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Science

Carl Sagan Was a Secret Pot Smoker 445

Posted by Roblimo from the high-enough-to-see-billions-of-stars dept.
alphuris writes "CNN.com has a little nugget of info about Carl Sagan being an avid Marijuana user. Apparently Marijuana's effects were a good part of Sagan's motivation to write his books and do his research. Who says Marijuana's a downer?" The article also says, "Ann Druyan, Sagan's former wife, is a director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. The nonprofit group promotes legalization of marijuana."
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Carl Sagan Was a Secret Pot Smoker More

Carl Sagan Was a Secret Pot Smoker

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  • In fact, the only animal safety studies on Marijuana use ever completed killed vervet monkeys by asphyxiation from carbon dioxide poisoning, not from a drug overdose; showing that THC, while showing high efficacy, is one of the safest drugs known to man.

    My mistake. I should have caught that before hitting submit. Those monkeys were killed from Carbon Monoxide poisoning, not Carbon Dioxide. D'uh.

  • The whole gateway issue is propaganda.

    Correlations, the proof usually cited for this argument, aren't enough. Everyone who smokes weed first drank milk. This does not prove that milk is a gateway drug. (Doesn't prove it isn't either.)

    A more reasonable argument is that using marijuana causes you to hang out with criminals and become like them. This unfortunately is circular: If marijuana is illegal, you have to get it from criminals, so it should be illegal to prevent this.

    Historical Note: my parents argued very strenuously about pinball machines being a gateway to criminal behavior, a waste of time, brain rotting etc., but neither suggested outlawing them.

  • You are thinking of Arthur C. Clark, of 2001 fame.
  • Look, man, just because I might not think you should go to _jail_ for getting stoned does _not_ mean that you become an intellectual wizard for doing it. That's an absolute crock. Now, if you're that maladjusted that you _cannot_ think or deal with reality _unless_ heavily numbed by THC, I sympathize- I've been there. But don't think for a moment that it's giving you a damn thing- it's not, no bud ever had an idea or drew a picture or played a note on an instrument.
    The best that you can say for it is that it might not get in the way too heavily when getting you out of yourself. That's not a good enough reason for relying on it constantly. Get _yourself_ out of yourself. As Frank Zappa said, you are bullshitting yourself if you expect pot to do this for you. Know why I stopped? It _stopped_ _working_ and I wasn't able to bullshit myself about it any more. Fear that...
  • For some reason Pot also makes taking a shit much more enjoyable. Dunno why though. And while we are on that subject... why do we call it "TAKING a shit" when in reality we are LEAVEING it. Personally i would never take a shit that sounds pretty gross :)

    Flame Away :)
  • they've already got the marketing and packaging (and probably a few under-the-table deals with major growers) all ready to roll out the day prohibition breaks, knock on wood.

    --neil

  • I personally support this fellow's perspective, but there's an angle that he didn't mention, which is addiction. Marijuana is damned addictive stuff, all in the psychological sense like getting addicted to food or compulsively handwashing. Claiming that it's not addictive is a crock, that's a technicality- _people_ are addictive, _people_ develop habits, and pot is about the most insidious thing you'll ever run into because it doesn't fsck you up physically (insert Cheech and Chong cough here, assume deadly pallor), it's not a hazard to society (okay, everybody who's _hit_ something like a bush or tree when driving in a car stoned, raise your hand), and it becomes your best friend (I've seen heroin junkies have a harder time giving up pot than their heroin!)
    You can't _get_ a more insidious drug. It doesn't _need_ to lead to anything to screw you up completely, especially if you lose the volition to do anything _but_ smoke pot and end up struggling to come up with the money to _get_ the pot. You'll lie, manipulate, and con anybody, your own mother, your best friend, to get it. I smoked it for years, years ago when I was growing up. Me and my best friend had a little routine we'd go through- we'd go in on a bag, and then one of us would divide and the other pick. This is my best friend and he couldn't trust me to be fair- he knew I couldn't- and of course I couldn't trust him either! How many of you have to do this? One divides and the other picks? Is that a really _mellow_ spiritual approach?
    *rrrgh* damn, spare me from Pot Nation...
  • My best friend died from a combination of staying up all night, smoking too much pot and driving with that combination.

    I got to see the big black spot on the side of the road where his car burst into flames after flipping over a few times. I have a melted piece of his radiator that I keep just for memories.

    He was an idiot, and I really miss him. BUT MARIJUANA IS NOT EVIL!

    And for those of you who want proof, here it is: He died on December 4th, 1990 at 3:15 p.m. It should be in the next day's (or 2 days maybe) issue of the Tulsa World: http://www.tulsaworld.com. His name was Robert Wayne Lovett, Jr.)

    I'm sorry about your friend that nearly died, but I've spent *many* more nights watching friends that were passed out drunk to make sure they didn't inhale their own vomit. One guy went swimming in November and we found him passed out in the woods. We had to get him into the car and turn the heater on full blast because he was going into hypothermic shock.

    Give me a break. Alcohol kills, marijuana doesn't. Anything can kill you - I know somebody that goes anaphilactic (sp?) around anybody wearing too much perfume.

    So you think we should put people in prison because they sell, grow or smoke marijuana? Do you believe *everything* you are told? And you probably purchase every single upgrade of Windows 9x that you can, too, right? I'm sure Bill has to feed his kids...

    Mr. Jon Katz, are you listening? Do you want a controversial issue to champion? Do you have the balls for this one?
  • What a stupid fscking comment. I have moderately low blood pressure (as well as many people in my family) and I smoke almost nightly. (so do a lot of people in my family). I think you just want to shove coffe grounds and salt in someones mouth to see what they would do. Anyway.. if you were at a party or a get together and sober and these other ppl were there i guess you just had a blood pressure cuff just in case. Dude she couldnt handle her shit and passed out. It happens from time to time.
    Stop trying to scare people with lies... its a pathetic way to be.


  • Uhhhhhh.... *COUGHCOUGHCOUGH* yeah man, I uhhhhhhh *COUUUUUGGGHH* I uhhhhhhhh *COUIIIIUUIIIIIIIIIIIGH* no risk man, I uhhhhhhh *HACK!* uhhhhhhhh....
    *klunk*
    "My GOD, he's not dead! Gimme some of thaaaaaat!"

  • According to [sciam.com]
    THIS ARTICLE, the US has more inmates per capita than Turkey.

    And Turkey is supposed to be repressive.

    What's wrong with this picture?

    I am ashamed at the way my country has dealt with victimless crimes
    such as pot smoking. The war on drugs is an embarrassment to us,
    the taxpayers, because we keep throwing money at a non-existent "problem",
    and it makes the US look like a bunch of fools who can't figure out
    the obvious answer.

    Home of the free? Only if you're willing to walk in goose-step
    with the alphabet soup of federal agencies fighting the war on free thought.

  • I do. Prohibition just ain't working- the government needs to be able to tax it. The money can be used to help people who are really addicted and _want_ to get their heads straight, and for a million other purposes more useful than hiring drug enforcers and building jails for pot smokers. That's just stupid. Put them in jail and throw away the key when they drive stoned and run over little kids or little old ladies- but let them rot on the couch all they want- you _cannot_ pressure a person to stop using drugs, it's addictive behavior and you _have_ to want to stop, otherwise forget it. I don't smoke, drink or use drugs. I also don't drink coffee, though I still find myself getting compulsive over coca-cola or tea- sheesh, it never stops, but you have to draw a line somewhere or you end up an ascetic drinking distilled water in a locked room. I used to do all those things, and it really messed with me, I'll tell you. I don't _regret_ it, but damned if I'll go back to what drugs ended up becoming for me, and that includes if pot gets legalized. If that happened I'd laugh until I cried, man. I can never use again without really _locking_ _in_ to that gimme-more, hide-out-and-use, full-on, take-no-prisoners using style I gradually developed over the course of ten years of smoking pot. It doesn't go backwards. I can never have that first high again. Not even if it's legal. Instead I'd have only compulsion and escapism to look forward to. That's a nasty trap- it's like a sort of torture- my instincts will always be telling me to use, but I don't have to, and I don't use now. Except for guzzling coca-cola ;) if that bothered me as bad as pot ended up bothering me, I'd quit it too.
  • They smoke hash legally in Turkey, moron.
  • > Marijuana is NOT addictive. Period.

    One point: pot is not PHYSICALY addictive. That is, it doesn't have withdrawl symptoms when you stop using it.

    It is QUITE psycologicly addictive, though. The thing is, anything at all can be psycologicly addictive. Chocolate, linux, slashdot...

    While if you are strong willed, that is easy to deal with (and it is easier with pot than some things. just try to get me to stop reading slashdot), it IS something one has to deal with at some time, and should not be ignored.
  • Who'd have guessed it ;-)
  • I was a closet budsmoking genius for ten years. I sat and watched, in the clouds of smoke, the shadowy forms of a million brilliant ideas. Once I even built one- once in ten years.
    I stopped, and since then I've had two articles published in the top High End audio journal, have written a novel, have built most of the things I vaguely sensed were out there waiting to be invented, have released free software to the world under the GPL, and have a web site (see 'URL') full of pictures, writings, programs, essays, Window Maker titlebars and X pixmaps, music... _all_ of it after I stopped smoking, which I did because I was suffering and feeling really compelled and trapped in the stoner lifestyle, going nowhere reaaalll sloooowly.
    Sorry, man. The stereotype is true. I've been there. That's not to say it should be a crime- it shouldn't, I support legalization. But I support it so it can be taxed and so we don't have to spend so much money on jails for stoners, I don't support it for me. I hated being a worthless leech on society. Being a stanford-binet 'genius' did not help a damn bit.
    Sorry, dude. When I was a closet budsmoking genius- I smoked bud. Don't look for many people to be able to show you results. They can probably show you a lot of roaches, though, and if you're hurtin' you can scrape their bongs- nasty nasty stuff that is, but it'll give you a buzz and a headache. _That's_ the results.
    Sorry.
  • Hmm... my experience with fraternities is that they mostly beat the hell out of people they don't like.

    If you have to pay for your friends (if you don't pay your fees, you're out), why are you surprised that Mr. Sagan wanted money to speak to you?

    Myself, I prefer to make my friends the old fashion way: Get to know people that I have something in common with.

    GDI and proud.
  • "I find that today a single joint is enough to get me high . . . in one movie theater recently I found I could get high just by inhaling the cannabis smoke which permeated the theater," wrote Sagan...

    I realize that this took place in 1971, but still, what kind of movie theater was this, and where??
  • one word:
    Amsterdam
  • actually the one person divide one person pick method is quite fair. the splitter is relieved of looking unfair and it also gives the chooser a feeling of control as well.



  • People can do whatever they want, of course, but for me, I'll pass. The main thing I have going for me is my brain, and I'm not going to soak it in THC for a cheap kick -- not to mention that smoking pot is as dangerous as smoking tobacco.... Alcohol and snuff are drugs enough for me.

  • It's just as bad as tobacco for you, maybe a lot better since you don't smoke nearly as much of it. I don't understand what the problem is. Everyone does it, from 15 year old kids to peoples grand parents. No one that smokes weed usually goes out and robs anyone, and no one has ever died from it. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but it seems like a pretty harmless drug.a

  • No, alcohol kills more than pot because it's actually poisonous. Ask the people behind the recent French medical report which classified drugs in three categories based on their danger:

    1. Most dangerous: Alcohol, heroin, cocaine.
    2. Less dangerous: Nicrotine tobacco, LSD, MDMA ("Ecstasy")
    3. Least dangerous: Cannabis

    Put that in your pipe and smoke it, it will be less dangerous than put what you use in your glass and drink it. :-)

  • > Look in countries like Ireland where they have legalized it - it's a non-issue.

    You're confusing European nations; pot is illegal in Ireland. Other than that, I agree with your posting entirely. :)
  • Sagan also wrote that pot enhanced his experience of food, particularly potatoes, music and sex.

    I guess that explains the disappearing bags of potato chips amongst certain households. But really, I wish he had been advocate for NORML publicly instead of as Mr. X. You're at a club or a sporting event and somebody is obnoxious violent or rude. Have they been drinking alcohol or smoking pot?
    I imagine big tobacco would say the latter, but the true answer is obvious.
    Drugs that provoke specualation on the fact that we're getting screwed every day of our lives are illegal, and alcohol, used to numb it down, are legal. Now isn't that funny?
  • Does this surprise anyone? It's been years since I was involved in the use of such material, but Sagan sure looked like a stoner (or fellow ex-stoner) to me....

    As for the movie theaters, I know in Miami as late as the '80's you could pick up an excellent second-hand buzz.
  • This is a piece of folklore.

    Hardly. Most influential artists I've met enjoy smoking pot. Many influential artists of the past are on record as enjoying it, or perhaps opium, absinthe, or various psychedelics.

    I'm not talking about hang-in-corporate-lobbies art, or Top 40 Radio. I mean lasting and influential art forms.

    And yes, a trained mind can help.

  • Sorry, you're dead wrong. Marijuana is not physically addictive, unlike heroin, nicotine or alcohol. You can safely cold turkey marijuana and experience no adverse side affects, no sickening withdrawal symptoms.

    Sure, some people get psychologically addicted to marijuana. I did. But during the two year period where I smoked at least three times a day, it was never the high of the drug that kept me going, it was the enhanced appreciation of music.

    When I finally decided to quit, it was my own decision. You need the strength of character to stop completely, but it's not impossible. Hell, I'll even say it's not hard. Please don't take this personally, but your attitude is tranferring the blame from your own psychological dependence to the drug itself, and is typical of the "it's not my fault" attitude that seems to permeate society today - the same attitude that causes people to sue video game manufacturers for the actions of a murderous lunatic.

    As for the divide and pick routine, this is a side effect of drug prohibition. Do you honestly think that this would be the case if the drug was legalized? (and hence, prices lowered?)

    I'm talking from personal experience here, but if you need qualifications, I spent 2+ years in medical school, and extensive reading of medical journals and studies on marijuana use before I drew my conclusions.

    Daniel.

  • damnit, stop telling me about that, I needed those surveys to back up my smug assertion that the majority of americans want the war on drugs ended... well, it's still possible they do (tho probably not likely), but now I can't have those cool moments when I'm walking through a crowd and thinking "y'know, most of the people around me are dope smokers, or used to be anyway."
    ahh well.. among my crowd in high school, I'd say drug use was something like maybe 60%, but nowadays most everyone I know is (or at least was) a drug user. still, sucks to have my head pulled outta my ass wrt drug usage figures...
  • Well, I don't know where to start responding to this post; almost every phrase contains a bad assumption. How about: Don't pretend to be able to speak for everyone else. If you think about it, that's pretty pompous. YOU cannot tell ANYONE ELSE what their experience is. Where do you get the notion that you can? Maybe you've known some people in denial; you admit were in denial a while yourself. But many people aren't.

    I'm not saying pot's an IQ pill for everyone. I'm saying it's a creativity pill for some people. That's a fact supported by the direct experience of those people, and supported by some of their creations that have lasted. No, smoking pot won't make Einsteins out of idiots, but it has helped many Einsteins expand their potential.

    It's a shame if the only use you found for THC was numbing yourself, but believe me, many people find much more. Don't deny the possibility of things you don't understand.

  • "Well, she didn't, she fainted and would have died if I haden't made her eat a whole bunch of cofee and salt."
    I think you may have taken an alarmist's viewpoint in this instance. While it may be possible to suffer a drop in blood pressure, this is rarely fatal. Your story is akin to an account I read on Lycaeum.org. A lady tried DXM for the first time (a really meager amount by the way) and didn't like what she was experiencing so she called the hospital. They ended up pumping her stomach and telling her she would have died. Come on! I know people who've been able to drink upwards of 24 oz. of robo and not even become comatose. Lots of people overreact and do stupid things when participating in or viewing illegal acts.



  • The government is not interested in making cannibus legal, they would give the impression that they are trying to protect you from the dangers of drug use, in particualr, the stepping stone effect and, I'm convinced, the junk food effect. This is so wonderful. I am glad that the government watches out for me...
    I think that it is obvious that the G-men don't really care much about protecting the common man from himself. If that were the case, almost everything that brings big money would be illegal. Nicotine, alchohol. Two legal drugs that are more dangerous in terms of long term use and abuse. Nicotine is used in bug spray, for cryin' out loud. Liver and pancrease problems, anyone? More American's die from stroke and cancer than end up in the hospital with complications from smoking weed. That is the way it is.
    Give American's the right to choose any poison that they want, for all I care. It is your personal freedom to do any bodily harm that you want to yourself as long as it is only to yourself or a willing partner and you don't expect me to help pay for your treatment.
    I am going to smoke some rock now...
  • "I'd also guess 50% of you smoke Marijuana on a "regular" basis. But yet, Your brains have not melted, you have a good job, and you don't sleep around."
    Er. What have _you_ been smoking? ;P
    I smoked Marijuana for ten years on a regular basis. I tended not to be able to afford massive amounts of it, but I still ended up pretty spazzed out, unemployable, and feeling like worthless crap.
    I am so sorry to have to bust your bubble, but you're talking crap- you're making implications that are not warranted.
    Besides, what's with this 'sleep around' business? That's a weird tangent to take- where's that come from? When I was a stoner, I never _had_ sex. It was too difficult compared to getting high. Now that I'm clean and sober, well ;) I've had sex. It was pretty cool, I enjoyed it, and in fact in a controlled way I've 'slept around'. Excuuuuse me if that doesn't meet with your hemp-laden morality ;)
  • Beside the point, this is all just Darwinism anyway. I don't necessarily think we should be trying to prevent all these deaths. Educate the people and let them decide for themselves.
    Darwinism only applies if the people die before they are allowed to reproduce. Deaths due to cigarette-induced disease rarely occur until long after the deceased has produced all the offspring he/she desires. Thus, if propensity to smoke is genetic, the children inherit that propensity.
  • Yeah, alcohol is pretty bad. I don't drink; never have.

    Of course, the "myth" that alcohol is worse than dope has very little "proof," unless you believe the b@st@rds at newscientist.com. I find their "new" science almost as silly as some religions. It seems that the same would apply to the pompous new book from the Lindesmith Center ("Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts"). It is notable that this "medical" book has only received crital acclaim from such magazines a "Rolling Stones." Even the supposed medical virtues of the drug are hotly contested, and there is currently much more scientific evidence to the contrary. Currently there are no medical institutions in the United States that recognize any medical benefits of smoked marijuana.

    Also, claims that legalization of this and other drugs will result in lower crime are completely unsubstantiated. In fact, those countries (such as the Netherlands) that have experimented with such legalization policies are now re-thinking their policies. Crime rates and addiction cases have drastically risen as a result of legalization in these areas. Great Britain, Sweden and Egypt have also experimented with legalization policies. They were forced to abandon such politics in the face of remarkable rise in crime and substance abuse.

    Earlier this century Opium was legalized in China, resulting in 90 million addicts which took 50 years to rectify. Similar things have gone on in Thailand and Iran, which are still struggling to fix the situation.

    In April, 1994 21 major European cities formed a coalition against drugs, an acknowledgment that legalization has failed.

    Other countries, particularly in the Middle East and Orient, exact a high price for drug trafficking; and such enjoy a relative freedom from the plague of drug abuse and crime. This, may I add, is NEVER mentioned by legalization proponents.

    Since the 1970's over 10,500 studies have been conducted showing the harmful consequences of Marijuana use. "Newscience" and "NORML" don't want you to know that. They'd rather ignore the bulk of scientific evidence presented against their case. They'd rather enjoy their blunts legally, and pay less. They don't particularly care that history has shown their case completely irrational. No, to them Amdsterdam is a complete success story. Look at the handful of good things that have come of it. Of course, we won't mention the millions of nightmares it's caused... that's all irrelevant anyway. 'Long as we get our high.

    Well, if you want me to post more references for my numbers here, I'd be pleased to do so.

  • "I'd also guess 50% of you smoke Marijuana on a "regular" basis. But yet, Your brains have not melted, you have a good job, and you don't sleep around."
    Er. What have _you_ been smoking? ;P
    I smoked Marijuana for ten years on a regular basis. I tended not to be able to afford massive amounts of it, but I still ended up pretty spazzed out, unemployable, and feeling like worthless crap.
    I am so sorry to have to bust your bubble, but you're talking crap- you're making implications that are not warranted.
    Besides, what's with this 'sleep around' business? That's a weird tangent to take- where's that come from? When I was a stoner, I never _had_ sex. It was too difficult compared to getting high. Now that I'm clean and sober, well ;) I've had sex. It was pretty cool, I enjoyed it, and in fact in a controlled way I've 'slept around'. Excuuuuse me if that doesn't meet with your hemp-laden morality ;)
  • there's no point in trying to dissuade the argument that in some cases, occasional marijuana use can contribute to apathy, laziness, and general failure in life. everyone who went to high school knows someone who became a pothead and dropped out of school in that order. i can poke holes all over your 'medical evidence' and such, but your core argument which i listed above is untouchable.

    this, however, needs to be taken with a healthy grain of salt. i know people who have messed their lives up -way- more with legal alcohol use than illegal marijuana use---i'd much, much rather be a dropout with a GED and a crappy restaurant job than a perpetually drunk homeless bum, something that weed just can't do to you. furthermore, i know even more people who've messed their lives up with a dangerous but legal and heavily encouraged thing: school. i know at least half a dozen people who've taken much more school than they could handle, going away to accelerated boarding schools, highly acclaimed colleges, taking more and more, spending all their time on homework, until they couldn't take it any more and killed themselves (or tried).

    it's of course absurd to argue that education kills (insert a pointed lack of cheap jokes here). nor does alcohol turn you into a bum; or, as carl sagan has so gracefully demonstrated, does weed turn you into a worthless slacker. the thing is, all of these things -can- have all of these effects---so why is the risk presented by marijuana any greater than the other two?

    food for thought.

    --neil
  • Don't you trust your friends?
  • Anyone notice that "marijuana" is spelled "mairjuana" in CNN's URL? I wonder if this was done on purpose, so people could send links to each other without worrying about filters picking them up.

    Then again, may be just a typo.
  • a slashdot thread on weed...i cant even look.

  • You say you believe in an open market for drugs. Does that include heroin, cocaine, and other "hard" drugs?

    Well... yeah. There already is a black market in all of these drugs, unregulated, so that my 14 year old niece could get some PCP through friends at school, and her parents wouldn't even know. If the market in drugs was regulated (what I meant by an open market, such as trade in alcohol or firearms), the laws could be formulated such that only responsible adults could purchase and use drugs.

    This is may sound idealistic, but I believe it is a more reasonable goal than complete eradication of all drug use by the U.S./U.N. war on drugs.

    People shouldn't need to be using heroin or cocaine any more than Prozac or Benzedrine. but we must realize that before these drugs (heroin and cocaine) were prohibited, they were existant in consumer products with much lower potency. There was abuse of those products, and the legislators turned to all out prohibition to stop the abuse. If they had merely regulated the sale and use (i.e. make it illegal to use drugs and operate heavy machinery, babysit, etc.) we would be in a much better situation today. Chewing of the coca leaf, for example, is a stimulant similiar to coffee. In the form of cocaine (of cut with other junk like baby laxatives) it can be a dangerous drug.

    Hard alcohol wasn't nearly as prevelant before prohibition as it was after. People couldn't buy a case of beers (modern terminology) because they couldn't conceal it (for smuggling). A bottle of everclear was a different story. Same with a vial of coke vs. a bag of coca leaves.

    Just another two cents on the issue. Dialog is important. And trust me, I know for a fact I am not right on this issue, I merely want to provoke discussion.

  • Acid (Score:1)

    by quux26 ( 27287 )
    I would have expected acid, if anything. Maybe I'll take another look at marijuana - maybe work on some perl stuff and see how it looks.

    This article has made my #$&@ing day. Hehehe.

    My .02
    Quux26
  • I realize that this took place in 1971, but still, what kind of movie theater was this, and where??

    And how much are tickets?!
  • are the safest and most efficient delivery system.
  • Damn, you stole my joke!!!

    TheGeek
    http://www.geekrights.org [geekrights.org]

  • So what were they smoking when the Milky Way got it's name ? Somebody obviously had the munchies then :-)
  • um, no, he died of cancer of the toe (of all things). he got cancer because he left a soccer injury untreated.

  • Take this as a slap in your face. (Score:3)

    by Sativa Primera ( 80516 ) on Sunday August 22, 1999 @10:13AM (#1732506) Homepage
    No matter who you are, this is a slap in your face. But, not for the obvious reasons... In 1937 a missguided man made the following statement...
    "There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others." Harry Anslinger, U.S. Commissioner of Narcotics, testifying to Congress on why marijuana should be made illegal, 1937. (Marijuana Tax Act, signed Aug. 2, 1937; effective Oct. 1, 1937.)
    It is this exact mentality that is responsible for the negativity surrounding Marijuana. We have all been told for as long as we will remember that Marijuana is EVIL, it will "melt your brain", it will cause you to have sex with "undesireables". As we sit here as mature adults who are all mostly intelligent and working in a high tech field, I would venture to guess that some 80% of you have smoked Marijuana. I'd also guess 50% of you smoke Marijuana on a "regular" basis. But yet, Your brains have not melted, you have a good job, and you don't sleep around. So as deductive thinking individuals we are left with the conclusion that our Government has lied to us about a potentially benefical natural substance for the past 60 some odd years. How's that make you feel? We elect these officials, it is our responsibility to announce that we will not accept their lies any longer. We are now capable of learning from a new medium, called the internet. It provides us with the information that we previously could not obtain. In it's purist form it has givin new meaning to the word freedom. No longer do we have to listen to their politically motivated mumbo jumbo. Let this article be a lesson to us all. Good people get high. That is a fact. Do these people belong in jail? Sativa Primera WebMaster Marijuana.Com
  • I think your point was more along the lines of: Marijuana is the second-most used recreational drug, yet it causes fewer ER admissions than any other recreational drug. Which is an impressive fact; it means that on a per-use basis, there is virtually no risk.

    Damn, you're right. Now I'm pulling all my books on the subject, searching the web, and doing deja.com searches to find my reference on this in order to clean that statement up. Haven't found it yet, but here's an interesting quote along the same lines:

    Marihuana: a signal of misunderstanding: First report of the national commission of Marihuana and Drug Abuse, pg. 83-84, published and handed over to the President and congress in 1972:
    " Lethality

    The commission's National Survey revealed that 48% of adults believe that some people have died from marihuana use. A careful search of the literature and testimony of the nation's health officials has not revealed a single human fatality un the United States proven to have resulted solely from ingestion of marihuana. Experiments with the drug in monkeys demonstrated that the dose required for overdose death was enourmous and for all practical purposes unachievable by humans smoking marihuana. This is in marked contrast to other substances in common use, most notably alchohol and barbituate sleeping pills.

    Of comparative note, 89% of all adults in the same Surbvey believe that some people have died from using alcohol. This indicates that public opinion regarding alcohol and its potential letality is more accurate than it is for marihuana. At the same time, factual knowledge regarding the inherent danger in using a substance, for example alcohol, seemingly does not deter many persons from using it irresposibly."    [emphases mine]
    This report, handed to President Nixon and the '72 congress, was the first in a long line of publicaly funded studies on marijuana use and public health policy which recommended decriminalizing the drug immediately. Needless to say, Nixon took one look at it's findings and tossed the report in the trash -- showing that politicians have no regard for any science that doesn't back up their pre-conceived notions.

    Thanks for both of your replies, BTW. :-)

  • > For example, heroin. It takes two shots to get addicted.

    Not exactly true, really, as anyone who's been on a morphine drip in the hospital can tell you. No, I'm not advocating heroin use. It's a very addictive drug, and you can overdose on it if you're not careful. But let's stick to the facts.

    > Being able to sit at the bus stop getting high with friends whilst an old granny is queing for her bus is just wrong.

    Being able to sit at a bus stop drinking a beer with friends whilst an old granny is queing for her bus is just wrong, too. Which is why it's illegal to do so.

    Now, I don't think marijuana is healthy. But our laws are a waste of money and only make the problem worse. People are getting really hurt, here, for minor lapses in judgement. It's just not working.
  • I work in San Francisco, the Valley, elsewhere, and ALL of the top software developers smoke dope.

    Count them with the artists and scientists who benefit from dope.

    You WANT your software company employees smoking!
  • Oh don't we? Where can I find these pictures?
    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction
  • If you do anything quasi-legal at least do it in the privacy of your home and not in a public place so that you don't have the least chance of getting caught. Furthermore I would say that such behaviour is less than wonderful for the good ol' brain in general plus the rather negative effects such as becoming dependant which anyone who has ever been to a drug treatment center will tell you. I think the cases of people able to use drugs without getting addicted is much like the people who can smoke til they are 95 or the people who drink every single day some can take it others cannot most likely some small adaptation on the level of the immune system or metabolic processes. I most likely would never use drugs because my family line has not proven to be well adjusted to it. My great-grandfather was an alcholic and I would rather not become something similar.
  • Lies only manifest more lies...It is silly to even argue with someone who says they no someone who died from Marijuana. It would be the FIRST death attributed to Marijuana in the History of the world, check your medical books. Ignorance is the product of propoganda. Intelligence is the product of Research. Sativa WebMaster Marijuana.Com
  • Tip off the DEA get the whole place closed down for good and get several people aquainted with the marvels of the prison social structure.
  • They are all poisons. How much less dangerous is cannabis than alcohol? Every study says something different. Unfortunately the debate is so polarised nobody has a chance to get at the full unexpurgated truth. I do know this, though: cannabis monkeys with your central nervous system in a big way. And it can certainly do you harm - in many different ways. So can all psychoactive drugs.
    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction
  • Did you inhale? I hear some people (read clinton) tried pot and didn't like it. They (read clinton) didn't inhale.

    I tried heroin once and didn't like it. I think it might be because I didn't inject. It really didn't do anything for me.

  • Some anonymous coward noted:

    If alcohol was made illegal, then you can bet that all heroin dealers would also deal in alcohol. Dealers deal in all of the drugs that they can get hold of (including weak drugs like tobbaco, cannabis, alcohol and amphetamines).

    As a minor aside...in regions of the Southeast US that are dry counties (there are some in Tennessee and Georgia, and approximately 50 percent or more of the counties in Kentucky are dry; other Southern states in the "bible belt" prolly have "local option" laws) alcohol is quite illegal; in most places that are dry one can actually be charged with bootlegging for merely POSESSING alcohol, and the penalties are similar to those against marijuana posession. Penalties for SELLING alcohol can range all the way up to felony convictions policed by the ATF.

    I can also state--from experiences of friends-- that in those areas of the Southeast where one MUST buy alcohol from a bootlegger, it is quite common that the bootlegger is either growing marijuana or deals in marijuana (and occasionally in harder drugs as well). In fact, most of your former "shiners" do marijuana farming as a side business or have gone completely to farming pot and bootlegging Jack Daniels and Budweiser (at twenty dollars a six-pack, yet).

    As an aside--some fun statistics for folks. Kentucky--which has one of the higher percentages of dry counties of Southeast states (I don't know how many dry counties exist in Alabama or Mississippi or other states far deeper in the clutches of the Religious Reich than Kentucky is)--also had, until fairly recently, possibly the strictest law on cannabis posession in the US. (The law was eventually ruled unconstitutional because it was overbroad; the law as written defined marijuana so widely [it listed marijuana as being de jure "plants of the genus Cannabis or any parts or products derived thereof (my emphasis)] that posessing hemp rope [which is made from a Cannabis species posessing little if any THC] or taking dronabinol [the medical name for THC; more on this in a bit] would be technically illegal in Kentucky.)

    Oddly enough, Kentucky is the #1 producer of marijuana in the US and it has been stated that if marijuana were taxable marijuana would likely be Kentucky's #1 cash crop (surpassing even tobacco, and Kentucky is in the top three tobacco producing states). If marijuana were legalised even for medicinal purposes in the US, most farmers could probably abandon farming tobacco; the climate and soil in Kentucky are next to perfect for growing cannabis, and in fact the US Government set up huge hemp farms in Kentucky during WW II for the war effort ("Hemp for Victory"). It is also thought it is likely impossible to eliminate all of the marijuana harvested in Kentucky, as a fair percentage of it is either growing feral in national forests or wildlife areas (where spraying paraquat is prohibited) or is outright planted in areas where spraying is prohibited.

    Perversely, the main psychoactive principle in marijuana (delta-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC) is legal in the US, whilst marijuana isn't for the large part. THC is sold and marketed legally as a Schedule II drug called dronabinol (trade name is Marinol) and has been since the late 80's. The FDA, under considerable pressure from the DEA (and it may come as a surprise, or maybe not, that the DEA does have much influence over drug scheduling) has so far refused to even drop pure marijuana to Schedule II (which would legalise it for medical use in the US) even though pure THC is listed under Schedule II and even though a federal court has ruled that the FDA should drop scheduling of both pure THC and marijuana to "Schedule IV or V" (this being in a lawsuit by NORML).

    (A note on how the US does drug scheduling. Drugs that have psychoactive abilities are listed from Schedule I (illegal for any use, and used for drugs considered "dangerous" and/or with no legitimate medical use that isn't served by "safer" drugs) down to Schedule V (possibly addictive in some form if you take it in the long term, but in some cases considered safe enough that prescriptions aren't required).

    (Examples--heroin is listed as Schedule I here in the US (in Britain it'd be listed in the equivalent of our Schedule II). Morphine and most really strong opiates (fentanyl, oxycodone, etc.) are listed as Schedule II, along with pure amphetamine and dextroamphetamine (still legal for treatment of narcolepsy and for weight control). Schedule III is, mostly, medium-strength opiates such as codeine derivatives, a few strong benzodiazepines, and some amphetamine and barbituate derivatives [if memory serves, barbituate itself is also Schedule III]. Schedule IV includes most "downer" drugs--a lot of barbituate derivatives and drugs that metabolise to barbituates [like Ritalin], most legal benzodiazepines [Valium, Xanax, etc.], etc. as well as most codeine preparations and some barbituate relatives [Phenteramine, the "phen" part of "phen-fen", was Schedule IV before it was pulled from the market]. Schedule V listed drugs are fairly rare; the only ones I know of offhand are paregoric and "Cheracol" [which contains a weak opiate], both of which are listed as "exempt" narcotics and at least in Cheracol's case is available as an OTC drug in many states.

    (No, the way the US does scheduling makes no sense at all. Hallucinogens and narcotics are seen as Really Bad and usually get listed as Schedule I or II; benzodiazepines, like Xanax or Valium, are well known to have a high potential for abuse [lots of people, LOTS, have been hooked on Valium and other tranquilisers; I happen to know a member of my family who has been hooked on Xanax for approximately the last twelve years yet refuses to get help, and the doctors fear the shock of withdrawal at this point would cause her serious harm] yet are listed as Schedule IV in most cases [along with codeine which takes some time to get addicted to--it's been said one can get hooked on Valium after a week or so of use]...I know of one case where a benzodiazepine has been listed as Schedule I (Rohypnol; "roofies", "date-rape drug") and only because it was being used in assaults and people had OD'd on it, and valerian root (which actually contains a very small amount of Valium in it, and has other active principles which your body metabolises to Valium--it's where the whole idea for benzodiazepines came from!) isn't even scheduled at all and can be bought over the counter at your local grocery in the "health-food" or "vitamins-n-herbs" section. The vast majority of drugs that can cause hallucinations at ANY dose [LSD, ketamine, psilocybin, ibogaine, etc.] are listed as Schedule I, even in cases where medical benefit has been proven in clinical trials [ibogaine has been proven to be useful in treating addictions to cocaine and heroin, and is one of the few useful agents known for treating the former]; usually at the moment it is discovered clinical trials are being started, permission is denied for continuing trials by the DEA. Marijuana is in much the same boat; in part the drug was banned in large part due to lobbying from liquor companies [who had JUST had liquor re-legalised and who were scared to death that marijuana would sink their chances at re-establishing legal business] and the DEA refuses to re-legalise because of the canard that marijuana is a "gateway drug" and also because marijuana is classified as a hallucinogen. [As a minor aside--Ectasy is also banned as a hallucinogen, NOT as an amphetamine derivative. As another aside, "anti-drug" programs with kids are also starting to label tobacco and alcohol as "gateway drugs"--especially tobacco. I expect after tobacco and alcohol have been banned they shall start next on cappuccino being a "gateway drug" and calling for the coffeehouses of the US to first stop serving to anyone looking younger than thirty, then closing up altogether.] Ketamine, which is a Schedule I drug in humans, isn't even scheduled AFAIK in veterinary use [where it is used as an anesthetic in larger animals, particularly equines--and yes, before one asks, veterinary drugs ARE scheduled just like human drugs are; many opiates used for tranquiliser darts and the like are licensed as Schedule II drugs [like carfentanyl] or are dual-scheduled [PCP was formerly Schedule I save for veterinary settings, in which it was Schedule II...] Nicotine for medicinal use [in "quit smoking" programs] isn't even scheduled AT ALL and most forms are available OTC, even though most scientists who have studied mechanisms of addiction will state nicotine is at least every bit as addictive as heroin or cocaine, if not more so; methadone is listed as Schedule II for treatment of addiction to opiates [and yes, it is directly comparable].

    (If I were drawing up the scheduling, morphine and Valium would BOTH be at Schedule II, with all the strict licensing requirements and paper-trail required; marijuana I'd place in Schedule IV or V for medical use. The medical data just aren't there for it to be at tighter scheduling; there is evidence (from old copies of the US Pharmacopeia all the way to informal trials) that marijuana and cannabinoids DO have benefit in a number of illnesses, such as AIDS Wasting Syndrome, cancer wasting syndromes, severe vomiting from chemo, glaucoma, and epilepsy; in many cases pot is being used for treatment of illnesses that are refractory to standard treatment--nothing else works. The FDA apparently thinks there's enough benefit to allow *pure THC* as a legal drug, and a number of companies are working on cannabinoid derivatives that don't get you high but still have the same medical effects [they could work with pot, but pure pot is still Schedule I and even pure THC (which doesn't work as well for cancer patients and AIDS patients, which indicates that THC derivatives or "chemical cousins" in pot may also be helping there) is Schedule II which many doctors don't like to prescribe--one of the big problems with pain management in terminal cancer patients in hospitals/nursing homes/hospice is that doctors in the US are very hesitant to prescribe strong opioid painkillers because they are convinced their patients will become addicts and/or they do not want to deal with the red tape involved with Schedule II drugs (you have to have a DEA license to even prescribe them, prescriptions CANNOT be renewed, you CANNOT write prescriptions for over a month's supply, the pharmacist must likewise be DEA-licensed, and the DEA can block a prescription being filled if they feel it's for an "excessive" amount and bust the doc for drug trafficking), even if the only way a patient CAN get relief is through a Schedule II drug]. There is [at least according to the 1989 version of the Physician's Desk Reference, in the prescribing info for Marinol (dronabinol)] only one recorded death even remotely attributable to THC overdose, and even then it is doubtful whether THC was all that was involved [other drugs were in the person's system]...it isn't as dangerous as Valium, certainly, or other benzodiazepines [Valium is very, very bad to take with alcohol or other depressants; people have died from this; people have also died from accidential OD's of Valium and Xanax, as well as from deliberate OD's in suicide attempts], and I seriously doubt that even a six-month supply of pure THC [which is the maximum for Schedule IV or V drugs; some states have lower limits] is going to kill someone unless they already have something seriously wrong with them. Hell, people have been known to get addicted to Cheracol cough syrup, and it's listed as an "exempt narcotic" which can legally be sold OTC--to the point some states have legal restrictions on how many bottles one can buy, or keep the stuff behind-the-counter. The only iffy thing is synergy effects, but as far as that goes--both NSAID drugs like ibuprofen and aspirin and acetominophen and its derivatives are Very Bad to take if you are drinking alcohol, and Seldane (an antihistamine) was sold OTC in Canada till it was found out that it caused fatal heart rythym disturbances when taken with damn near everything from common antibiotics to medications for yeast infections and athlete's foot sold OTC. [It and Hismanal, a similar drug, got pulled from the US market around a year ago. Dunno if the Canadian equivalent of the FDA did so, too.] At the very least, if they legalised the stuff even for medical use it'd help a lot of farmers here in Kentucky, especially considering that if things keep going the way they are the largest legal cash crop in the state may eventually become illegal [tobacco] and Kentucky is not a particularly rich state to begin with; besides, the state already makes nearly *all* of its money on vices [gambling (the horse industry), alcohol (mess of distilleries, mostly bourbon but other stuff too--perversely in a lot of dry counties), tobacco, coal-mining (often, unfortunately, strip mining), exporting drivers of fast cars to NASCAR, and marijuana if you ignore the fact it's slightly illegal] to begin with. :)

    (Another fun drug fact--many people note that marijuana is safer than aspirin and/or acetominophen. This is true. What many people may not realise is that aspirin and acetominophen *both* were grandfathered in when the FDA was formed. It's been stated that were they developed under today's drug safety testing schemes, aspirin would likely not get FDA approval and FDA approval would be iffy for Tylenol (the main way it'd get in is as an alternative for people who absolutely CANNOT take NSAIDs [the large class of painkillers known as Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Agents of which aspirin is one member], and whom doctors do not want to use steroids or opiates in--because aside from Tylenol one's choices ARE pretty much NSAIDs, opiates, or steroids). One of the main reasons ibuprofen, ketoprofen, etc. are marketed and have done so well is BECAUSE those NSAIDs are safer than aspirin and are proven well enough to be sold safely OTC. [Ibuprofen is actually *better* at treating some kinds of pain, too--in particular, it blocks prostaglandins which are a big cause of menstrual pain. Women all over the US *still* silently thank the FDA for the day they approved Motrin OTC. :)] Also, I should probably refer to asprin as acetylsalicylic acid rather than aspirin, considering Aspirin (R) is actually a registered trademark in most of the rest of the world [including Canada] for what we in the US just know as Bayer aspirin. :) [Thank the gods that the Canadians aren't Trademark Nazis or I'd have a mess of Mounties riding down to carry me away. :)])

    Just my approximately 87 cents :)

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  • Sagan made various technical contributions here and there just like any other astrophysicist, but what made him special was his communication of science to the masses. Scientific education is sorely lacking in this country, and inspiring the general population to support science is just as important as particular research projects.

    After all, we only learned a little bit more about geology through the moon landing, but how much more support did the scientific community get because of that?

    I don't think we should belittle Sagan's mastery of communication and say that it's not a "real" contribution to science.
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  • You maybe mean Holland, but even there, dope is not exactly legal, but decriminalised. It would be very difficult indeed for any country to actively legalise consumption of canabis. Ther is a huge international treaty (I forget the name, perhaps someone can remind me) that binds all the signatory countries to hold quite specific laws regarding drug use.

    However, a country can keep the laws on their books, but choose to turn a blind eye towards prosecution. Certainly in the UK, there are several places where if you are caught with personal quantities of marijuana, you may even escape being cautioned.

  • Marijuana is NOT a cheap thrill. I had spent hours trying to find a bug in a program i was writing for work. The next day i came to work under the influence of marijuana and found the bug within minutes.
  • According to my "Deadly Doses, a writers guide to poisons" which is actually a very good treatise on poisons. Marijuana is a 0 of out 6 on the toxicity scale. Nicotine, morphine, heroin, alcohol, tylenol all score higher on this scale. There are no known OD's due to marijuana.

    [I'd tell ya what they all are, but my books are packed for the move]

    Of course this is coming from someone who doesn't do any drugs except ethanol... Oh well. I do notice that people who smoke up a lot tend to 'get stupid'. This I HAVE seen backed up in studies. Of course I don't know if this is a permanent effect like baking your brains with ethanol. On the other hand, I've never gotten into a fight with a ganja smoker. But I have been rather nastily threatened/whatever by numerous drunks.
  • I personally support this fellow's perspective, but there's an angle that he didn't mention, which is addiction. Marijuana is damned addictive stuff, all in the psychological sense like getting addicted to food or compulsively handwashing. Claiming that it's not addictive is a crock, that's a technicality- _people_ are addictive, _people_ develop habits, and pot is about the most insidious thing you'll ever run into because it doesn't fsck you up physically (insert Cheech and Chong cough here, assume deadly pallor), it's not a hazard to society (okay, everybody who's _hit_ something like a bush or tree when driving in a car stoned, raise your hand), and it becomes your best friend (I've seen heroin junkies have a harder time giving up pot than their heroin!)

    Wrong. This is not my "perspective," as you so eloquently state, but referenced opinion based on studies reported in the medical literature. Marijuana is NOT addictive. Period!

    Physical addiction is generally a manifestation of a neurological dependence on some arbitrary substance, such as nicotine, amphetamines, alcohol, narcotics, or barbiturates. When an individual "becomes addicted," it's because the drug mimiced a particular brain chemical such as a neuro-transmitter or neuro-inhibitor. By mimic, I mean that the drug winds up binding to a particular receptor normally used by neuro-transmitter or neuro-inhibitor. When this happens one runs the risk of allowing that part of the brain which manufactures said chemical to atrophy; meaning that afterward it will produce less of that particular chemical because the receptors have become satiated by an external source. If an individual in this condition suddenly stops taking the drug which is binding to those receptor sites, after the portion of his/her brain which manufactures that particular chemical has atrophied, then the person winds up experiencing drug withdrawals. This is physical dependence. Since different drugs mimic different neuro-chemicals the effects and symptoms of withdrawal are specific to each drug. However, marijuana does not produce this condition in people, or any other mammal. Period.

    The Canadian "Le Dain Commission Interm Report," commissioned on the recommendation of Minister of National Health and Welfare and appointed as a "Commission of Inquiry" into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs, presented it's report to the Canadian government in 1970. Here is a summary of what it has to say on the potential for physical dependence of marijuana, as obtained from the "Consumers Union Report: Licit & Illicit Drugs", Pg 460:
    Physical dependence on marijuana, the report adds, has not been demonstrated; "it would appear that there are normally no adverse physiological effects or withdrawal symptoms occurring with abstinence from the drug, even in regular users." Reports to the contrary from the East are suspect. "Since hashish is smoked with large quantities of tobacco and other drugs in many Eastern countries, these mixtures could be responsible for the minor symptoms reported."
    Now, you may want a quote on psychological dependence as well:
    Marijuana, it is true. may in some cases produce psychological dependence -- but "psychological dependence may be said to exist with respect to anything which is part of one's preferred way of life. In our society, this kind of dependency occurs regularly with respect to such things as television, music, books, religion, sex, money, favorite foods, certain drugs, hobbies, sports or games and, often, other persons. Some degree of psychological dependence is, in this sense, a general and normal psychological condition"[Emphases Mine]
    I happen to like spinach more than just about any other green leafy vegetable. By your logic, does this mean that I'm "addicted" to spinach? How about coffee? If I don't get my morning coffee, I get one hell of a headache! Not so if I miss a day of spinach. According to this, if I were a heavy marijuana user and suddenly stopped smoking pot, I should expect as many withdrawl symptoms as if I had just stopped eating spinach. Maybe less -- as I just might experience extreme constipation from giving up spinach (it's good roughage).

    You can't _get_ a more insidious drug. It doesn't _need_ to lead to anything to screw you up completely, especially if you lose the volition to do anything _but_ smoke pot and end up struggling to come up with the money to _get_ the pot. You'll lie, manipulate, and con anybody, your own mother, your best friend, to get it. I smoked it for years, years ago when I was growing up. Me and my best friend had a little routine we'd go through- we'd go in on a bag, and then one of us would divide and the other pick. This is my best friend and he couldn't trust me to be fair- he knew I couldn't- and of course I couldn't trust him either! How many of you have to do this? One divides and the other picks? Is that a really _mellow_ spiritual approach?

    This is mostly just unsubstantiated person opinion. IOW: CRAP! As for how you used to split bags of dope, well that sounds like a perfectly sane Machiavellian approach to your relationships. People fuck each other over for sex, money, status, and just about anything else desirable, including pot. So, your point is?
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  • Snuff in some areas is just fine ground chew.

    And people take it orally.

    Pot doesn't cause cancer if ingested either...
  • If cannabis is poisonous, how come we don't even know what the LD-50 for it it?

    Because we can't find one. The ONLY known effect of an "overdose" of THC is extended sleepiness.

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  • > If he really believed she had potentially
    > fatally low blood pressure, the intelligent
    > thing to do would be to call 911 and/or take her
    > to the emergency room ASAP.

    Well, the problem with a forum rant is you don't get totellt he whole story.

    How do you know I was in a country that _has_ a '911'? How do you know I wasn't omwewhere where I and everyone else there would've been imprisioned for a long, long time for this? How do you know I wasn't at a place where people would've rather pulled a knife and shot me for calling in the police? Or killed the girl and dumped her in a ditch rather than having the police come in?

    How do you know I didn't take Basic First Aid and knew I was doing the right thing? For that matter, how do you know I am an unlicenced medic?

    Yeah, a lot of the replies to my original post were vast misunderstandings. This one ticked me off a bit, though.
  • Could you give us a word or two on why you found it "disturbing" ?

    I haven't read it, and I probably won't bother by default, though I do like to read intellectually disturbing matter now and then. So make a pitch.

  • 1) Although it is not proven that Marijuana causes cancer, it has been shown that it contains as much or more of same chemicals contained in cigarettes that have been shown to cause cancer.

    The number of food additives and drugs the FDA approve every year which 'have been shown to cause cancer' is staggering. Your point here is not a convincing one when used against marijuana alone.

    Overconsumption of alcohol is said to be a major cause of liver failure and heart disease. Let's ban that. Saccharin and aspartame (Nutrasweet) cause cancer in lab rats. Let's ban them.

    The fact is, that if you smoke pot, and you smoke just pot, you smoke a lot less than if you smoke cigarettes. And the correlation between smoking pot and getting addicted to cigarettes is not proven. This is probably because joints don't have the lovely chemicals put into cigarettes by the tobacco companies to get you hooked. But let's not ban cigarettes, OK?

    2) Marijuana users are far more prone to chest infections, such as pneumonia. Hey, what did Sagan die of? 2+2 = 5, right?

    If I remember correctly, Sagan was ill with something more serious before succumbing to pneumonia. Besides, alcohol depresses the immune system, cigarettes cause lung cancer....

    3) The THC in marijuana has been shown to affect the immune system. Unlike alcohol, THC can stay in your body for weeks depending on how often you smoke.

    Sorry, but the aftereffects of alcohol also stay in your blood for weeks after you drink, depending on how much you drink.

    4) It is VERY evident that marijuana affects the neuralogical systems of the body. There are many well documented side effects of the drug. Doctors are still researching the effect of marijuana on the brain.

    Every drug, including alcohol and tobacco, affect the neurological and other systems of the body. That's not a convincing argument vs. marijuana alone. Furthermore, scientific testing of marijuana has not yet been extensive enough to indicate how widespread the side effects are.

    5) Studies among teenagers have shown that those who smoke marijuana are up to 104 times more likely to try and become addicted to other, more dangerous drugs, than those who have not tried.

    No they don't. Holland has found that since legalising marijuana, the average age of their heroin users (heroin is considered the follow-on drug from marijuana) has increased steadily. This is a universally accepted indicator that younger people are not taking up stronger drugs.

    6) Less than 1 in 4 high school students have ever used, or ever will use marijuana. I doubt that number is higher with responsible, job holding adults.

    Sounds like a serious issue, then.

    7) Marijuana is addictive. While not everyone who uses becomes an addict, there are many who seek it out compulsively. In 1995 165,000 people entered drug treatment programs to seek help for marijuana abuse.

    How many entered treatment programs for alcohol? How many tried to give up cigarettes? Let's see some context here.

    8) Frequent heavy users of marijuana develop a tolerance to the drug. They require an increasingly higher dosage to get the high they seek.

    This is true for every drug, including alcohol and cigarettes. It is not a convincing argument for banning marijuana alone.

    It pisses me off to see posts like this. People who are likely to encourage kids and others to view marijuana and other drugs (tobacco and alcohol included) as a harmless thing. Then get all righteous, spurting BS about "freedom" and "lies." Yeah, everything you read on the 'net is true. Isn't it wonderful what you learn?

    Yes, your post is an excellent example: you provide little or no context for your 'points', you quite often get your facts wrong, you extrapolate 'facts' from unproven assertions, and in some cases your facts are wrong.

    Remember kids, just because someone posts footnotes doesn't mean they know what they're talking about.

    One phrase:

    Everything in moderation.

  • I'm strongly for legalization of weed, but I don't object to laws against use of dangerous equipment under the influence of drugs, ignorance, or stupidity.

    I especially like the ignorance and stupidity part. Half of the SUV's out there would be undriven if this were law.

  • ...to see if their homogenized, middle-America, Sunday-insert world has been rocked by the news that one of their most frequent and visible contributors liked to toke?

    Should make for an interesting teen-feedback segment: Parade asks: Would you smoke pot if it meant you could write a screenplay starring Jodie Foster?

    Once back when I was at Cornell, I had the pleasure of sharing an elevator with the elusive Mr. Sagan. Around about the third floor, he hit the emergency stop button, pulled out a one-hitter, and asked me if I wanted some.

    True story. Except the part about where he stopped the elevator and smoked marijuana.

    I wonder what Howard Huge is up to this week...

  • Or directly, because they had really low blood preassure, and the first joint they tried made their blood preassure drop really low.
    There were a few people there, all of which, except for me, were stoned. I go "Hey, where's Tracy?" and they all start giggling. "She
    fell asleep!". Well, she didn't, she fainted and would have died if I haden't made her eat a whole bunch of cofee and salt.

    Oh, dear....
    I hope you didn't hurt her too badly. How did you diagnose her "low blood pressure"? A sphygmomanometer? Or by looking...

    How did you know she was dying? This is a big deal, you know. We don't generally go around dying (in the short term).

    Was it low blood sugar? Did you have access to a blood sugar measuring device?

    Did you know that coffee is a diuretic, with the effect of reducing the total fluid volume of the body? The result is reduced blood pressure.

    Did ou know that if you create a hypertonic solution in someone's stomach, the tendency is for the body to shift fluids (H2O)to reduce the salinity of the slug of salt to less toxic levels? The short term result would be a dropping of intravascular volume as fluid shifted to the site of greater concentration. This process is called "osmosis".

    The better solution for the situation would have been to encourage the consumption of isotonic or hypotonic solutions, to bolster intravascular volume. If there was actually a problem.

    What you did was likely harmful to her, and possibly the very worst thing you could have done.
    Please don't make medical diagnoses and then perform therapy modalities unless you know what you are doing. You obviously didn't.

    I apologize for being so unkind and blunt with you, as you seem to be a caring individual. Since you do have an inclination to mess with people in what you perceive to be a medical situation, please get some training. There are many good first aid programs out there, and MANY hard core books. Get one, or five, and read it.

    Or, call 911. But, I confess, I'm glad you didn't, and didn't have to.

  • Kismet said:

    Shall we get the facts straight?

    I don't mind a little debate from either side. (I'll note--just to state my opinion--that I definitely think marijuana should be legalised at the least for medicinal use.) I've some minor nit-picking and/or questioning of some points you've raised, though. Don't take it as a flame, but as honest questioning on some of the applications of statistics and/or studies you've quoted.

    1) Although it is not proven that Marijuana causes cancer, it has been shown that it contains as much or more of same chemicals contained in cigarettes that have been shown to cause cancer.

    Is this marijuana smoke, or is this the simple dried plant? (I ask for two main reasons; 1) Most figures of this type compared cigarette smoking vs. marijuana smoking, and 2) there are methods of ingesting marijuana that do not involve smoking the plant [i.e. "hash brownies"--brownies containing marijuana].)

    I am also curious if this study took into account the fact that most cigarettes in the US are not only sprayed with known carcinogens for control of tobacco diseases such as blue mold, but are also "doctored" (including soaking in flavouring solutions and "doping" with nicotine) in the process of converting tobacco into cigarettes. (Yes, cigarette companies DO doping. Let's just say I have relatives who are former employees of a certain large cigarette manufacturer, and have some idea of how the average "non-specialty" cigarette is made.)

    I also wonder if the study took into account the fact that MOST organic substances, when burned, produce cancer-causing substances. (For example, charred meat contains nitrosamines which are known to cause cancer. So do burning cigarettes, and so does burning plant material in general because you are burning protein matter.)

    2) Marijuana users are far more prone to chest infections, such as pneumonia. Hey, what did Sagan die of? 2+2 = 5, right?

    In Sagan's case, there is a rather major mitigating factor that indicates--at least to me--he well could have died of pneumonia whether or not he smoked pot. That mitigating factor is the fact he had myeloproliferative syndrome.

    In case you're not aware, myeloproliferative syndrome is a precursor condition to leukemia and (occasionally) lymphoma at best. In fact, the leukemias are part of the spectrum of myeloproliferative disorders. A really good, if professionally oriented, summary including present treatment options is listed here [nih.gov] at PDQ Cancerlink [nih.gov]--which I'll note, as a personal aside, is a wonderful resource for anyone with cancer or who has a loved one with cancer (speaking as someone who recently had an uncle die from a rare cancer, adrenocortical carcinoma). The long and the short of it is, these disorders either ARE leukemias or have a bad tendency to convert to a form of acute myelogenous leukemia, and leukemias as a general rule tend to wreck one's immune system to begin with. Most treatments for leukemia (from chemotherapy to allotype-matched bone-marrow transplants--most folks with leukemia aren't able to do autograft BMT using their own bone marrow) tend to wreck your immune system in some form or another (folks receiving BMT basically get high-dose chemo and radiation to kill their bone marrow, then get a "rescue" from a tissue-matched donor; most regular chemo for leukemia will destroy at least a few non-leukemic white cells as well, and chemo regimens for adults tend to be heavier than for kids because adult leukemias tend to have a far worse prognosis than childhood leukemia).

    In other words, pot is probably not what made his lungs susceptible to pneumonia. Odds are, it was probably the underlying condition plus whatever chemo they had him on--especially if he died from an "atypical pneumonia". (As a minor aside, folks have commented "Pot has fungus on it" and insinuated Sagan got pneumonia from that. Actually, fungal lung infections are pretty common in patients with myeloproliferative diseases including leukemia; aspergillosis and [at least here in the Ohio Valley] histoplasmosis are common, and patients often get antifungals because of it.)

    3) The THC in marijuana has been shown to affect the immune system. Unlike alcohol, THC can stay in your body for weeks depending on how often you smoke.

    One can't be entirely sure it's the THC and not some other factor (i.e. smoke, period, which has also been shown to affect the immune system). It would be nice in a way if a controlled study could be done with people taking dronabinol (the FDA-approved form of pure THC) to see if it's in fact the THC or some other factor. (If such a study HAS been done, in humans, using dronabinol, I'd much appreciate info please. :)

    I'm not saying they didn't factor that in, just noting potential pitfalls. (One reason doctors can't decide if nicotine does affect the immune system is that no controlled studies have been done with straight nicotine [in part because nicotine IS toxic in large doses and is not normally prescribed except to wean folks off of tobacco products] and most studies have been done with smokers; they can't rule out it's something in the smoke that's doing it, though at least cigarette smoking affects one's immune system too.)

    4) It is VERY evident that marijuana affects the neuralogical systems of the body. There are many well documented side effects of the drug. Doctors are still researching the effect of marijuana on the brain.

    1) You should be probably careful to differenciate between marijuana and dronabinol, aka THC. I note this because separate studies ARE going into not only THC but some related compounds in marijuana. (THC isn't the only active compound!)

    I should also note that not all the research is being done on account of the "bad effects" of marijuana (that is, it gets one high and possibly makes one lazy if smoked heavily for long periods--and the second is up for debate; more on this later). There are known, medically beneficial "side effects" of both THC and other compounds in marijuana; these include influence on the vomiting center of the brain (this makes dronabinol, aka THC, useful as an antivomiting drug in emetogenic chemo like cisplatin; in fact, it's one of the two indications it's officially approved for); as an appetite stimulant and also somehow helping patients keep on more weight than they normally would (this is useful in "wasting syndromes" such as AIDS Wasting Syndrome; this is the second approved use for dronabinol, and in fact is so far the only drug known to be effective); as a possible anticonvulsant; as a possible antidepressant (THC and other compounds in marijuana affect the brain in a similar way to "serotonin-receptor" antidepressants such as Zoloft, only it encourages the brain to secrete more serotonin); and as a possible antiglaucoma agent.

    Also, a lot of drug research into how THC affects the brain is involved in making "cannabinoid derivatives" that can be used medicinally yet don't get one stoned (which is good for drug manufacturers, because they no longer have to deal with the red tape involved in Schedule II drug creation--more on this in a bit, with some stuff that might enlighten you).

    5) Studies among teenagers have shown that those who smoke marijuana are up to 104 times more likely to try and become addicted to other, more dangerous drugs, than those who have not tried.

    This is the famous "gateway drug" argument, and I should note that even among abuse specialists it is VERY controversial at best. I'll list but a few reasons why you should take the info with a grain of salt (or preferably an entire container of Morton's Kosher):

    1. Most kids that are brought in for substance abuse problems have a prior history of psychological problems to begin with--many of which include family problems. (Many of the "family problems", mind, include: abusive parents, history of antisocial behaviour to begin with, history of problem with legal drugs, depression or bipolar syndrome ("manic-depression"), a history of suicide attempts, etc.) There is no good way to determine whether the kids would have gotten into "hard drugs" if marijuana hadn't existed, and there is some evidence to suggest they might well have gone into hard drugs to begin with.

    2. As you are well aware, marijuana is illegal in the United States. By definition, you are going to catch more kids who go on to hard drugs, who also have used "soft drugs", who have gotten themselves involved with the psychiatric care system (and often they are referred there from schools and law enforcement) than kids who use marijuana, do NOT go on to hard drugs, are discreet about use, and do not get involved in the criminal law system. Also, marijuana use tends to label kids (in the eyes of the criminal and the psychiatric systems of the US) as "bad kids" to begin with; I would not be surprised if this is not a self-fufilling prophecy in the case of some kids.

    3. There is a large, non-negligible group of people who use marijuana, have never been involved in psychiatric treatment or legal proceedings involving marijuana use (including those under 18) who will flat out lie on surveys regarding use; kids who are feeling rebellious to begin with (who are also considerably more likely to both use hard drugs and be caught smoking pot) will probably not or will not be given the chance to. (More on this in the next segment.)

    4. There is a considerably large and growing body of evidence to suggest that risk-taking behaviours in general--including the use of hard drugs and the flagrant use of marijuana--are at the least determined very early in life, if not outright genetically based. (There's evidence now to suggest people who will indulge in risk-taking behaviours can be found as early as elementary school age--four or five.) Some of this is controversial, and environment is certainly involved, but the propensity to indulge in risky behaviour is probably independent of whether one smokes marijuana. (In other words, it may well be the propensity to do risky things that leads someone both to use marijuana heavily AND to use hard drugs.)

    5. Any study on hard drug use and soft drug use is going to have to deal with some fairly heavy corrections for skew. Specifically, you have to correct for poverty (people in poverty are considerably more likely to use both hard and soft drugs--often as either a way to escape, or as one of the few options for making decent money), culture (in some cultures "hard" drugs are not as frowned upon), age, area of the country (in some parts of the US marijuana is dead common; in other areas alcohol or ectasy might be a "first drug"), whether or not the people involved have a bent for antisocial/rebellious behaviour to begin with, whether they have conditions that make them more likely to take risks or not evaluate consequences, etc.

    6. In case you're not aware of it, the *exact same arguments* used to classify marijuana as a "gateway drug" can be used to classify both alcohol AND tobacco as gateway drugs. (Alcohol and tobacco are both illegal for those under 18 or 21; in some areas alcohol is every bit as illegal as marijuana is and has to be bought from bootleggers; similar rates of people who drink alcohol or smoke early and go to hard drugs have been noted.) In fact, some schools and psychiatrists that believe in the "gateway drug" canard have actually STATED that alcohol and tobacco are gateway drugs! For that matter, the same argument can and *has* been used for black males (by racists), to attempt to criminalise heavy metal and rap music (claiming that kids who listen to heavy metal and/or rap are more likely to use drugs--forgetting to count in the "rebellion factor" being the biggie, rather than the music), claiming in the 50s that rock music in general caused drug use, claiming jazz caused drug use, etc. One should be *extremely* careful about whom one gets one's data from in these cases--the PMRC used the "metal and rap as gateway drug" argument to push "Tipper stickers" on albums and tries to use it to criminalise album sales to people under 18.

    In other words, there isn't any good evidence for even the existence of a "gateway drug effect". There IS evidence that kids who IN GENERAL are prone to antisocial or rebellious behaviour are more prone to both hard and soft drug use. (And yes, I can speak from experience--I've seen kids in the psychiatric care system, and the kids in there for hard drug use tend to have had problems even before they started pot or any hard drugs.)

    6) Less than 1 in 4 high school students have ever used, or ever will use marijuana. I doubt that number is higher with responsible, job holding adults.

    To quote Mark Twain, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. :) Polls on such things as illegal drug use are going to be BLATANTLY skewed for several reasons. Some of these reasons are directly attributable to the "War on (some) Drugs" in the US. I'll explain below:

    1) Most people on a survey are never going to admit they use marijuana even if they DO use it on a regular basis. This is because they fear their bosses may find out, or law enforcement may find out. Drug use in practically all businesses is a mandatory firing offense, due to federal guidelines.

    2) Kids sure as heck aren't going to admit it, because many kids know that there are essentially no such things as confidentiality or privacy for those under 18. (In many cases, if the survey is at a school or through a community service, the people doing the survey MUST IDENTIFY THE PARENTS BY LAW if a kid admits to them that they are using drugs.) Even if confidentiality was assured, many kids are going to assume it isn't and won't admit it.

    3) Most people, period, aren't going to admit to strangers that they use marijuana unless the person's already indicated they're friendly about it. (This is the same reason that a lot of people won't state they're gay in public, or won't state they're into BDSM, or are smokers, in public; it's still seen as somewhat socially unacceptable.)

    Most surveys of kids have either been by the government anti-drug task force or have been by antidrug groups like D.A.R.E. I strongly suspect that if NORML (a group promoting marijuana legalisation) were somehow by some miracle actually allowed to do a survey of drug use in schools they'd get quite a different answer from the government surveys. (NORML does have survey results from adults that indicate the number of folks who occasionally smoke marijuana is far higher than usually counted.)

    The simple fact is--precisely BECAUSE of the "War on (some) Drugs" and federal and state laws relating to drug use (which basically state that you end up out of a job and ineligible for welfare or public support, even unemployment, if you admit you use drugs recreationally)--your average Joe is about as unwilling to admit he uses marijuana as, say, your average person in the 50's was willing to admit he was a Communist or sympathised with someone being charged in the House Un-American Activities Committee. Or about as unlikely as your average white person in early 60's Alabama stating he supported civil rights for blacks in public where the governor and state government were stating "Segregation Forever" and black people were actually being lynched and their homes burned. (And yes, thanks to civil forfeiture laws and thanks to federal laws requiring kids who admit to taking drugs to be referred to law enforcement, the penalties ARE approximately as severe.) Nobody in their right MIND is going to say they smoke marijuana in the present climate of "hang 'em all" in the US (which, incidentially, has also led to the US being second behind Russia in terms of persons incarcerated in terms of population, thanks to mandatory sentencing guidelines; has led to the US having the largest-growing prison population of any country; has led to upwards of one fourth of black males in the US being legally unable to vote (due to laws which disenfranchise felons, and most drug penalties outside of simple posession of small amounts of marijuana are felonies); have led to nearly a THIRD of black males who have been imprisoned or will be imprisoned in their lifetime; has led to the US being criticised by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for human rights abuses in overcrowded prisons; and has probably lead to the social problems in America due to folks being unemployable because they have been imprisoned or have admitted drug use).

    I suspect, to be honest, the main reason it's steady at one-fourth is this is probably close to a mix of the numbers of students who aren't working, who have rebel-streaks to begin with (see previous statements on risk-taking), have a history with law and/or the psychiatric system and are never allowed to deny it in the first place, and kids who have tried to apply at jobs and been busted when the place did mandatory drug testing. (The "workplace" in many cases has been extended to sports, or in some places to ALL extracurricular activities; some classes require extracurricular activities in some districts, and at least one group of students is suing their districts with help from the ACLU over student urine-tests.)

    7) Marijuana is addictive. While not everyone who uses becomes an addict, there are many who seek it out compulsively. In 1995 165,000 people entered drug treatment programs to seek help for marijuana abuse.

    Again, I'd take care with statistics and also with definition of addiction.

    First off, the very definition of a PHYSICALLY addicting substance is that if you take it for a certain amount of time and at a certain amount your body's metabolism will become dependant on it to function. This is how heroin and cocaine and nicotine and alcohol become addictive; pretty much they mimic a neurotransmitter, and the body produces lower levels of it. (This is also why you get the "shakes" when coming off of heroin or other downers.)

    Scientists have found no evidence that either THC or marijuana is physically addictive.

    There is some concern marijuana is PSYCHOLOGICALLY addictive. However, the evidence for this is both controversial and complicated; one major factor that has come up is that persons who suffer from psychological addictions may well be addiction-prone to begin with. (This relates both to the evidence "risk-taking personalities" may be formed at childhood or even be partly genetically based, and at the problems in psychological studies trying to determine whether marijuana really *does* turn people into apathetic slugs. There's some evidence that a lot of those folks were apathetic slugs to begin with, or had "addictive personalities"--in other words, if it wasn't pot, it would be something else like sex [so maybe THAT was what was up with Clinton's willy :)] or extreme sports or being a workaholic.)

    A lot of the argument on whether marijuana is addictive actually may rest on how valid one takes the entire concept of psychological dependency; some psychiatrists honestly think the entire idea is hogwash and boils down to problems with impulse control, rather than true dependency. Time will tell on this.

    8) Frequent heavy users of marijuana develop a tolerance to the drug. They require an increasingly higher dosage to get the high they seek.

    I've never seen any mention of physical addiction or withdrawal syndrome in what I've read--not with THC, not with marijuana. I'd be very interested to know where you got this info.

    As a minor aside...technically, caffeine is physically addictive. Users have to get more over time to get the affects, there is a mild withdrawal syndrome ("no coffee headaches") and heavy caffeine users tend to seek out high-caffeine drinks like espresso and Jolt and Ballz :) The caffeine effect/toxicity level safety margin tends to stay large, though (most people are NOT going to hit toxic levels of caffeine unless they quintuple-brew a pot of espresso using caffeinated water). Caffeine use does have some potential side effects, both short and long-term (bad for high-blood-pressure people, can possibly cause probs with calcium absorption and slightly increase risk of osteoporosis, maybe if you drink gallons of espresso increased risk of stroke over lifetime, possibly effects with fertility--enough evidence doctors encourage infertile couples not to drink coffee if they're heavy drinkers). Caffeinated drinks, by and large, aren't going to hurt most people if done to excess--I expect most Americans are closet caffeine junkies :)--and the effects of caffeine addiction are mild, as are withdrawals. Since caffeine IS addictive, do we now ban coffee and soft-drinks which are decaffeinated? Do we ban chocolate (it contains a non-negligible bit of caffeine, and also theobromine which is addictive)? Are we gonna have the DEA bust people for having supplies of Jolt? :) Because this is roughly what you're talking here, if there's any physical addiction involved in marijuana; nothing as nearly as bad as heroin or amphetamine withdrawals, which you typically have to hospitalise people for to make sure they come out ok.

  • Amazing how we legalize alcohol, which causes thousands to be killed in automobile accidents, but make marijuana illegal. Marijuana makes you about as dangerous as a tree. But yet one is socially acceptable, and one is not.

    What hypocrisy! The only causualties of the war on drugs has been our civil rights. I don't care if people use drugs - it's their body and their life. The government has no business telling you what you can or cannot do as long as it does not cause injury to another. And I would like to remind our legislators that if you want something done - make it illegal for kids to do it.

    Look in countries like Ireland where they have legalized it - it's a non-issue. Nobody gets "smoked up" and plays baseball with other people's mailboxes. It lost all of it's "forbidden fruit" value once it was legalized, and now it's not even interesting.

    In short, it's a big joke. So what if people want to smoke pot? Atleast they aren't getting tanked up and doing something really stupid like buying Office 2000....

    --

  • What the hell is this? Just because some wacko Congressman in 1937 said ridiculous things about marijuana, that's supposed to be the root of all the obviously "false" ideas about the drug?

    I don't understand where people get off on this idea that marijuana is harmless. The same people who have say that 80% percent of us have tried it, and 50% are still smoking regularly. What kind of numbers are these? Dude, you just have to justify it to yourself and everybody else. Those numbers are plain wrong.

    Marijuana never did anybody good. Not even Mr. Sagan. Ok, maybe there's some medicinal value to the weed, but it's not something you want to be smoking.

    Shall we get the facts straight?

    1) Although it is not proven that Marijuana causes cancer, it has been shown that it contains as much or more of same chemicals contained in cigarettes that have been shown to cause cancer.

    2) Marijuana users are far more prone to chest infections, such as pneumonia. Hey, what did Sagan die of? 2+2 = 5, right?

    3) The THC in marijuana has been shown to affect the immune system. Unlike alcohol, THC can stay in your body for weeks depending on how often you smoke.

    4) It is VERY evident that marijuana affects the neuralogical systems of the body. There are many well documented side effects of the drug. Doctors are still researching the effect of marijuana on the brain.

    5) Studies among teenagers have shown that those who smoke marijuana are up to 104 times more likely to try and become addicted to other, more dangerous drugs, than those who have not tried.

    6) Less than 1 in 4 high school students have ever used, or ever will use marijuana. I doubt that number is higher with responsible, job holding adults.

    7) Marijuana is addictive. While not everyone who uses becomes an addict, there are many who seek it out compulsively. In 1995 165,000 people entered drug treatment programs to seek help for marijuana abuse.

    8) Frequent heavy users of marijuana develop a tolerance to the drug. They require an increasingly higher dosage to get the high they seek.

    It pisses me off to see posts like this. People who are likely to encourage kids and others to view marijuana and other drugs (tobacco and alcohol included) as a harmless thing. Then get all righteous, spurting BS about "freedom" and "lies." Yeah, everything you read on the 'net is true. Isn't it wonderful what you learn?

    Here are some references to look up, next time you want to post this kind of garbage about marijuana:

    1.Brookoff, D.; Cook, C. S.; Williams, C.; and Mann, C. S. Testing reckless drivers for cocaine and marijuana. New England Journal of Medicine,
    331:518-522, 1994.

    2.Cornelius, M. D.; Taylor, P. M.; Geva, D.; and Day, N. L. Prenatal tobacco and marijuana use among adolescents: effects on offspring
    gestational age, growth, and morphology. Pediatrics, 95: 738-743. 1995.

    3.Crowley, T. J.; Macdonald, M. J.; Whitmore. E. A.; and Mikulich, S. K. Cannabis Dependence, Withdrawal, and Reinforcing Effects Among
    Adolescents With Conduct Symptoms and Substance Use Disorders. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 1998.

    4.Fletcher, J. M.; Page, J. B.; Francis, D. I.; Copeland, K.; Naus, M. J.; Davis. C. M.; Morris, R.; Krauskopf, D.; and Satz, P. Cognitive correlates
    of long-term cannabis use in Costa Rican men. Arch. of General Psychiatry, 53: 1051-1057, 1996.

    5.Harder. S. and Reitbrock, S. Concentration-effect relationship of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and prediction of psychotropic effects after
    smoking marijuana. International Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 35(4): 155-159, 1997.

    6.Jones, R.T. et al. Clinical relevance of cannabis tolerance and dependence. Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 21 (Suppl 1): 143-152,1981.

    7.Kandel, D.B. Stages in adolescent involvement with drugs. Science, 190:912-914, 1975.

    8.Liguori, A.; Gatto, C. P.; and Robinson, J. H. Effects of marijuana on equilibrium. psychomotor performance, and simulated driving. Behavioral
    Pharmacology, 9:599-609, 1998.

    9.National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors, Inc.. State Resources and Services Related to Alcohol and Other Drug
    Problems for Fiscal Year 1995: An Analysis of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Profile Data, July 1997.

    10.National Institute on Drug Abuse. National Survey Results on Drug Use from The Monitoring The Future Study, 1975-1997, Volume
    I/Secondary School Students. NIH Publication No. 98-4345. Printed 1998.

    11.Pope, H. G. and Yurgelun-Todd, D. The Residual Cognitive Effects of Heavy Marijuana Use in College Students. Journal of the American
    Medical Association, Vol 275, No. 7, February 21, 1996.

    12.Rodriguez de Fonseca, F.; Carrera, M. R. A.; Navarro, M.; Koob, G. F.; and Weiss, F. Activation of Corticotropin-Releasing Factor in the
    Limbic System During Cannabinoid Withdrawal. Science, Vol. 276, June 27, 1997.

    13.Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Office of Applied Sciences. Preliminary Results From the 1996 National
    Household Survey on Drug Abuse. DHHS No. (SMA) 97-3149. Rockville, MD: SAMHSA, July 1997.

    14.University of Michigan. News and Information Services. Drug use among American teens shows signs of leveling after a long rise. December
    18, 1997.

    15.Wu, T. C.; Tashkin, D. P.; Djahed, B.; and Rose, J.E. Pulmonary hazards of smoking marijuana as compared with tobacco. New England
    Journal of Medicine, 318: 347-351, 1988.
  • In The Dragons of Eden, Sagan tells how his "informant" become aware of the presence of a "silent watcher" after using pot. I remember when I read that I thought the report of the experience was so vivid that it should have been himself. But he also said that marijuana couldn't improve one's capability of understanding philosofy, for instance, so it should "suppress the left emisphere and let the stars to come out".

    It is all in the "Lovers and Madmen" chapter.

  • Oh please (Score:4)

    by Jethro ( 14165 ) on Sunday August 22, 1999 @07:10AM (#1732616) Homepage
    Well, never did really like Carl Sagan, but that's besides the point. I guess now we know why he kept repeating himself over andover and over. That too is besides the point.

    People: marijuana kills you.

    At best, you're slowly turning your brain into mush.

    I've seen people die because of marijuana. Either indirectly, because they were dumb enough to operate heavy machinary (namely cars and motorcycles) under the influence.

    Or directly, because they had really low blood preassure, and the first joint they tried made their blood preassure drop really low. There were a few people there, all of which, except for me, were stoned. I go "Hey, where's Tracy?" and they all start giggling. "She fell asleep!". Well, she didn't, she fainted and would have died if I haden't made her eat a whole bunch of cofee and salt.

    Now I'm not trying to tell all of you not to smoke pot. I wish you didn't, and I want you all to know that even though I've never met you, it hurts me personally to know people do that.

    what I'm saying is, don't try and justify your own actions by the actions of others. Jesus, who cares if Carl Sagan smoked something or not? You think because he, or the President of the United States did it, that makes it ok? Well, it doesn't. If you want to smoke pot for your own sakes and ruin your own brains with chemicals, that's your own business, not Carl Sagan's.

    Yes, major rant, but this hit a raw nerve.

    When you guys lose as many friends to alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, you'll be saying the same things.
  • So, let's see, Richard Feynman did it, Carl Sagan did it, Allen Ginsberg and his crowd did it and *so* much more, Edgar Allen Poe was alcoholic for a good deal of his life, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, the list goes on and on and on. Reminds me of an article The Onion did that the drug czar had to revise his "winners don't use drugs" propaganda; sometimes winners do use drugs [theonion.com].
    What's a teetotaling person to do? Sure, most people who use drugs might be losers who are trying to escape from their loser lives, but some are actually experimenting with altered states of being. (Click here [eserver.org] for an interesting article on what it is to *experiment*, not recreate, with drugs.) So I make the choice not to use too many chemicals to alter my consciousness. But even chocolate, caffeine, a good meal can do that. Exposure to the sun, rain, Dickens, a boring lecture, a rousing makeout session, all these externals affect my mood and state of mind whether I intend it or not.
    Maybe a conscious user, one who's experimenting rather than recreating, asks the question in T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" [eccentrica.org]: "Do I dare disturb the universe?" Except, I say no, and he says yes.
    I dearly hope I'm not wrong.


  • In fact, he named his book "Billions and Billions" just that as a joke to the longstanding perception that he used that phrase. In the book he states:

    "I never said it. Honest. (...) I said "billion" many times on the Cosmos television series, (...) but I never said "billions and billions". For one thing, it's too imprecise."

    He goes on to say that the myth of that saying started with Johnny Carson, who used that phrase when doing an impression of Sagan.

    But, Sagan knew he wasn't the most gifted cosmologist technically, but he was a gifted communicator. He explained and abstracted intricately complex concepts so that the general public could understand science. His television shows and books sparked interest in science in many lay-people. And who knows how many children he inspired to become scientists.

    So, I suppose Sagan's gift was to make science more accessable to the masses. And I say he did a bang up job of it.

  • Your friend did not die from pot, he died from impared driving.

    Alcohol or talking on a cell phone would have done the same thing.

  • People: marijuana kills you. At best, you're slowly turning your brain into mush.

    It's a helluva lot safer than alchohol, which does all of the above, and then some. But that's legal. Marijuana has been the cornerstone of the "war on drugs" initiated by our legislators. It is not as dangerous as alchohol, and there's a lot of misinformed people out there about the exact effects of marijuana. Yes, you can die from it. You can also die if you slip and fall in your bathtub. Should we outlaw bathtubs because of that? No!

    --

  • I think you missed the point, which is: Many people don't smoke pot for a "cheap kick". Many people get intellectual gains from it, and enhance what their brain is already giving them. Certainly more so than alcohol. It's always been this way, but basically, US government propoganda has been trying to convince people otherwise for the last 60 or so years. This isn't paranoia, this is obvious to anyone who's smoked much pot. And yes, the US government has self-interested motives here, financial and otherwise. (For example, at least one major US presidential candidate is getting a lot of money from the prison industry. There are many very different examples too; ask me if you want to hear them.) The US government then applies pressure to other governments around the world.

    Much development of human culture has come from brains enhanced by drug experiences, including some of our most influential computer scientists, and many if not MOST artists of ANY medium, ever. The problem is, they're not allowed to speak about it because of the current political climate. They'd risk their careers, not to mention jail time. Any pro-drug, anti-propoganda opinions are very effectively censored by this threat. So you very rarely hear those opinions in any public forum, but believe me, those opinions are out there. The only opinions you ever hear are either inexperienced, or lying.

    I don't mean to give you a hard time, Jan. I admire you for having the attitude that "people can do whatever they want"; I wish more people in this country (USA) thought that way. Instead, because of the "War on Drugs", literally millions of people are rotting away in jail here for non-violent drug offenses. In many ways, they are in jail because of their political beliefs, a "crime" which is only defined as such by a government they strongly disagree with. So to the end of rectifying this extremely corrupt human rights abuse, I try to correct any misinformation I see. I'm trying to confront the propoganda head-on.

    (And yes, I agree that many people are pretty lame and waste much of their potential by abusing (not just using) drugs, but that's no reason to throw them in jail. I have no right to tell a stranger how to run their life, if they're not imposing on me.)

  • Yeah, "oh please" is right.

    I don't smoke anything, but I also think that pot is probably the least dangerous illegal drug out there -- alcohol has got to be 10x as bad for you.

    I find it ironic that when I went on a month-long bender after my girlfriend dumped me and society just shrugged. Even though I almost ended up in detox a couple of time and barely remember most of January that year, it was OK.

    Of course, if I'd started smoking pot, they would have had to lock me up for my own good and to protect society from me.

    ----

  • Hi Jethro,

    You are certainly welcome to your opinion, as is everyone, and as an apparently caring person (you) I'd usually be the last to critisize your opinions. But I'm gonna, cuz I've had a raw nerve on this issue for quite some time as well.

    >>People: marijuana kills you.
    Life kills you, the moment you start it.
    Children in cars can kill you with distraction.
    High School sports can kill you (saw it twice, both athletes that I knew)
    My point? It's not how long you lived, but *how* you lived, at least to many people.
    Furthermore, studies have shown that the Jamaican Rastafarians, on average, live longer and it's tentatively attributed to reduced stress levels. Studies schmuddies. Who cares, people will always be able to spin numbers.

    >>Or directly, because they had really low blood
    >> preassure, and the first joint they tried made
    >> their blood preassure dropWell, she
    >> didn't, she fainted and would have died if I
    >> haden't made her eat a whole bunch of cofee and
    >> salt.

    Oh Come On!!! Do you really pass through life believing that you saved hers? Do you really believe that giving coffee and salt to someone who 'has dangerously low blood pressure' is in any way a medically sane option?

    >>what I'm saying is, don't try and justify your
    >> own actions by the actions of others. Jesus, who
    >> cares if Carl Sagan smoked something or not?

    Because the world needs to know that people of 'credibility' sometimes do things that are counter to our governments list of approved behaviors that you won't get thrown in jail for. In my home state, (midwestern), the governer actually tried to pass a law that would have made a mandatory sentence of 30 days in jail (not county, not city, the STATE PEN) for anyone caught with any amount, period. 1 roach, 30 days, no questions. Geezuz, talk about hitting a raw nerve. Most people aren't in the position to stand up and say. "Yeah, I do it, so what?" *I* am not in that position as a founder and executive in a hardcore Sports organization, which is why, today, I'm an anonymous coward. I hope not to be, someday.
    My life is *MINE*! our government needs to change it's views and every little bit of credibility helps, believe me, the corporate spin machines are ready maintain the status quo, even crank it up a notch. Disposable urine tests? *sigh*
    Educate yourself. visit http://www.yahooka.com and seek out some scientifically sound information.
    thanks for listening - shaggy

    BTW - I do my best software debugging with a gentle buzz.

  • Marijuana or any drug, when used with heavy machinery can be dangerous. Marijuana, though, does not kill brain cells. Besides huffing (or other "recreational" activities which deprive the brain of oxygen) the only drug which kills brain cells is alcohol. Ask your doctor.

    Cirrhosis of the liver, fetal alcohol syndrom, etc. are all dangers from drinking.

    Essentially the only danger from smoking marijuana is lung irritation, and so far no studies have shown an increase in risk of lung cancer or emphysema, but bronchitis is still a danger.

    The biggest problem with drugs (and a lot of other things) is ignorance, on the part of users and law enforcement. For example, an average cigar contains enough nicotine to kill several people, but I could still get one. The U.S. sends billions to Cuba, Peru, and Bolivia to eradicate their coca fields using firepower and herbicides. And still I could get as much coke as I want in a matter of minutes with just a phone call (in NYC). What a collassal waste of manpower, tax payer dollars, and lives.

    Users are of course no better. Children romanticize drug use, and get far to caught up in catching highs and spending their parents money. All of our prohibitive laws regarding naturally occuring drugs (and now designer drugs) are based on the idea of protect the children, but have the effect of arresting minorities and adults while kids can pick up whatever they want in school. Except of course alcohol, you have to go outside of school to get that.

    For people interested in learning more about drug laws and the problems they cause, check out the following URLs.

    Please people stay informed and don't hurt yourself with drugs or anything. Fun comes with moderation. Anyone who has gone to college (or probably high school) has seen people who have taken things a bit too far. Don't do that, but also don't castigate people for seeing things differently than you. I am a firm believer in an open market in drugs, but I know that in reality a comprimise must be reached that takes into consideration all points of view, not just my own.

    Sorry for the long post, but I felt the record needed to be set straight. Carl Sagan smoked herb, cool, too bad he wasn't able to stand up for it while he was alive.

  • Your argument assumes that illegal = never happens. If that is true, what;s the war on drugs about?

    The war on drugs presents society with a never ending bill. First we pay for enforcement, then we pay for jails, then we pay welfare for people who would have had good careers if not for their conviction. We also loose the benefit to society those people could have provided. Then we loose our rights so that enforcement can be effective (yeah, sure)

    I really doubt the additional medical bills would add up to all of that.

    As a side note, the very same 'esteemed' lawmakers who are responsable for all of that get really upset when they are asked if they have ever smoked pot (One wonders how THEY would like being required to pee into a bottle).

    Keep in mind that it is quite possable that the only difference between the guy cleaning toilets where you work and our 'esteemed' president isthat 30 years ago, a cop saw what he was smoking.

  • People: marijuana kills you.

    Please back this statement up with facts. Cigarette smoking kills about half a million people annually [cdc.gov], while according to this PBS "FrontLine" report [pbs.org] there were "...too few deaths to meaningfully study the other main hypothesis, that marijuana use would be associated with increased respiratory disease mortality." [pbs.org] and "...relatively few adverse clinical health effects from the chronic use of marijuana have been documented in humans."[references available at PBS site] In fact, Marijuana has no known LD 50, that is lethal dose in 50% of cases, not because data on health affects is lacking, but because no report has ever been filed of a death from Marijuana overdose. In fact, the only animal safety studies on Marijuana use ever completed killed vervet monkeys by asphyxiation from carbon dioxide poisoning, not from a drug overdose; showing that THC, while showing high efficacy, is one of the safest drugs known to man. It's safer than aspirin, buddy.

    At best, you're slowly turning your brain into mush.

    The psychological and brain physiological effects of Marijuana use simply aren't well known in the United States because the FDA has repeatedly refused to allow human studies. They won't even allow studies which purport to give marijuana to test subjects, when they are really only giving a placebo. However, anecdotal evidence from the lack of emergency room visits due to marijuana intoxication, compared to alcohol, cocaine, and heroin overdoses are telling. As the second most popular recreational drug in America, it causes fewer emergency room visits than all other drugs combined. Stick that in your pipe and smoke.

    Marijuana use is at least as old as alcohol consumption, going back many thousands of years. And it's noted that today a large segment of society smokes pot without anywhere near the same level of ill health affects as alcohol. This is not to say that smoking pot is good for you in general, just that in comparison to alcohol, it's far safer.

    I've seen people die because of marijuana. Either indirectly, because they were dumb enough to operate heavy machinery (namely cars and motorcycles) under the influence.

    No doubt, anyone operating heavy machinery under the influence of any drug (even many prescribed medications) run risks associated with cognitive impairment. No one should drive a car while taking oxycodone, alcohol, or marijuana. Period.

    Or directly, because they had really low blood preassure, and the first joint they tried made their blood preassure drop really low. There were a few people there, all of which, except for me, were stoned. I go "Hey, where's Tracy?" and they all start giggling. "She fell asleep!". Well, she didn't, she fainted and would have died if I haden't made her eat a whole bunch of cofee and salt.

    This anecdote doesn't back your statement up. Sorry.

    I don't see many folks bringing up hemp as an industrial resource, nor do I see many folks pointing to it's use as a medicine for the terminally ill. I've seen Marijuana work wonders for people dying of AIDS and know one person who swears it's what got him through Chemo-therapy alive. Yet our government continues it's war on citizens as though we can't manage our own bodies and personal lives without government interference. I have no problem with obeying traffic laws which state I must drive sober, but when our government puts good people away for long prison sentences simply because they were trying to live through a terminal illness, we have a serious problem with a political institution way out of touch with it's citizenry.

    I support legalizing drugs, and believe that it ought to be up to the individual how he/she decides to live his/her life. Laws and the police should protect citizens from violent crime and fraud, not self abuse and self destruction; that's a job for psychiatrists and clergy.

  • Originally Jethro's comment came in at a two, and has been moderated down. However, even though Jethro posted non-factual statements, it's turned into the most interesting comment thread among all the posts in this discussion forum (my opinion). So, moderators, please up this comment, and please go down and read some of the Anonymous Coward posts... at least one of them I noticed is very good.
  • The mistake most people who've posted are making are assuming that their experiences are universal; everybody reacts differently to pot. It makes Carl Sagan draw curves in the shower, it makes others giggle, it kills others.
    As for arguments about the relative dangers of tobacco, they're irrelevant. I've no doubt whatsover that cigarettes are vastly more dangerous, but to insist that pot is harmless is just silly. It has dangers for some, and some people do become psychologically addicted. To the best of my knowledge, no-one can become physiologically addicted, but I'm willing to be corrected by an authoritative source.
    Speaking personally, I'd like to attest to the effectiveness of hash (grass is damn difficult to get in Ireland) as an anti-nausea drug; when I was undergoing chemotherapy, it was the only thing that kept me from barfing the day away. Of course, I'm only talking about its effect on me. Your mileage may vary.
  • I don't care if W. Bush used drugs, as long as he doesn't care if we do.

    The problem is that W. Bush used drugs, but doesn't want us to. He said he's "learned from [his] mistakes" and realizes that drugs are bad and need to be eradicated.

  • Well, she didn't, she fainted and would have died if I haden't made her eat a whole bunch of cofee and salt.

    Peanuts kill too if your one of the unlucky few who is alergic. Eating pizza while driving increases your chances of a fatal accident (especially if it is hot with runny cheese) but I have never seen an attempt to make it illegal. According to at least one courtroom, hot coffee is a dangerous substance worth a million in damages.

    Re: Tracy, the pot was VERY dangerous for her. It was also illegal at the time. Would a trip to jail improve her life? Did you do your civic duty and call the cops? (A CRIME was after all being committed).

    Personally, I don't smoke pot. I don't have the time. I also don't think it should be a crime unless heavy equipment/motor vehicles are involved.

    Personally, I enjoy the facts in this story because it reveals the stupidity of the war on drugs, not because it 'justifies' anything I'm doing. This is a natural backlash against a stupid and socially harmful set of laws, and the bad things that happen because of them.

  • Just because Carl Sagan was one of the founders of extra-terrestrial awareness and happened to do drugs doesn't make drug use "correct". You can hold him up as a pillar of the community and say, "See, he did it!" or you can respect the laws of whatever country you are in and abide by them while trying to change them. All this proves is that Carl Sagan was human. He had his virtues and he had his vices, just like every other human. Somehow, I don't think that when Carl Sagan was in public, giving his speeches, promoting his ideals and preaching his message that he was stoned, or that those ideas were a result of marijuana's influence. Marijuana didn't expand his concept of the universe, and the geek community shouldn't hold Sagan up as proof that marijuana can benefit society.
  • Part of the lies surronding Cannibus is that is worse for your lungs than smoking cigarettes. I will attempt to counter this completely false view.

    War on drugs drones state that pot is three times worse for your lungs than tobacco. Where do they get this idea? From the fact that marijuana has 3 times the tars as tobacco. This is true but there are LESS Aromatic Hydrocarbons (known to be carcinoens). Also... being both a cigarette smoker AND a pot smoker i dont smoke 20 joints a day but i often smoke a pack or more of cigarettes a day. So... if the input level is lower then you can't claim that the 3x amount of tar makes it 3x worse for you. Another issue is that most tobacco is LOADED with chemicals from your friends at phillip morris or wherever. If you know where your weed came from then you should no exactly what is on it.. fertilizers, pesticides, additives. Do you know whats on that tobacco you just smoked? I sure dont.

    Point is... everything is fraught with dangers... red meat increases cholestorol and fat.. more heart attacks... but I don't go around screaming DONT EAT THAT STEAK. You can get in a car and die 5 minuets later from a drunk driver. You wouldn't say.. DONT RIDE IN A CAR!! If it is something that you enjoy or need (and there are legitimate medical uses for pot) you should be able to do it regardless. there is an excellent reference on many more myths and facts about pot here: http://www.norml.org/canorml/myths /mythidx.shtml [norml.org]

    Use Your Head
    Enjoy your stone...

  • Nice post, however I have one criticism: "As the second most popular recreational drug in America, it causes fewer emergency room visits than all other drugs combined." This is not impressive. I am not positive, but I believe it safe to assume the same could be said for any other drug, as in: "PCP causes fewer emergency room visits than all other drugs combined".

    It's relevant in that the recreational use of marijuana is second to only alcohol in popularity, while causing fewer hospitalizations than all other drug use combined -- including alcohol, amphetamines, cocaine, heroin, LSD, and PCP. This means that a very large population of users generate fewer hospitalizations than from the use of all other drugs combined. While PCP users presumably represent a very small number of the drug using population, they certainly generate more hospitalizations annually (by definition).

  • Sure there are people who manage to stay productive while being regular pot users, but how large a percent are they?

    As long as it's illegal, we'll never know. The people you're talking about won't likely admit to smoking pot because of their position. The only ones you'll see are the ones that are adversely affected and can't hide it. It skews the data.

    Line up a random group of people. None of them will admit anything, but you know some of them drink alcohol. You will find the serious alcoholics easily (look for the ones who smell like beer and are staggering around). Next to be found will be those with severe cirrosis of the liver. After that, you'll catch the ones with bad judgement who screw up their lives.

    At this point, you're left with the majority still undetermined. Because they have good judgement, and are successful, you'll never suspect them. From that, you might be tempted to conclude that drinking makes you a looser, and harms your health while successful people with good judgement don't drink.

    That is exactly what happened with pot. Nobody sees the silent majority of pot smokers who are not seriously affected.

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