Pot Smokers Might Not Turn Into Dopes After All 332
ananyo writes "Back in August last year, we discussed a study reportedly showing heavy marijuana use in teenagers had been linked to a decline in IQ in later life. Now, a new analysis suggests that the study may have been flawed. Using the same data, the researchers found that they could explain the IQ drop by properly accounting for socioeconomic factors — such as individuals from poorer backgrounds being more likely to smoke cannabis as well as having reduced access to schooling."
Just when science was emotionally satisfying... (Score:5, Funny)
Bam! They do more of it, and it isn't!
Who designed this religion anyway?
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lol (Score:5, Interesting)
I realized this when i met someone who had smoked for about 2 years. He was border line retarded. Then I met someone else who had been smoking since he was 14, and he was an engineer. Different strokes for different folks. Dont blame the drugs.
Re:lol (Score:5, Funny)
You realized that there wasn't a statistically significant correlation based on a sample size of two?
What have you been smoking?
Re:lol (Score:5, Funny)
Troll weed. It makes a big "Whoosh" sound and causes idiots to reply to your comments.
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You realized that there wasn't a statistically significant correlation based on a sample size of two?
What have you been smoking?
I think he/she realized that correlation is not causation, regardless of sample size.
And .... (Score:5, Interesting)
You realized that there wasn't a statistically significant correlation based on a sample size of two?
What have you been smoking?
And most people will focus on the person in the above stories that confirm their bias.
Like pot? Then it'll make you an engineer!
Hate drugs? Then it makes you a retard!
My doctor likes to point out that many of these studies aren't randomized controled trials - RCT - because it's a bitch to do any study on "recreational" drugs in the US because of our Puritanical laws and this whole "War on Drugs" horseshit.
Of course, there aren't any studies of whether smoking pot causes the same instances of emphysema, cancer, and other diseases that can happen from smoking anything.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was a study years ago (not RCT either) that showed that there may be a link with smoking pot and slowing tumor growth.
It hasn't been repeated as far as I know so the results haven't been verfied.
Anyway, there are plenty of folks out there in the internet peanut gallery that cling to that one study and came to the conclusion that pot stops cancer.
Oy!
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And most people will focus on the person in the above stories that confirm their bias.
I'd love to see these sorts of study first released with the blind terminology, so the claim would be, "X causes Y". Blind the demographic variables too. Let the reviewer evaluate THAT and see how much of the actual review is based on the quality of the data and the analysis rather than the bias of the reviewers.
This study was obviously pretty questionable, even on a cursory look. As I said at the time of the original article (http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3077857&threshold=3&commen
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Of course, there aren't any studies of whether smoking pot causes the same instances of emphysema, cancer, and other diseases that can happen from smoking anything.
Studies have been done. More than one showed a solid correlation between smoking pot and COPD [wikipedia.org] (the linked article doesn't mention it) and what I read was short on details, but a Washington Post article was detailed. Excerpt: [washingtonpost.com]
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Multiple studies show that certain cannabinoids prevent or inhibit the growth of certain types of tumors in mouse. This is not controversial.
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/cannabis/healthprofessional/page4 [cancer.gov]
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/cannabis/healthprofessional/page5 [cancer.gov]
While the jury is still out and will be out for a long time, it is rather obvious that cannbinoids have certain effect on certain types of tumors. There's a lot more going on than wishful thinking by pot smokers and waa
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There are studies that show increased levels of known carcinogens compared with say tobacco smoke. Most of these are known to be byproducts of burning so they really have nothing to do with cannabis. However studies DO NOT support an actual increased incidence of cancer among marijuana smokers despite the presence of those known carcinogens.
I'll provide as many links as you've bothered to.
Finding carcinogens in the smoke is NOT a substitute for actually finding increased incidence of cancer. Since that incr
Re:And .... (Score:4, Insightful)
> Finding carcinogens in the smoke is NOT a substitute for actually
> finding increased incidence of cancer.
While pot may be one of my favorite issues, this is also a common problem right here. There is a great talk by Dr Lustig (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM ) on sugar, where he talks about a range of issues, and this is one of them...
That early evidence pointed to a link between cholesterol and heart disease. This has been the basis for the "low fat diet" recommendations, as dietary fat does increase cholesterol levels.
My summary is no substitute for the video but, the basic summary is that fructose (whether from HFCS or as a product of sucrose) is metabolized in the liver, and raises vLDL levels.... making it far worst than the dietary fat which it has been replacing. (and doing so at a staggering rate)
Hence the "war on fat", has actually caused the rise in obesity and diabetes, in addition to the heart disease that it was an attempt to reduce.
His claim is essentially that, your liver is similarly damaged by fructose as it is by alcohol, such that a small glass of OJ is similar to a shot of bourbon.
Re:And .... (Score:5, Informative)
You know you can get THC without burning right?
Personally I prefer to make Ghee. Then put it on toast, popcorn, etc.
Re:And .... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And .... (Score:4, Interesting)
How long before store bought pot also has 600 or so additives? I'd guess at that point pot induced lung cancer will go up just as it did with tobacco.
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The same points as adding the additives to tobacco. Make it burn better, increase the flavour and make it more addicting.
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Most of my post seems to have been lost so here it is again
Has it ever been studied? Lung cancer was very rare in the west until after the chemical additives were added to tobacco. And yes, people lived long enough to get lung cancer, at least those people who made it past childhood.
If all the smoking causes cancer studies were done with tobacco that had many additives added, it's not conclusive whether it's the tobacco or cigarettes that cause cancer. There's also the fact that the common insecticide used
Re:And .... (Score:4, Informative)
You might find this interesting. It more than backs up your point. [washingtonpost.com]
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True. Unfortunately most measures to legalize also involve heavy taxation as a selling point that will probably continue to artificially inflate the price of cannabis. Other methods of ingestion tend to either isolate just THC (which is NOT the only active or desirable substance in cannabis) and/or are less efficient to produce. Ingesting for instance is far less efficient than smoking.
Given the massive quantities one can produce on the back 40 of even one farm cannabis should be sold by the pound right nex
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Given the massive quantities one can produce on the back 40 of even one farm cannabis should be sold by the pound right next to flour.
And that's a big problem to forces that block it's legalization. 'They' want to control it yet unlike Tobacco, for instance, it's really easy to grow at least baseline quality pot that will get you stoned. Which makes it difficult to regulate and tax. Similar problems with Alcohol emerged which led to things like the Gin Tax in the 19th century.
It's too easy to find chemi
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It's questionable if marijuana demotivates. But as someone else pointed out the a pack of cigerettes an ounce of tobacco and in IL for example have a total of about $4/OZ combined state and federal taxes. California was proposing about $75/oz of tax on Cannabis. The result of such a high tax would be a price that stays near the black market price of $400/oz.
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Unfortunately most measures to legalize also involve heavy taxation as a selling point that will probably continue to artificially inflate the price of cannabis.
State tax in Illinois is $1.98 per pack, plus a $1.01 federal tax, plus local and sales taxes. You can get a pack of generics here for $5, so 2/3ds (more because there's sales tax) of the price is tax.
There is an ounce of tobacco in a pack of cigarettes. How much is an ounce of weed?
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Price be damned. Pass the taxes, if that's what it takes. Stop chasing kids down alleys to arrest and/or kill them when they resist arrest.
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So.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, he used it (very documented) and enjoyed it, and he doesn't have to worry about being re-elected, so, when will he push for something that I'd guess a majority of his supporters and followers would support?
Mr. Obama, are you listening?
Re:So.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Becasue there is more to worry about. Creating an issue that pubs hate will create ANOTHER pathetic excuse to be obstructionists.
Pay attentionh to a president first year. They try to probe what thye want and check for repson form congress. If an issue will stop a bigger issue from going through, they set it aside.
One of the big examples from Obama is gitmo. He worked on closing it, but the pubs dug their heals in and made pathetic excuse of why a supermax prison won't hold them. Once that became an issue that the pub would stop all activity over, it was set aside. The the pubs uses it against him..the vary same ones who wouldn't let it close.
Fact of the matter, you could put most of the remaining people at gitmo in a county prison, and it would be perfectly secure.
So, yes he is listening, but pubs would use it as an 'evil liburl' reason not to vote for democrats.
Same thing with Clinton.
What Obama did to was change the priority of who to go after, and frankly, that was a pretty big step and nearly amazing accomplishment he did it so well with this congress.
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This sir is exactly my feeling on the subject. I salute you.
Ron Paul vs Dennis Kucinich is a (for the most part, there's always going to be BS and marketing in politics) genuinely healthy political axis. Obama vs Bush is a Reality TV show.
Re:So.... (Score:4, Funny)
Mr. Obama, are you listening?
No, he doesn't listen to idiots who refer to him as "the 'blessed' leader."
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Frankly, I would not be surprised if you have not encountered a single person who has used (let alone been addicted) to any of the drugs you mention.
Re:lol (Score:5, Funny)
Then I met someone else who had been smoking since he was 14, and he was an engineer.
Engineer? ~snort~ Clearly the pot prevented him from achieving a respectable career in theoretical physics.
Bazinga!
Re:lol (Score:5, Interesting)
In my experience (which is extensive), the theoretical physicists smoke a LOT more pot than the engineers.
The genesis of the membrane extension of string theory came about in the mid-90s due to a late night bake-out and some Cypress Hill. Who else would come up with an 11 dimension "solution" to the problem of string theory?
Re:lol (Score:5, Interesting)
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In my experience LSD makes you THINK you are having great epiphanies but if you actually record yourself or write them down they aren't very wondrous and usually not even coherent in the morning. Thinking you had revelations can still be beneficial though. It can help you overcome emotional problems and help you open your mind to possibilities you wouldn't have been willing to give a chance sober and afterward you feel like you've opened your mind and those conclusions you reached were deep and valid. The c
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The ideas may be great in your head, but your ability to explain it just isn't there
Re:lol (Score:5, Interesting)
In my experience LSD makes you THINK you are having great epiphanies but if you actually record yourself or write them down they aren't very wondrous and usually not even coherent in the morning.
Generally true, but back in late seventies or early eighties, I actually designed and implemented a debugging tool while tripping balls. It was in use throughout the company within a week. It actually came to me in a vision. :)
Of course, when it comes to psychedelics, "You Mileage May Vary" has never been more true. There seem to be no consistent effects from person to person. Even dilated pupils turn out not to be universal (although it's the closest that's been found). Just because I was (at least once) able to direct my hallucinations in a useful direction doesn't mean someone else will.
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In my experience people of high intelligence, especially in STEM fields smoke a lot more pot than the general population pretty much across the board.
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> respectable career in theoretical physics.
As someone who was a physics major during the late 1980's, who idolized Feynman, watched Buckaroo Bonzai way too many times, and had to repeatedly apologize for Pons and Fleischmann to friends and acquaintances... I find this statement hilarious.
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"If I have seen a little further into that great ocean of truth, it is by standing on the shoulder of a giant doobie."
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Some drugs *can* fuck you up, so sometimes it really is the drugs. Opiates, meth, coke can mess with you in ways that pot never could.
But, yes, pot is pretty much harmless, other than the fact that you're smoking, of course.
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And a relative of mine is 90 years and has smoked all her life. So you must have realized from that that smoking doesn't cause cancer or reduce life expectancy, right?
Uhh ... (Score:5, Funny)
I forgot what I was going to post !
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I forgot what I was going to post !
Dude!
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Wait, what were we talking about?
10 years of medical marijuana (Score:3)
Re:10 years of medical marijuana (Score:5, Insightful)
10 years of medical marijuana hasn't produced any noticeable changes.
Yes it has, for many people. For example, many chronic pain sufferers have been able to live more normal lives because they haven't been as debilitated or addicted to opioids, some cancer patients have lived longer because their weed helped them tolerate the chemo treatments better, allowing them to complete regimens that many can not, folks who suffer sever anxiety and panic attacks can get out and live their lives without being overwhelmed by fear, people with glaucoma have maintained their sight without risky surgeries, and at least one person with epilepsy (who I personally know) no longer suffers from seizures as long as she "medicates" at least every 2-3 days.
It is very clear that there have been noticeable changes since medical marijuana became available in the U.S., and they have been overwhelmingly positive. Crime rates in medi-pot areas have NOT increased, cases of addiction to illegal drugs have not gotten out of control (busting the guess that weed is a "gateway" drug), there hasn't been a rise in cardio-pulmonary diseases among non-tobacco smokers, and courts in states like Colorado have not been clogged with minor, non-violent marijuana offenders.
Of course I do not advocate driving under the influence, use among minors, or puffing away all day like a stereotypical Rastafarian or flash in the pan, one hit wonder rapper, but informed use in moderation or under a physician's supervision should be possible in every state. I'd like to see it reach a level of acceptance where employers are not permitted to dictate how you live your life or choose to medicate yourself when you are not at work. If they do not specifically suspect that you are high at work, and have no evidence that you are, positive tests for THC should not warrant dismissal or exclusion from employment. But then I believe strongly in the American concepts of privacy and freedom, so I am certainly a bit biased.
And further, wait.... what?
Pot smoker here... (Score:5, Insightful)
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What you do after 5pm is none of my business as long as your work gets done on time and in a professional manner.
Too bad most employers don't see things this way. And I'm not just talking to you, pot smokers. Enforcing arbitrary morality standards has become commonplace in the workplace, even when your questionable behavior occurs strictly after business hours and doesn't affect your productivity. Hell, I refuse to even have a Facebook account (in my own real name anyway) because I know for a fact that my employer is nosy. Potheads are especially vulnerable though, as positive pre-employment THC tests, which absolutel
Re:Pot smoker here... (Score:5, Funny)
If anything, it assisted me with diving in to the world of UNIX
So THAT explains it! I've been looking at this all wrong. (sometime later) Yeah, like, everything's a file. See this? It does ONE thing, really well. Just ONE thing. Wow, man!
No, man, UNIX is just a gateway drug to Plan 9. That is where the everything's a file stuff gets deep and, like, totally networked.
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When you get your hair cut, go to work, and stop wearing tie-dye but don't stop smoking do you still magically stop being a hippy?
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nope
Re:Pot smoker here... (Score:4, Funny)
-2
Both you guys have been negated.
What about the other way around? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:What about the other way around? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope but I've known plenty of lazy moron layabouts who did nothing but smoke pot. The pot doesn't make them lazy moron layabouts though it's just something to do.
Re:What about the other way around? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have an IQ between 128 and 140 depending on the test. I smoke pot from time to time. I'm part owner of a company and work full time as a consultant.
I have never suffered from loss of memory from smoking pot, I have only once experienced "the munchies", I have never lost control while being high. Drinking alcohol however, I've experienced massive blackouts, I've lost entire evenings in the haze of strong booze, I've woken up in my own bed, only to wonder how the fuck I got home. I have experienced hangovers lasting more than a day with exhaustion lasting a week. Pot on the other hand last for a couple of hours and leaves my body in a relaxed state for up to a week.
In the circles I move, I meet a lot of the higher echelons of our society and a lot of them smoke weed or do harder drugs.
Does this prove anything? Heck no. I doubt there will be any useful data, until experiments are run under proper control. Data based on peoples own perception will be flawed.
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Does this prove anything? Heck no. I doubt there will be any useful data, until experiments are run under proper control. Data based on peoples own perception will be flawed.
There IS useful data, our own government has run experiments under proper control on numerous occasions, then they invalidate them when they don't say what they want. And there's literally whole books filled with meaningful studies that were performed in other countries. Hell, even Russia's seed arks preserve Cannabis along with the other species. Our government does not work on science.
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How about whether high IQ folks are more likely to smoke pot or dumb ones?
The data suggest lower IQ males are more likely to start smoking pot: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3077857&cid=41148355 [slashdot.org] (and kudos to the guy who responded to that comment by suggesting pot smoking turns women into men!)
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So the answer comes back to (Score:2)
Vicious circle (Score:5, Insightful)
You smoke pot so we're kicking you out of school
You'll lose the opportunity to be educated and socialize normally with a mainstream peer group
We'll use your now sub-standard IQ and abnormal social skills to defend the prohibition on pot
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Re:Vicious circle (Score:5, Insightful)
A report I read a while back said that overall the most damaging aspect of smoking pot on the lives of the users are the legal consequences of the prohibition, not the pot itself.
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And this is why our jails are full of non-violent offenders who don't need to be in the prison system.
Pot should be legalized immediately. I'm not so sure about certain other substances, but throwing people in jail for pot smoking is ridiculous and always has been.
That said, smoking itself is bad for you, mm'kay? It's still you inhaling smoke, so find a better way of ingesting it. Lung cancer is bad.
Words of the Prophet (Score:4, Insightful)
-- Bill Hicks
Too bad nobody's going to hear about the follow-up (Score:2)
There is no way most of the mainstream press is going to cover this. The potentially flawed study reinforced too many stereotypes and opinions in step with the "war on drugs" which bankrolls increasingly powerful law enforcement.
The Answer (Score:2, Interesting)
....individuals from poorer backgrounds being more likely to smoke cannabis as well as having reduced access to schooling.
There you have your answer about cannabis and drugs in general.
Re:The Answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Not at all, because the statement is flawed. It should have said "individuals from poorer backgrounds being more likely to get caught and prosecuted for smoking cannabis as well as having reduced access to schooling, while individuals from power backgrounds are likely to smoke cannabis (Clinton/Obama), do cocaine (Bush), philander (Clinton/Kennedy), do a very dangerous drug called alcohol (Most of them throughout history?) and become president."
tomorrows newspaper headlines (Score:3, Funny)
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"pot use reduces not only IQ but also wealth and access to schooling"
Just like alcohol.
As noted in the article (Score:2)
What is implicit in the article is that the first study may not be as strong, or the effect might be more complex than initially indicated.
Words to live by: (Score:5, Funny)
"A friend with weed is a friend indeed"
"Dope will get you thru times of no money better then money will get you thru times of no dope."
both I learned from the Fabulous Furry Freak Brother comics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fabulous_Furry_Freak_Brothers [wikipedia.org]
I'm really stoned right now and low or high IQ, this is the best I can do for this conversation.
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I like the line: "A friend in need is a friend indeed, a friend with weed is better." Possibly due to my (lack of) age.
Easy enough to check. (Score:2)
Well that would be easy enough to check. Just take kids from poor neighborhoods and without access to good education who did not smoke pot and see if their IQ declined later in life. If the pot isn't a factor, then the IQ should drop just the same as in the people who smoked pot. Or, if the pot is a factor, then do the same study, but with rich kids who had access to a good education. If the pot is the factor, then their IQ should have dropped, too.
Hurray for science! (Score:2)
Again? (Score:5, Informative)
For *decades*, we've been seeing Studies That Show The Dangers Of Weed (tm). And within the year, sometimes within the month, they're withdrawn, or debunked, or shown to be massively flawed.
Not *ONE* has ever overturned the conclusions of the LaGuardia study of 1941 (completed? '44) http colon //www.drugtext.org/Table/LaGuardia-Committee-Report/
The truth is that the prohibition was created thanks to Hearst's purchase of four very large wood pulp paper mills, and the last head of Prohibition, Anslinger, who wanted his job back, and it's been a useful tool to squash folks who might not agree with you in the ballot box.
And the moralists. (The definition, by a friend years back, is that moralists are TERRIFIED by the thought that Someone, Out There, might be having... FUN!)
mark
The previous study was published on BBC News (Score:2)
This hasn't, and it won't.
That explains... (Score:2)
This explains.. (Score:2)
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drains drive and will to succeed (Score:4, Insightful)
there was this one toker who graduated from this ivy league school, but instead of taking on big corporate job like his classmates just went into community organizer work on the bad side of Chicago. then he became a senator then president. beware the weed, kids...
Re:First Post (Score:5, Funny)
Randomly getting the first post yo. Thank you THC.
Failed first post attempt? Or subtle commentary on the effects of weed on the mind? You decide!
Re:First Post (Score:5, Funny)
He's totally going to be first tomorrow, so GET OFF HIS BACK, MOM!
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Even though something can be explained by low SES doesn't mean it that low SES is the explanation. In fact low SES is
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NARK!
Re:In my experience, yes it does (Score:4, Insightful)
The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".
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I'll take your anecdote about your friend, and respond with my anecdote about how it has saved my life. Between my intense migraines that I suffered from for 20 years with no pharmacological relief, and my severe depression, I'm positive that I would have killed myself without it. It eases the depression and goes a long way to reduce the occurrence and intensity of my headaches.
Somehow your friend sounds like he had other problems that the weed just compounded. I'm sorry for him, but your anger is misplaced
Re:In my experience, yes it does (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not really a question of "is pot harmful". It's a question of "how harmful is pot in comparison to other legal activities". Other people could provide similar anecdotes about the affects of alcohol, gambling, or online games - yet possession of any of those isn't illegal.
Our society is hypocritical. It needs to decide once and for all, whether citizens have the right to pursue life, liberty and happiness in a manner they choose, or whether the state abrogates to itself the right to decide for its citizens what level of risk they are allowed to take, and the adopt a consistent policy.
They won't, of course, because a consistent policy will either lead to a lessening of authority and money, as the privatised prison system is forced to downsize, and police authority curtailed, or to mass corruption and civil disobedience as briefly glimpsed in prohibition. So they'll remain happily hypocritical, not because it is the right thing to do, or backed by scientific evidence, but because it is the best way to retain the current balances of power - and that, after all, is what politics is all about.
Re:In my experience, yes it does (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think alcohol is harmless, yet I drink beer or wine a couple of times a week. With alcohol, some people handle it just fine and others fall off a cliff. From what I've seen, pot is the same way.
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You are viewing pot, like a drug, as in cocaine-meth-style drug, rather than say, caffiene. A cup or three of coffee can be a godsend, but drinking pots throughout the day will kill you in more ways than one. Don't like that comparison? One vitamin is good. Six are not.
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Interesting anecdote. But you fail to make your point that pot was actually harmful, unless you only meant it was harmful to your friendship.
Yes, smoking marijuana can change a personality. Perhaps only while under the effects or perhaps indefinitely, it just depends on the person. I liken it to an "eye-opening" experience for some people, that after smoking they now view and think about the world in a different way that makes it impossible to go back to their prior-to-smoking mindset.
Smoking pot is an
Re:In my experience, yes it does (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a pothead, I've never smoked pot (or anything else) and never been interested in doing so.
Here's my question: Your college buddy, did he ever hurt anybody? Did he ever punch or shoot someone that he otherwise wouldn't have? Did he have a hard time maintaining relationships with his family? Did he mistreat any significant others he had? Because the only drawback you've stated is that you didn't like him anymore, and that it changed him in some ways. You also said he graduated with a 4.0, which hardly sounds like he destroyed himself.
People change all the time, for all sorts of reasons. Alcohol, tobacco, heroin, cocaine, etc have easily documented harmful effects that far outweigh anything you've described, so if your friends' pot use is as serious a problem as you claim you should also be able to point to some actual impacts.
If we're putting laws in place, we should have a demonstrable harm that we're protecting the public from, and that harm should be greater than the harm of enforcing the law. On that basis, outlawing PCP makes total sense, because people on angel dust pose extreme risks to people around them, but outlawing pot has not been demonstrated to be useful.
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keep telling yourself that marijuana's harmless, it hasn't changed you at all.
I'd never assume that, as I know for a fact that using marijuana in a
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Perhaps being poor and uneducated correlates to being unhappy and self medicating with drugs and has nothing to do with the drug the poor are self medicating with?
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Except that there are no shortage of very productive individuals who drink and smoke pot and aren't poor.
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Re:So.... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Not really a shining endorsement of pot smoking as a past time"
Doesn't really indicate anything negative about it either. Pot is chemically induced euphoria. Some people add artificial in there but your emotions are nothing more than a chemical state so there is nothing artificial about it. If your life isn't a joyful wonderland pot is a fairly effective and low cost way to make it one for a little while. Being poor sucks and being dumb sucks, why wouldn't you want cheap happiness. If you aren't dumb but merely lazy and making bad choices it seems that would tend be depressing as well so ditto on cheap happiness. If you are highly intelligent and can't help but realize just how fucked we are in this life then again bring on the happiness.
If you are rich, lazy, and dumb on the hand you don't have much to be unhappy about. You get handed degrees from the best schools, society is set up to ensure that the wealthy enjoy the most comfort and have the best of everything, and the opposite sex will throw themselves at you all day long.
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Dear AC: I should really take the time to refute your crudely expressed and scientifically baseless assertions. But I'm just not feeling very motivated, for some reason.
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Suddenly my title bar changed over to "Slashdot (15)"
It's the number of stories shown on the page. Not sure why it's there, though, since it always seems to read 15 for me.
To keep on-topic I suppose I ought to mention that I'm typing this with a "herbal cigarette" in the other hand.