Reasons Marijuana should be legal.

[pyramid]

Originally Posted by damo

all thc does is replace seratonin as a regulator for the brain and in a lot of cases it leads to mental illness.

Where did you read that, I don't believe it is correct. THC stimulates your CB1 and CB2 receptors, it doesn't replace serotonin. THC stimulates your natural endocannabinoid system. THC activates the same receptors as the neurotransmitter Anandamide.

Read what the Lancet has to say about the adverse effects of cannabis: http://www.ukcia.org/research/Advers...OfCannabis.pdf

anyone can sit back and say oh its ok for you to puff up once in a while, just like you can say its ok for you to have one or two brews once in a while, but the fact is people abuse it and damage their livelihood. the alcoholic epidemic will just get replaced with a burnout epidemic , its not some magic solution. get real people.

I don't think anyone suggested that it would replace alcoholism. People can abuse pretty much anything and the results of abuse are usually negative. The rates of abuse of marijuana are less than that of alcohol and the effects of that abuse are also less severe.

ive smoked a lot of weed in my day and have been around friends who do the same so im not just some armchair analyzer, you people really dont know the effects of prolongeda marijuana use on the brain, it causes ADD and depression and has serious damaging effects on memory and overall brain chemistry.

You've been reading too much propoganda. There is some correlation between use and schitzophrenia but that link has not been proved to be causal in any way. It doesn't cause ADD, it doesn't cause depression, it doesn't permanently alter brain chemistry or function. The most you can say about the negative effects is that prolonged chronic use can lead to a small decrease in IQ, some short term memory problems and an increased chance of bronchitis. IIRC the canadian longitudinal IQ study found that chronic users lost up to a whole 4.1 IQ points but light users in the study showed an increase in IQ over non-users. They also found that prolonged abstinence seemed to remove any difference in IQ between chronic users and non-users. To put that into perspective the effects of fatigue are more debilitating. The negative effects of chronic pot use are about as debilitating as the natural aging process.

Here is the canadian study: http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/...urnalcode=cmaj
here is another one from the American Journal of Epidemiology : http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/co...alcode=amjepid

it just doesnt come out as quickly or frequently as alcohol because its not as readily available and costs much more than alcohol . the simple fact is that if you legalize it , abuse will rise and so will mental illness and its not worth it for the overall population. legalization will always be a pipe dream.

Not readily available? We've already been over that. It's available everywhere now and in the case of minors it's more readily available than alcohol right now.

There is no proof that abuse will increase, I have already shown that in areas where it was legalized historically the trend is less use, not more. In the one place in the world where it is tollerated now the rates of use for the population there are HALF ours, and that is not just for marijuana, all illicit drug use (percapita) is about half of ours. There is no definite link to mental illness. THC and CBD, two of the cannabinoids (active ingredients) in marijuana are about to undergo testing because it is believed they may help some people with mental illness.

It's a big fucking leap to say that because people high on marijuana might exhibit schizophrenia like symptoms (while they are high) that marijuana causes schizophrenia. The fact that people who are schizophrenic and depressed might smoke marijuana doesn't mean the marijuana caused the problem. Often depressed or schitzophrenic people will self medicate with marijuana or other drugs. http://www.healthyplace.com/Communit...ance_abuse.asp
http://www.healthyplace.com/Communit...violence_2.asp
http://www.alcoholmedicalscholars.org/schiz-out.htm
http://www.alcoholmedicalscholars.org/schiz.ppt

So which is it? Does smoking the herb make you more likely to be a schizo or does being a schizo make you more likely to be a cannabis user?

Prevalence in general population/prevalence of abuse among users of said drug:

B. Lifetime Risks {Slide 5}

1. Schizophrenia: 1%

2. Alcohol dependence: 12% for men and 5% for women

3. Cocaine dependence: 2% (4)

4. Nicotine dependence: 28% of men and women

5. Marijuana dependence: 5% (4)

Prevalence for schizophrenics/prevalence of abuse among users of said drug:

C. Lifetime risks for dependence on alcohol, illicit substances, and nicotine is elevated in schizophrenic individuals (2){Slide 6}

1. Nicotine dependence: 70% (5, 6)

2. Alcohol dependence: 37%

3. Marijuana dependence: 23%

4. Cocaine dependence: 13%

If I understand the current research correctly the chances of normal people getting schizophrenia/psychosis from smoking cannabis is extremely low but the chances of cannabis abuse causing problems with someone who already has it or is predisposed to it are worse. Also, you shouldn't smoke weed when you are a minor, especially not in abusive quantities.
http://www.ukcia.org/research/Cannab...hosisStudy.php
http://www.ukcia.org/research/Cannab...tPsychosis.pdf
The second link talks about schizophreniform disorder which is a temporary form of schizophrenia and has this to say:

Although most young people use cannabis in adolescence without harm, a vulnerable minority experience harmful outcomes. A tenth of the cannabis users by age 15 in our sample (3/29) developed schizophreniform disorder by age 26 compared with 3% of
the remaining cohort (22/730). Our findings suggest that cannabis use among psychologically vulnerable adolescents should be strongly discouraged by parents, teachers, and health practitioners.

Good advice as you should probably discourage your underage kids from smoking weed and doing other drugs whether they are predisposed to psychosis or not. Another argument against this theory is that the rates of schizophrenia diagnoses have not really changed with rates of marijuana consumption, even in places like australia where use has gone from 0% to 60% of young adults in a time span of fourty years.

Another thing to consider is that even regular alcohol use (as opposed to abuse) can weaken the body's immune system, is linked to an increased risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, heart and liver disease, it can cause depression, sleep deprivation, memory loss, impaired memory function, hangovers (hangovers are actually minor alcohol withdrawal) and anxiety. The potential problems from alcohol abuse are extensive and potentially fatal. They include certain cancers, liver cirrhosis, immune system disorders, brain damage and death by overdose. It's also linked to violence and violent crime as well as accidents in the home, workplace, and tens of thousands of car accidents annually. Alcohol is highly addictive and the withdrawl can be worse than heroin and is potentially fatal. It's also the number one date rape drug the world over. If none of that is a good enough reason to prohibit alcohol outright, and we know from history that it is not, then what justification is there in using lesser potential symptoms to justify the absolute prohibition of marijuana? Why should users of a far more potentially dangerous drug be allowed to walk free and hold jobs and be considered fine upstanding citizens while their neighbor who uses a less dangerous drug could be arrested just for possessing a small quantity of that drug and face: losing their student loan, their job, their children, even their house, property and their freedom. In the case of medical marijuana patients a trip to jail for an extended time often means death. Isn't that just a little absurd?

theres a fine line between proper consumption and abusing weed. a lot of people get sucked into the 420 lifestyle and have their lives fucked over, its not as cut and dry as some of you people talking like your experts claim.

I don't know if the line is that fine. Abusing any drug has a downside, some have a larger downside than others. Here is what the downside to longterm cannabis abuse looks like: http://www.ukcia.org/research/Attrib...HeavyUsers.pdf

[010100111001]

Originally Posted by kindred

So you're saying people only need to obey the law and law enforcement only needs to uphold the law if they feel it has moral backing???

what the majority of people in this country have obviously forgotten is that it is the people's right to question any laws they don't agree with and make any changes in the law that seem fit (for the majority). most people take the law for granted, but this country is far from perfect and there are many changes that need to be brought about; that is what the founders of this country wanted. an ever-changing and progressing nation.

every law dealing with substance prohibition is based on taboo and false history. the more something is kept from people, the more they are going to want it, not matter what. that is just simple human nature. if the subject was just left alone, and people were allowed to do as they pleased in their own homes, then this country would be far better off. the damage caused by prohibition already, though, could make trouble for legalization, as many people in this thread have already noted. but i think the positives of legaliztion outweigh the negatives.

prohibition caused the black market that exists all over the nation to grow into a much more vast and violent underground that it would have been otherwise; prohibition caused many kids to turn to drug usage at an early age; prohibition has ruined the lives of many people arrested for it (not just the dealers, but ones caught for possession that cant get a decent job because of the charge); prohibition has caused ignorance of drugs to many people that in turn brings discrimination by [mostly] conservatives, and severe injury and sometimes death due to overdoses.

another big problem with prohbition that regards people who dont do drugs is that it promotes dangerous foreign activity. otherwise known to our great leader as 'terrists'. opium is shipped from the middle east (large amounts come out of afghanistan) and small countries in the orient. cocaine from the drug lords in columbia and other 3rd world countries in south/central america. as well as gangs and internal terrorists who finance their 'operations' with drug money. this is why all drugs should be legalized, not just so some tweakers can shoot up in the comfort of their own home, but so that overall crime will decrease (and hopefully decrease in other countries as well, the US being the largest consumer of drugs in the world).

i can't see any sane reasoning for prohibiting something that cannot in any way be enforced. even if i agreed with the law, it would be stupid to have one as such. a former mayor of new york says this better than i can:

"Prohibition cannot be enforced for the simple reason that the majority of American people do not want it enforced and are resisting its enforcement. That being so, the orderly thing to do, under our form of governance, is to abolish a law which cannot be enforced, a law which the people of the country do not want enforced." – New York City Mayor LaGuardia, 1937.

[Martin]

I'm all for legalizing the use of illegal drugs.

My cousin's arrested people who have done drugs while driving for "driving under the influence" DUI/DWI doesn't just apply to being drunk while driving. You can also get arrested for public intoxication/domestic disturbance as well while on drugs. (this happens when they can't find any drug paraphanalia or the drugs themselves)

so the legalization won't have any impact on people who do or don't already do it.

[Penelope]

*sigh* I glanced through it. I have to say I'm glad that the war for the legalization for marijuana is pretty much won in Canada, and hopefullly this will lead to the controlled legalization of other illegal substances.

There is no downside to complete legalization. Countries that have legalized drugs have LOWER drug use rates. You instantly eliminate all drug related crime since the government can easily undercut their prices making their illegal business WORTHLESS. So there no longer NEEDS to be a war on drugs, in fact the Government will be MAKING money from drugs. If drugs are legalized, you can control where and how people use them so they DON'T run off driving their car and killing people. Not that the amount of people who die in drug related accidents will ever surpass the amount of deaths alcohol is responsible for.

/thread

[pyramid]

As an interesting adjunct to this thread, if you are for the prohibition of marijuana because of the active ingredients therein then you should also be for the prohibition of chocolate because it contains a chemical that is almost indistinguishable in the brain from THC, anandamide, as well as two chemicals known to slow the breakdown of anandamide in the body, a precursor to serotonin- the neurotransmitter most responsible for the effects of the drug ecstasy, and the stimulants phenylethylamine and theobromine.

Anandamide, from the sanskrit word "ananda", meaning bliss, is one of the natural neurotransmitters that we know of that is responsible for stimulating the CB receptors in the brain in our natural endocannabinoid system. THC stimulates these same receptors. Serotonin and phenylethylamine are neurotransmitters as well, responsible for feelings of attraction, excitement, giddiness and apprehension or elation, even ecstasy, respectively. Theobromine is a stimulant and muscle relaxant. And these are only a few of the 300+ chemical ingredients in chocolate. Many of those chemicals still have as yet unknown effects on human physiology.

Chocolate, by the standard of our current drug policy, is a veritable cocktail of designer drugs and as such should be banned for the public good immediately lest someone destroy their life becoming a slave to its addictive properties. Just think of the children! That's right, the children, who are most often the target of chocolate advertizing! Please, won't you save the children from the evil chocolate pushers.

Now you may say oh, that's silly, chocolate has been used for hundreds if not thousands of years without a significant incident to warrant it's prohibition... and you would be right. But you could also say the exact same thing about cannabis, except its use by humans predates the known use of the cocoa bean and even recorded history itself and it has been used for far more things than the cocoa bean ever has.

[ry_goody]

why is this thread here

all drugs should be legal or offered openly in specialized programs, this arguement has won numerous times over, theres no need to argue it anymore

*edit* we should just make a sitcky in here "Do not make threads about drug legalization, they should be legalized, this has been argued many times and pro-legalization always wins"

[damo]

pyramid good posts, and i once agreed with you , but ive seen first hand what weed does to people who smoke it everyday and it isnt pretty. they pretty much are emotional zombies who care nothing about real stuff but seek that next hit,fix, just like a heroin junky. and when i said it replaces seratonin as a regulator i didnt mean physiologically i meant that they use it to get to sleep or feel happy instead of regular brain chemicals. reliance and addiction to anything is bad for mental health. if you cared about someone you wouldnt want them to be a pothead. just like you wouldnt want them to be an alcoholic.

and i never gave much thought to this cause because i have it easy. up here in canada cops dont give a shit about weed smoking if they can see its a responsible person, not some idiot wigger/troublemaker doing it. ive smoked with cops and people in cop school, i should know.

oh and when my friend was in BC he smoked a joint in a cafe that allowed cigs and no one batted an eye. BC is New Amsterdam, you want to smoke ganja as a lifestyle move there.

[ry_goody]

Originally Posted by damo

pyramid good posts, and i once agreed with you , but ive seen first hand what weed does to people who smoke it everyday and it isnt pretty. they pretty much are emotional zombies who care nothing about real stuff but seek that next hit,fix, just like a heroin junky. and when i said it replaces seratonin as a regulator i didnt mean physiologically i meant that they use it to get to sleep or feel happy instead of regular brain chemicals. reliance and addiction to anything is bad for mental health. if you cared about someone you wouldnt want them to be a pothead. just like you wouldnt want them to be an alcoholic.

and i never gave much thought to this cause because i have it easy. up here in canada cops dont give a shit about weed smoking if they can see its a responsible person, not some idiot wigger/troublemaker doing it. ive smoked with cops and people in cop school, i should know.

oh and when my friend was in BC he smoked a joint in a cafe that allowed cigs and no one batted an eye. BC is New Amsterdam, you want to smoke ganja as a lifestyle move there.

just want to say that weed can do some bad stuff under addiction and I can understand how seeing that first hand can make you bitter to the subject.

But personally I care more about the wellbeing of the greater population that doesnt abuse it than the very small percentage that does. Keeping it legal to try and attempt to help the small amount of abusers is really selfish seeing how much it changes the lives of the non-abusers. In the US atleast

Besides, whats more affective at keeping a good friend from abusing? The government saying stop or you telling them to stop?

[miasman1]

Originally Posted by Mr Fleshlight

I know plenty of people who don't even smoke weed who want it legalized. It only makes fucking sense.

yes. I think weed is a lot safer than most psychotropics made by all the big pharma companies combined. I smoke occasionally as a tranquilizer, fuck Valium which has a much higher abuse liabilty than cocaine(although Roche refuses to state otherwise).

[Quinine]

Originally Posted by damo

but ive seen first hand what weed does to people who smoke it everyday and it isnt pretty. they pretty much are emotional zombies who care nothing about real stuff but seek that next hit,fix, just like a heroin junky.

It is wrong, and against the basic principles that this country was founded on, to restrict the freedom of the capable masses to make their own decisions specifically to protect people from the incapable few. It goes against the principles of innocent until proven guilty, as you are convicting people not based on whether they are causing harm to another, but on the remote possibility that they may cause harm to another person. Its like outlawing skateboards because some people ride them recklessly.

and when i said it replaces seratonin as a regulator i didnt mean physiologically i meant that they use it to get to slteep or feel happy instead of regular brain chemicals. reliance and addiction to anything is bad for mental health. if you cared about someone you wouldnt want them to be a pothead. just like you wouldnt want them to be an alcoholic.

I wouldn't want anyone I loved to have their quality of life decreased because of drug use, but that's why I let those people know that I love them, and how drug abuse would hurt them. Drugs are readily available in every major city, Clearly, drug prohibition isn't working. There isn't some invisible barrier created by the law that physically prevents people from doing drugs, they don't do them because they dont want their personal relationships damaged from drug use.

[gg]

Originally Posted by ry_goody

just want to say that weed can do some bad stuff under addiction and I can understand how seeing that first hand can make you bitter to the subject.

But personally I care more about the wellbeing of the greater population that doesnt abuse it than the very small percentage that does. Keeping it legal to try and attempt to help the small amount of abusers is really selfish seeing how much it changes the lives of the non-abusers. In the US atleast

Besides, whats more affective at keeping a good friend from abusing? The government saying stop or you telling them to stop?

Coffee has been shown by numerous studies to have a higher addiction potential than marijuana.

[keer sucking gewk]

look, i can tell you one great reason marijuana should be kept illegal...

if it is legal, people would be walking around smoking it all day... I definately do NOT want my kids exposed to second hand smoke from that and possibly getting high, or my self getting high and not being able to drive...

... you are all idiots

+ksg

[gg]

Originally Posted by keer sucking gewk

look, i can tell you one great reason marijuana should be kept illegal...

if it is legal, people would be walking around smoking it all day... I definately do NOT want my kids exposed to second hand smoke from that and possibly getting high, or my self getting high and not being able to drive...

... you are all idiots

+ksg

No, you're the idiot. People cannot get high off of second hand smoke.

Besides, who is to say that the legality of marijuana is tied to its consumption in public places?

[gg]

[keer sucking gewk]

Originally Posted by g

No, you're the idiot. People cannot get high off of second hand smoke.

Besides, who is to say that the legality of marijuana is tied to its consumption in public places?

kids can... thats a fact... no way i want my kid to get high and then get addicted