors
will pay less attention to their actual needs, and
concentrate on ending their drug habit. Sometimes the
cannabis is even helping them to recover. Cannabis can be
abused, and it can make these situations worse, but
psychologists should approach marijuana use with an open
mind or they risk hurting their patient.
Marijuana itself does not make normal people anti-social.
In fact, a large psychological study of teenagers found that
casual marijuana users are more well adjusted than `drug
free' people. This would be very amusing, but it is a
serious problem. There are children who have emotional
problems which keep them from participating in healthy,
explorative behavior. They need psychological help but
instead they are skipped over. Marijuana users who do not
need help are having treatment forced on them, and in the
mean-time marijuana takes the blame for the personality
characteristics and problems of the people who like to use
it improperly.
7) Is it true that marijuana makes you lazy and unmotivated?
Not if you are a responsible adult, it doesn't. Ask the
U.S. Army. They did a study and showed no effect. If this
were true, why would many Eastern cultures, and Jamaicans,
use marijuana to help them work harder? `Amotivational
syndrome' started as a media myth based on the racial
stereotype of a lazy Mexican borracho. The prohibitionists
claimed that marijuana made people worthless and sluggish.
Since then, however, it has been scientifically researched,
and a symptom resembling amotivational syndrome has actually
been found. However, it only occurs in adolescent teenagers
-- adults are not affected.
When a person reaches adolescence, their willingness to work
usually increases, but this does not happen for teenagers
using marijuana regularly -- even just on the weekends. The
actual studies involved monkeys, not humans, and the results
are not verified, but older studies which tried to show
`amotivational syndrome' usually only suceeded when they
studied adolescents. Adults are not effected.
The symptoms are not permanent, and motivation returns to
normal levels several months after marijuana smoking stops.
However, a small number of people may be unusually sensitive
to this effect. One of the monkeys in the experiment was
severely amotivated and did not recover. Doctors will need
to study this more before they know why.
8) Isn't marijuana a gateway drug?
Doesn't it lead to use of harder drugs?
This is totally untrue. In fact, researchers are looking
into using marijuana to help crack addicts to quit. There
are 40 million people in this country (U.S.) who have smoked
marijuana for a period of their lives -- why aren't there
tens of millions of heroin users, then? In Amsterdam, both
marijuana use and heroin use went *down* after marijuana was
decriminalized -- even though there was a short rise in
cannabis use right after decriminalization. Unlike
addictive drugs, marijuana causes almost no tolerance. Some
people even report a reverse tolerance. That is, the longer
they have used the less marijuana they need to get `high.'
So users of marijuana do not usually get bored and `look for
something more powerful'. If anything, marijuana keeps
people from doing harder drugs.
The idea that using marijuana will lead you to use heroin or
speed is called the `gateway theory' or the `stepping stone
hypothesis.' It has been a favorite trick of the anti-drug
propaganda artists, because it casts marijuana as something
insidious with hidden dangers and pitfalls. There have
never been any real statistics to back this idea up, but
somehow it was the single biggest thing which the newspapers
yelled about during Reefer Madness II. (Perhaps this was
because the CIA was looking for someone to blame for the
increase in heroin use after Viet Nam.)
The gateway theory of drug use is no longer generally
accepted by the medical community. Prohibitionists used to
point at numbers which showed that a large percentage of the
hard drug users `started with marijuana.' They had it
backwards -- many hard drug users also use marijuana. There
are two reasons for this. One is that marijuana can be used
to `take the edge off' the effects of some hard drugs. The
other is a recently discovered fact of adolescent psychology
-- there is a personality type which uses drugs, basically
because drugs are exciting and dangerous, a thrill.
On sociological grounds, another sort of gateway theory has
been argued which claims that marijuana is the source of the
drug subculture and leads to other drugs through that
culture. By the same token this is untrue -- marijuana does
not create the drug subculture, the drug subculture uses
marijuana. There are many marijuana users who are not a
part of the subculture.
This brings up another example of how marijuana legalization
could actually reduce the use of illicit drugs. Even though
there is no magical `stepping stone' effect, people who
choose to buy marijuana often buy from dealers who deal in
many different illegal drugs. This means that they have
access to illegal drugs, and might decide to try them out.
In this case it is the laws which lead to hard drug use. If
marijuana were legal, the drug markets would be separated,
and less people would start using the illegal drugs. Maybe
this is why emergency room admissions for hard drugs have
gone down in the states that decriminalized marijuana during
the 70's.
9a) I don't want children (minors) to be able to smoke marijuana.
How can I stop this?
Legalize it. They can smoke it now; it is about as easy
to get as alcohol. There would be less marijuana being sold
in schools, playgrounds, and street corners, though, if it
was sold legally through pharmacies -- because the dealers
would not be able to compete with the prices. If you are a
parent, the choice is really up to you: Do you want your
children to sneak off with their friends and use marijuana
which they bought off the street, or do you want to talk to
them calmly and explain to them why they should wait until
they are older? Your children are not going to walk up to
you and tell you that they use an illegal drug, but if it
was not such a big deal they might give you a chance to
explain your feelings. Besides, would you rather children
use speed, cocaine, and alcohol?
Consider, also, that children have a natural urge to do
things that they aren't supposed to. It is called
curiosity. By making such a fuss over marijuana, you make
it interesting (some call it the `forbidden fruit' factor.)
This is made worse when children are lied to about drugs by
teachers and police -- they lose respect for the school and
the government. In a lot of ways, it is the hysteria about
drugs which causes the most harm. When marijuana users do
none of the horrible things they are supposed to, children
may think that other more harmful drugs are OK, too. Your
children will not respect you unless you are calm and give
good reasons for your rules. The first step is for you, the
parent, to learn the facts about drugs.
9b) Won't children be able to steal marijuana plants that
people are growing?
Well, if you are worried about them stealing the hemp
plants from the paper-pulp farm down the road, you should
know that the commercial grades of hemp do not contain much
THC (the stuff that gets you high.) If they were to smoke
it, they would probably just get a headache. Otherwise, it
should be the responsibility of the grower to take measures
to prevent this. Most ``home-grown'' marijuana is
cultivated indoors anyway. If the children in your town
have nothing better to do than go around stealing marijuana
to smoke, your town needs to buy a library or something.
10a) Hey, don't you know that marijuana drops testosterone
levels in teenage boys causing [various physical and
developmental problems]?
Marijuana does not turn young healthy boys into lanky,
girlish looking wimps, no. This scare tactic (call it
homo-phobic if you will) was a common device used in early
anti-drug literature. It attempts to scare boys away from
marijuana by telling them, essentially, that it will turn
them into a girl. Young men probably should not use
marijuana heavily (see the section on amotivational
syndrome), but the risks are not horrendous.
Anti-marijuana pamphlets used this claim often during Reefer
Madness II, but the studies which are cited are mostly
faulty or misinterpreted. This is not to say that marijuana
use does not affect childhood development at all, just that
the effects are not as drastic as some people would like
them to sound. In fact they are pretty much unknown.
10b) Doesn't heavy marijuana use lower the sperm count in males?
Not by much, (if at all) and this can be a good thing.
It does not make you impotent or sterile. (If it did --
there would be no Rastafarians left!) Give those testicles
a rest, already! Marijuana is certainly _not_ birth
control, please don't let your lover tell you it is.
Many people think that marijuana enhances their sex lives.
It is not an aphrodisiac, that is, it does not make people
want to have sex. What it does do for some people is make
everything more sensual -- it makes food taste better and
feelings and emotions more vivid.
10c) I heard marijuana use by teenage girls may impair hormone
production, menstrual cycles, and fertility. Is this true?
Also unproven and unfounded, but there is no data
available to tell either way, (and it won't be coming from
the U.S. -- current U.S. laws prohibit research on women.)
This is the female version of the boy's ``It'll turn you
into a sissy'' tactic. As far as anyone knows, it is only a
scare tactic.
11) I forgot, does marijuana cause short-term memory impairment?
Go away.
12) Isn't smoking marijuana worse for you than smoking cigarettes?
There are many reasons why it is not. You may have heard
that ``one joint is equal to ten cigarrettes'' but this is
exagerrated and misleading. Marijuana does contain more tar
than tobacco -- but low tar cigarettes cause just as much
cancer, so what is that supposed to mean? 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 find less harmful ways of taking
marijuana like eating or vaporizing. (Be careful --
marijuana is safe to eat -- but tobacco is not, you might
overdose!) Marijuana does not seem to cause cancer the way
tobacco does, though.
Here is a list of interesting facts about marijuana smoking
and tobacco smoking:
o Marijuana smokers generally don't chain smoke, and
so they smoke less. (Marijuana is not physically
addictive like tobacco.) The more potent marijuana
is, the less a smoker will use at a time.
o Tobacco contains nicotine, and marijuana doesn't.
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.)
o Marijuana contains THC. THC is a bronchial dilator,
which means it works like a cough drop and opens up
your lungs, which aids clearance of smoke and dirt.
Nicotine does just the opposite; it makes your lungs
bunch up and makes it harder to cough anything up.
o There are benefits from marijuana (besides bronchial
dilation) that you don't get from tobacco. Mainly,
marijuana makes you relax, which improves your health
and well-being.
o Scientists do not really know what it is that causes
malignant lung cancer in tobacco. Many think it may
be a substance known as Lead 210. Of course, there
are many other theories as to what does cause cancer,
but if this is true, it is easy to see why NO CASE OF
LUNG CANCER RESULTING FROM MARIJUANA USE ALONE HAS
EVER BEEN DOCUMENTED, because tobacco contains much
more of this substance than marijuana.
o Marijuana laws make it harder to use marijuana
without damaging your body. Water-pipes are illegal
in many states. Filtered cigarettes, vaporizers, and
inhalers have to be mass produced, which is hard to
arrange `underground.' People don't eat marijuana
often because you need more to get as high that way,
and it isn't cheap or easy to get (which is the
reason why some people will stoop to smoking leaves.)
This may sound funny to you -- but the more legal
marijuana gets, the safer it is.
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It is pretty obvious to users that marijuana prohibition
laws are not ``for their own good.'' In addition to the
above, legal marijuana would be clean and free from
adulturants. Some people add other drugs to marijuana
before they sell it. Some people spray room freshener on it
or soak in in chemicals like formaldehyde! A lot of the
marijuana is grown outdoors, where it may be sprayed with
pesticides or contaminated with dangerous fungi. If the
government really cared about our health, they would form an
agency which would make sure only quality marijuana was
sold. This would be cheaper than keeping it illegal, and it
would keep people from getting hurt and going to the
emergency room.
13) Don't children born to pot-smoking mothers suffer from
``Fetal Marijuana Syndrome?''
If a fetal cannabis syndrome exists, cases are so rare
that it cannot be demonstrated. Many mothers use marijuana
during pregnancy -- it controls the nausea called `morning
sickness' and many say it actually increases the appetite
and reduces stress. This is especially important in less
developed countries, where modern medical care is not as
easily available, but even so, the benefits of responsible
marijuana use may outweigh the risks even under modern
medicine.
Studies conducted in Jamiaca have shown that mothers who
smoke marijuana have healthier children, but this may be due
to the extra income generated by marijuana dealing and other
factors. It has been a common ploy in the War on Drugs to
claim that marijuana, and especially cocaine, causes birth
defects or behavior problems like alcohol does. This scares
caring mothers into thinking drugs are `evil.' The claims
are not based on valid scientific research -- many of them
do not even consider the life-style or living conditions of
the mothers before pointing at drugs with the blame.
Obviously, pregnant mothers should not smoke as much pot as
they possibly can. If marijuana is abused, it may hurt the
health of both mother and child. Delta-9-THC does cross the
placenta and enter the fetus. Oddly, though, the marijuana
metabolite, 11-nor-9-carboxy-delta-9-THC does not, and the
fetus does not break delta-9-THC down into 11-nor like the
mother's body does, so unborn children are not exposed to
11-nor. The third trimester is the time when the child is
most vulnerable. Parents should bear these facts in mind
when they make decisions about using cannabis.
14) Doesn't marijuana cause a lot of automobile accidents?
Not really. The marijuana using public has the same or
lower rate of automobile accidents as the general public.
Studies of marijuana smoking while driving showed that it
does affect reaction time, but not nearly as much as
alcohol. Also, those who drive `stoned' have been shown to
be less foolish on the road (they demonstrate `increased
risk aversion'.) Recent studies have emphasized that
alcohol is the major problem on our highways, and that
illicit drugs do not even come close to being as dangerous.
As funny as it may seem, you may be safer driving `stoned',
as long as you aren't `totally blasted' and seeing things --
but few users are irresponsible enough to drive in this
state of mind, anyway. Still, many people have reported
making mistakes while driving because they were stoned.
There are those who think that marijuana is a major problem
on the streets, because of a newspaper article or news story
which they have seen which said a large number of people who
were killed in driving accidents tested postive for
marijuana use. For various reasons, these studies are not
reliable:
o Some studies use drug tests which can only tell
whether a person has used marijuana in the last
month.
o Some studies were done near colleges or other areas
where drinking, marijuana use, and accidents are all
very high, and they did not correct for age or
alcohol use.
o In many of the studies there were more stoned drivers
killed -- but it was not their fault, and when the
police ``culpability scores'' were factored in
marijuana was not to blame for the accidents.
15) Aren't you afraid everyone will get hooked?
Marijuana produces no withdrawal symptoms no matter how
heavy it is used. It is habit forming (psychologically
addictive), but not physically addictive. The majority of
people who quit marijuana don't even have to think twice
about it. Comparing marijuana to addictive drugs is really
quite silly.
For a drug to be physically addictive, it must be
reinforcing, produce withdrawal symptoms, and produce
tolerance. Marijuana is reinforcing, because it feels good,
but it does not do the other two things. Caffeine, nicotine
and alcohol are all physically addictive.
16a) Is urine testing for marijuana use as a terms of
employment a good idea?
I want to make sure my business is run safely.
No! Some of your most brilliant, hard working, and
reliable employees are marijuana users. When you drug test,
you put all marijuana users in the same place as the abusers
-- the unemployment line. Drug testing is bad for business.
(Not to mention it is an invasion of privacy.) If a worker
has a drug problem, you can tell by testing how well he does
his job. Firing *all* the drug users who work for you will
hurt your business, costs money, and will get people very
mad at you -- and for what? There isn't even any hard
evidence that marijuana users have more accidents or health
problems.
Your employees will probably resent being drug tested; drug
testing allows an employer to govern the actions of an
employee in his off time -- even when these actions do not
effect his job performance. (As told above, marijuana drug
tests do not test whether a person is `high'. They test
whether or not they have used in the last few weeks.)
Asking employees to urinate in a plastic cup every month is
not a good way to make them feel like part of the business,
or make friends, either. There is growing concern about
drug tests, sometimes because they misfire and accuse the
wrong person, but mostly because they might be used to find
out other confidential information about an employee. Legal
professionals are beginning to question whether they are
even constitutional.
16b) Isn't all this worth the trouble, though, in order to
reduce accident risks and health care costs?
Everyone knows that marijuana users are bad employees,
right? Wrong -- or at least someone forgot to tell the
millions of hard working marijuana smokers that. Drug
testing companies will hand you piles of statistics which
they say prove marijuana use costs you money. The truth is
there are just as many studies which show that marijuana
users are more successful, use less health care, and produce
more than non-users. Before you buy into workplace drug
testing, make sure you get the other side of the story.
In the 1980's, the Bush administration went to great lengths
to promote drug testing. In fact, George Bush estimated the
cost of drug use at over 60 billion dollars a year, based on
a study which supposedly showed that persons who had used
marijuana at some time during their life were less
successful. The very same study could be used to show that
current, heavy users of marijuana and other illegal drugs
were actually more successful. Something is a bit fishy
here, and when you add to that the fact that several former
heads of the DEA and former Drug Czars now own or work in
the urinalysis industry, this whole scene begins to smell a
bit funny.
17) Wouldn't it be best to just lock the users all up?
How do you plan to pay for that? Already, well over five
percent of the people in this country (U.S) are in custody
(including probation, parole, bail, etc.) Murderers and
rapists are being let out of our penatentiaries right now to
make room for a few more `deadheads' -- there are about
2,500 Grateful Dead fans in our federal prisons.
Imprisoning one person for one year costs about $20,000.
The United States leads the world in imprisonment -- at any
one time, 425 people out of every 100,000 are behind bars.
In the Federal Prison System, one fifth of the prisoners are
drug offenders who have done nothing violent. State laws
are usually less strict, but state mandatory minumum
sentences for drugs are getting more popular.
Our prisons and our courtrooms are so crowded that the
American Bar Association's annual report on the state of the
Justice System is basically one long plea for an end to drug
laws that imprison users. Even the Clinton Administration
recognizes that locking people up is not the solution. This
is especially true for the people who actually have drug
abuse problems -- they need treatment, not mistreatment.
The Drug War put mandatory minimum jail sentences for drug
crimes on the lawbooks. If we do not take those laws (at
least) back off, we will be in sorry shape come the end of
the century. A retroactive policy of marijuana legalization
or decriminalization would go a long way in helping to solve
this crisis.
Also consider this -- Once a person gets put in jail, he
becomes angry with the world. He will probably be
victimized while he is there, and most likely will learn
criminal behaviors from hard-core violent offenders. There
is also a very good chance that he will have caught AIDS or
tuberculosis by the time he gets let back out. By locking
up drug users, you are digging yourself a very big trench to
fall in -- is it worth it?
Besides, lots of these people don't deserve to be in jail.
Why should they serve time just because they like to get
`high' on marijuana? Especially when someone can drink
alcohol without being arrested... what kind of law is that?
You have to think about what kind of a world you are making
for yourself before you act. How are the police of the
future going to treat the people? How far are you willing
to let the government go to get the drug users? How many of
your own rights will you sacrifice by trying to jail `the
druggies'?
1 8) I heard that there are over 400 chemicals in marijuana...
Wellllll...?
True, but so what? There are also over 400 chemicals in
many foods, (including coffee, which contains over 800
chemicals and many rat carcinogens) and we don't see police
arresting people in McDonald's, or giving Driving while
Eating citations. Only THC is very psycho-active; a few
other chemicals also have very small degrees of
psycho-activity. People who use marijuana do not get sick
more, or die earlier, or lose their jobs (except to drug
tests), or have mutant kids... so what's your point?
The fact that there are over 60 unique chemicals in
cannabis, called `cannabinoids,' is something that
scientists find very interesting. Many of these
cannabinoids may have valuable effects as medicine. For
example, `cannabinol' is a cannabinoid which can help people
with insomnia. Doctors think that this chemical is why most
patients prefer to use marijuana rather than pure
Delta-9-THC pills (called dronabinol) -- the cannabinol
takes the edge off being `high' and calms the nerves.
Another cannabinoid, `cannabidiolic acid', is a very
effective anti-biotic, like pennicillin. Many of these
chemicals can be extracted from marijuana without any fancy
laboratory equipment.
19) Doesn't that stuff mess up your immune system and make
it easier for you catch colds?
Marijuana (Delta-nine-THC) does have an `immunosuppressive
effect.' It acts on certain cells in the liver, called
macrophages, in much the same way that it acts on brain
cells. Instead of stimulating the cells, though, it shuts
them off. This effect is temporary (just like the `high')
and goes away quickly; people who suffer from multiple
sclerosis may actually find this effect useful in fighting
the disease.
Recent research has also found that marijuana metabolites
are left over in the lungs for up to seven months after the
smoking has stopped. While they are there, the immune
system of the lungs may be affected (but the macrophages do
not get ``turned off'' like in the liver.) The effects of
smoking itself are probably worse than the effects of the
THC, and last just as long.
All this said, doctors still have not decided whether
marijuana users are at risk for colds or not. With the
possible exception of bronchitis, there are no numbers which
suggest that marijuana users catch more colds, but... this
did not stop Carlton Turner, a United States Drug Czar, from
saying many times in his public addresses that marijuana
caused AIDS and homosexuality. His claims were so ridiculus
that the Washington Post and Newsweek Magazine made fun of
him, and he was forced to resign.
Today, AIDS patients use marijuana to treat their symptoms
without any aparrent problems. Some studies suggest that
marijuana may actually stimulate certain forms of immunity.
Researchers have tried to show major effects on the healthy
human's immune system, but if marijuana does have any
substantial effects, good or bad, they are either too
subtle or too small to notice.
[ April 29, 2004, 06:59 PM: Message edited by: i like grass ]
...\"And that is why, my liege, we believe the earth to be banana shaped.\" \"This new learning amazes me sir bedevere. Now telle us again how sheeps bladders can be used to prevent earthquakes...\"
