Marijuana Should Be Legalized

well it is a cultural difference. But all together I do not want it legalized. Neither way to say it is wrong :).

Everything to do with anything that might harm your body is a potential risk and a possible result. There's no certaint you will suffer any negative effects; you could be one of the few people who smoke all their life and life to a ripe old age of 100. Unlikely, but possible. There isn't really much certainty when it comes to diseases or illnesses, since we'll never truly understand the exact chemistry of the human body and how it reacts with outside agents.

The risks are still there, though, and it seems a lot of people who are pro-legalisation don't realise it.

It's 5:57am, cut me some slack. :P

Ok yea I understand that, but If you don't wanna smoke every now and then like I do just because your afraid of a possible long term brain damage when it could already be messed up regardless, well those odds don't bother me all that much. But to each his own.

Because there's some talk of "potential risks", "casual effects" and "possible results", I went ahead and pulled the results section from the abstract of the last study I posted. Everything that I put in bold is medically significant (P ≤ 0.01), meaning medical practitioners and pharmaceuticals would accept that as the truth. So if you're playing the "science hasn't proved that" card, 1) that's a cheap move and you know it, and 2) statistically speaking, this isn't 100%, but it's ≥ 99%.

Edit: Before I get slammed by somebody with a bunch of science knowledge, I realize that this study has a fairly small sample size and is probably not representative of every heavy pot user.

On another note, P ≤ 0.05 is scientifically significant, so don't be thinking you can scoff of that either!

1) Yea, I know it.
2) 1%!

Ask and you shall receive. Also that synopsis was 1 argument that they in fact disproved. Here lets start with the very first sentence of the one about destroying brain cells.

"Marijuana consumption elicits diverse physiological and psychological effects in humans, including memory loss"

"Human marijuana research is limited, and the retrospective nature of these studies compromise their interpretation. Nevertheless, marijuana usage disrupts short-term memory, working memory, and attentional skills (Fletcher et al., 1996), and induces deficits in mathematical skills, verbal expression, and memory retrieval (Block and Ghoneim, 1993). Long-lasting cannabis-dependent short-term memory deficits (Schwartz et al., 1989) and residual neuropsychological effects (Pope and Yurgelun-Todd, 1996) persist even after abstinence"

"Concentrations of THC as low as 0.5 µM were toxic to hippocampal neurons, and the rate of neuron death increased with THC concentration (Fig. 1A,B). For example, 50% of the neurons were killed within 3 hr of treatment with 10 µM THC or 6 d after exposure to 1.0 µM THC. The lower doses used are comparable to THC concentrations measured in human plasma after consumption of a single marijuana cigarette (Chiang and Barnett, 1984). THC concentrations in the brain may be even higher after smoking marijuana, because THC is lipophilic (Thomas et al., 1990) and readily crosses the blood-brain barrier. "

As far the pyschological effects

"In this study, 4045 psychosis-free individuals and 59 who had a psychotic disorder were assessed at baseline and were administered follow-up assessments 1 year later and again 3 years after the baseline assessment. For those subjects who reported psychotic symptoms, an additional clinical interview was conducted by an experienced psychiatrist or psychologist (at baseline and at 3-year follow-up). Compared with non-users, individuals using cannabis at baseline were nearly three times more likely to manifest psychotic symptoms at follow-up."
"Individuals who met the diagnostic criteria for cannabis dependence disorder at age 18 years had a 3.7-fold increased risk of psychotic symptoms than those without cannabis dependence problems. The risk of psychotic symptoms was 2.3 times higher for those with cannabis dependence disorder at age 21 years"

Or just the synopsis of the results

"On an individual level, cannabis use confers an overall twofold increase in the relative risk for later schizophrenia. At the population level, elimination of cannabis use would reduce the incidence of schizophrenia by approximately 8%"

yea "research is limited" LOL end of story. Theres no point in trying to prove something that can't even 100% prove itself. Ok sure you get schizophrenia.. SO DOES EVERYONE WHO SMOKES ITS CALLED BEING HIGH LOL.

edit: yea i'm trollin

Yes yes you are trolling.

How is this thread still not in the flame core? Hell, even I've been trying!

Educate yourselves!
Alcohol is waaaaaaayyy worse than pot, bottom line.

(sry Rydiya) lol

Iono either lol, but I like talkin about such controversial stuff like this.

Keep trying it won't get put there. No one is fighting and should not be. well people seem to be arguing because people do not agree with other's who do not think like them, does not matter who is right.

People opinions will defer from one another.

Your a poopoo head!

So, 5% brain loss? you only use 4% of it in your entire life, ya got 96% to spare so....

doobies for everyone ^^b

God makes weed..

This is one of the worst myths out there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10%25_of_brain_myth

You use your whole brain. Just not all at the same time. Unless your having a seizure

Prolly smoked it too!

May or may not be bad for you but who cares, isnt a go to hell sin, drinking alcohol is far worse than weed smoking in health. That's a study i wanna see, how many deaths via weed vs how many via alcohol. Not just this liver and lung BS but car accidents ect. too. Weed smokers are rather paranoid and drive very causiously (with the exception of a few morons), drunks run over everyone and thier babies.

I vote enjoy life, if ya smoke it then smoke it and be happy, if ya dont then dont but stfu cause no one cares of your preaching. I doubt anyone in a forum is going to say anything that is going to be life changing. Number one reason being no one prolly cares of your views on the matter. People just need to stop preaching thier BS on other people, it's just annoying. NO ONE CARES!

If it gets legalized then the nonsmokers are just gonna have to deal and live with it because it'll be a new world on that front and thier views will be obsolete as it will be legal. Keep in mind ALL signs point toward it becomming legal in the future so ya might as well prepare yourself for that day.

You have medical uses now, over crowding of prisons (why waste space and money on weed smokers imprisonment when some johnny child raper is running loose), presidents coming into office that have the mentality of seeing how the war on drugs IS unwinnable and has already been lost.

Hell, notice NO ONE preaches paotie health issues and legalities because it's an Indian thingy, tell me smoking that is good for you. Be seeing dragons and stuff, Give me a break.

Those factors are included in the Lancet study I posted on page 2, I believe.


Same can be said for you. At least I've used proper grammar and spelling in my arguments, not to mention citations.


Actually, the peyote cactus does come under some scrutiny, but it is generally considered less harmful than cannabis. Hallucinogens may seem harmful, but they actually have minimal long-term effects.

<.< At least Narru showed some degree of literacy as well..

This post is 11 pages long?

To the OP:

No.

/endthread

No it shouldnt.

Erm, hello preacher/grammar nazi. I'm not preaching to anyone, I stated the fact if they wanna do it then they should be allowed to do it. What gives you the right to preach that you're better than a weedsmoker and they should not be allowed to do what they enjoy? Obviously they could care less of health issues from it. Why would you think just because YOU said it then the world shall now change to heed your words? So, hence the stfu to the people preaching about it to people that do it. It's like a church group constantly knocking on your door trying to convert you, how many times you gotta say "get the F off my lawn" before they finally stay off it.

You saying weedsmoking should be illegal is like me saying to you posting on forums is now illegal. D: Something both parties like to do but are being told they cannot.

First off, I like how you made this post more legible.

You should go back, however, and note that on my very first post, I stated that I support legalization for practical reasons. And I have been fairly low-key on the preaching; if you'll dig through my posts, I have been stating facts and citing sources for the most part, with a few witty remarks or sour words mixed in. You should note that in my last post, all I did was take shots at weaknesses in your arguments, which is exactly what I'll continue to do.


Not really. This is a public forum, not your lawn. You can't really tell anybody to get off it, since you don't actually own it. You came here of your own will, so it's perfectly reasonable for people to preach on this subject. If this were a pro-cannabis forum rather than an MMORPG AH forums, anti-cannabis people would be like the annoying church groups. But it's not.


Consider that while cannabis is only mildly harmful, it is still unhealthy, whereas me posting on the forums is not hurting me, nor should it be hurting you or any other forum user (other than the slight amount of time used.)

so god promotes dead brain cells???????? god promotes poverty and people selling weed and crack in the projects..?

Mind you i never grew up in the projects... but please pleae tell me your statement was not serious. weed comes from the earth yes... I bet animals and people thousands of years ago used it appropriately besides for drug uses even the Egyptians used drugs for stuff. But not saying it was not bad.

people make me cry here.

"GAWWWN MAAAAKES WEEEEEREEED" translation

"my IQ is lower than 50 duh durrrrrr durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr weed makes me dumb"

If people want to smoke weed, let them.

If it ends up getting them jailed or killed, then who really wins the argument in the end?

No one wins, enough said.

My cousin is on that ***. We're talking a 22 to 23 year old kid. No drive, no ambition and no future if he continues. Could you imagine if you could just buy it from a store? I don't see any positive sides to it. Everyone I have ever met that smokes weed is an epic failure in life. No exceptions.