Recreational Drug Use--Pros and Pros

Ahh... ok, I understand now

Except, the heck is candy and the dragon?

 

So if you say there's no positive benefits from drugs, Surfer, one would have to conclude you're not much of a music fan.

Notice how the Beatles wrote better music when they started getting high?

I'm just saying...

E_S

 

Oh, if we're talking about positive effects of drugs, maybe you'd want to take a look at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cuMVADig8w&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Epoliticsinfo%2Enet%2Fforum%2Fabout41825%2D20%2Ehtml

Now, uh, warning: Profanity, but this is the Senate, so I assume everybody is mature enough to watch this. I'd also advise you to watch parts 1 and 2, but this is the part which highlights postive use the best.

Oh yea, the guy at the start, is a professor at the Harvard Medical School.

Here's part 1 and 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HCNKMQR1yg&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Epoliticsinfo%2Enet%2Fforum%2Fabout41825%2D20%2Ehtml

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZEoliIPLh0&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Epoliticsinfo%2Enet%2Fforum%2Fabout41825%2D20%2Ehtml

 

That's a fairly lopsided set of reports you've got there. Are you seriously telling us that no report has ever been written about the bad effects of marijuana and that only reports with the positive effects exist?

 

Yeah, stuff like Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da and Revolution 9 came from the drug days. I'd say that pretty much shoots down your argument right there.

 

So if you say there's no positive benefits from drugs, Surfer, one would have to conclude you're not much of a music fan.

Notice how the Beatles wrote better music when they started getting high?

I'm just saying...

Of course, it also made them distrustful, paranoid, and ultimately lead to their breaking up. Once the members cleaned up again, we had the good (Live and Let Die) and the bad (I've Got My Mind Set on You..) so the final conclusion is anyone's guess.

 

Find me one report that didn't set out to make marijuana look bad that does. These are all commissions set up by a series of different governments and they all came to those conclusions. Why would you assume that these reports are inaccurate?

The "bad" effects of marijana are so small that they do not call for any such thing as repression or should cause it to be illegal. Which is basically what those reports state.

Please tell me, what would be your reason for outlawing marijuana? You do realize it was originally outlawed under a racist campaign, pushed as well by commercial interests of the cotton-lobby and a smear-campaign which was based on total desinformation, right?

 

As I stated before, I wouldn't outlaw it, simply because it isn't the government's job to protect its citizens from themselves. Responsible adults should have the right to destroy their own lives through their own actions. I would only require that drugs be sold at phramacies so that drug users could ask about interactions between medicinal drugs and so-called recreational drugs.

 

Two word...

Elvis Presley

 

Elvis Presley's downfall was mass amounts of legalized prescription drugs. He actually thought that narcotics were dirty "street" drugs and that he was above that; as it turns out you can abuse any substance and he did, literally to the grave.

Based on everything I've seen I'm sure marijuana is the least harmful of the illegal narcotics, however I'm not convinced narcotics in general don't cause bodily harm:

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[image=http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/wiki/images/6/6a/Methmouth_image_02.jpg]

The main objection I'd have with legalizing marijuana is what people do once they're high on it. Will they feel liberated enough to get behind a wheel of a car? If so, they're now infringing on my (and my family's) right to drive on safer highways. That would be along the same lines as driving under the influence of alcohol

Edit: My niece was released from jail for drug abuse and insists that although it's harmless itself, marijuana is without a doubt a gateway drug.

 

Who's your niece, what's she got to back it up?
Before you reply, I'll remind you: I'm from Holland and I don't do coke.

 

Obviously, driving high would still be illegal and no moral person would drive high. Fortunatly, marijuana highs do not last that long, if you smoke one joint, and it's not too strong, you'll be able to drive two hours later. Why do you assume that, if marijuana was legalized, everybody would suddenly decide to drive high? Drunk driving is bad, high driving is bad, agreed, lets make that illegal instead of the substance, shall we? :0

Your niece is a dumbass. I smoke weed and I've smoked it for years and I've got no intention of doing any hard drugs. Neither do any of my friends (aside from one, but he has an addictive personality, he had problems with alcohol before weed as well...). The first drugs everybody uses are alcohol and tabacco by the way, maybe those are gateway drugs?

No, people who want to use drugs will use weed first because its the easiest to get, but they would try the others with or without weed. Don't blame a drug for your OWN personal shortcomings, will you.

 

Recreational drugs should remain illegal for one simple reason: there are sickos in the world. I personally think the whole business is pointless, but if somebody wants to smoke their own brains out, I honestly couldn't care less. The scary part is when the aforementioned sickos try to mess with other people. My dad told me about one time he was at a party where somebody offered him a beer. He opened it, and it didn't make make that distinctive hissing noise. He then noticed a small hole in the can. He chucked the beer and left. Later on, he finds out that the guy giving the party was busted for possession and had spiked more than one drink.

You can rearrange the data however you want, but any dosage can cause serious damage, and I don't want to make it easier for those people who would do something bad to do something bad.

 

....she's an ex inmate who abused drugs for about a year. I'm not sure what other info you're looking for. She's just a reformed ex-user with an opinion.

WTH. Relevance?

Not my shortcomings; my niece's. She has those opinions, I'm going to respect them for what they're worth. Yes she is a dumbass, but not for that reason.

Consider what you say so you don't come off sounding like a ****, will you.

 

I'd like to say the guys we've kicked outta my company for dope usage were total morons who were usually involved with much more serious crimes that we're letting other federal agencies handle.

 

My dad was one of the top neurologists in the country for a long time, and he'd tell you differently. He's seen enough people reduced to vegetables after one, small dose. Drugs can cause terrible things to happen. I'm not condemning people who choose to use drugs, and I'm not saying that something bad happens every time somebody smokes something. I'm condemning the dismissal of the risks involved in recreational drug use. That's irresponsible and foolish.

 

So did Sgt Peppers, one of the only rock albums to be studied widely in conservatoriums worldwide.

Someone just got hoisted by their own petard.

E_S

 

I agree with the stance I've heard put forward that marijuana is a gateway drug, in large part, because to get marijuana, you have to turn to sources that push and expose you to other, harder drugs as well.
Also, on the idea of both it being a gateway drug, and of the danger of people driving while high... I'd point out that driving while high would be equivalent to driving drunk, but we don't make alcohol illegal (or cold medication, for that matter) and that I remember being taught in school alcohol and tobacco as other gateway drugs.

Source that one dose thing, if you could

 

User of what? You seem to be saying marijana is the equivalent of coke. It isn't.

He's from Holland, where marijuana is legal. Strangly enough, the amount of people in Holland that use marijuana went down and the use of coke didn't go up at all. :0 According to the stepping-stone theory (which has long been debunked, and if you had checked the findings of the committees instead of relying on second hand stories you'd have seen that) that would mean everybody in Holland would be on coke now.

Never claimed they were your shortcomings, that was a general statement. You're being far more insulting right now by implying I come off like a "****". I get pissed off when people use information like this which has long been debunked to demonize marijuana. You can push peoples faces into the facts and they'll just close their eyes.

You bring up the story of your niece, a "reformed drug-abuser" in your own words, to support the claim it's a gate-way drug. It's bunk. The stepping-stone theory is bunk, everybody knows it, but somehow that just keeps coming back. If you're going to argue it is because to get marijuana you're going to have to get in contact with people who can get other drugs.

a) That's not true, most dealers deal strictly in marijuana.
b) Even if they do deal other things, smoking marijuana does not give you the urge to try other things. Either you already have the urge or you don't, marijana doesn't change a damn thing. Neither does the effec of marijana decrease with time so you would have to look for "stronger highs".
c) If marijana was LEGAL, people wouldn't get in contact with those bad people when they wanted to smoke, so it's really a non-issue!

What the hell are you talking about.

First of all, one small dose of WHAT?

I am talking about MARIJUANA, maybe you should ask your dad about THAT. I'm not talking about ****** crack-cocaïne or badly made LSD (although LSD is probably even safer, heh).

Report after report shows that marijuana is remarkably non-toxic and that there are about no "real" health dangers involved (certainly not enough to warrant it being illegal). You claim some second hand story from your "dad". I posted the findings of research committees world wide over the past century. Including those that led to de de-criminalization of weed in Holland.

As for the spiked drink story, spiked with WHAT? Do you have this idea that all illegal drugs are one and the same substance or how does this work for you? One small dosage of marijuana does zero harm. In fact, the first time you would probably hardly feel it.

 

If there was ever a gateway drug, it would be alcohol. Why aren't pople who drink alcohol crawling through the streets looking for a better high? Why is it so easy to accept people having a few drinks IN PUBLIC, but having a couple of hits of marijuana in my own home is some kind of seedy ritual that will ultimately lead to somehow wanting to do heroine? The logic doesn't make any sense.

Take smoking for example which I quit two years ago. I am absolutely 100% addicted to nicotine. If I have just one cigarette, I will probably be a smoker again. Its extremely toxic, and it can kill you. I have had marijuana multiple times. I don't have urges to do it. Not anything like nicotine, where quitting gave me the worst stomach cramps in history. But sometimes, I enjoy the pleasure of having a couple hits before I go to bed. Helps to sleep better, and its better than taking some kind of sleeping aid.

But the real reason for the ban on pot is that parts of our society, complicit with parts of government, like to regulate the amount of pleasure that people have. Don't ask me why, but its true. People attribute negative connotations to sex, drugs, and even (still today at times) rock and roll. The war on drugs isn't a war on some inanimate object, it's a war against its own people and pleasure.

 

Maybe it's got something to do with that protestant work-ethic thing? Don't know, just throwing that out there.

 

Just got to clear up a handful of major misconceptions that I've noticed from scanning:

Marijuana is not addictive, but it can be habit-forming (leading to one becoming habituated) and in an extremely rare number of very severe cases, can lead to dependence. No matter how much you ingest, you will not die, and you will not suffer any long-term health consequences from cannabis consumption. Cessation of use for a period of time ranging from four weeks to two years, depending on how long one has been continuously consuming cannabis beforehand, has always been shown to return a consumer's brain and biological functions back to the state that they would have been in had they never begun to use cannabis in the first place.

Marijuana does not cause cancer. It fights cancer. Even in the dirtiest of smoked forms (like smoking it through a tobacco leaf, or 'blunt'), it still will not cause cancer, because the principal active component of cannabis, delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, which binds to the lungs instantly, as opposed to slow-binding carcinogens, blocks the cancer-causing chemicals from entering the bloodstream. Regardless, cannabis still should not be smoked due to the damage it can cause to the cilia of the esophagus, but should instead be vaporized, or, if required for medical purposes, baked into 'edibles' and eaten/drank.


There is no such thing as a "Gateway Drug". Not only has this been disproven by countless studies conducted every year for decades now, it is also illogical. If you were to claim that cannabis is a gateway drug, then you would have to do the same for alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, saturated fat, water, even breastmilk...because we all start off with water and milk before we use any psychoactive substances like caffeine or aspirin, and long before recreational drugs. Furthermore, people who begin their recreational drug use with cannabis are far LESS likely to move on to harder drugs, including cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine, than people who began with alcohol and tobacco. That is a fact, and I'd cite my sources for all of this if it wasn't 3:45 am right now.

 

Okay okay, I see this thread is RACKED with ignorance and prejudice - time for some education.

I'm gonna have to agree with Surfer here - a report by the Dutch government, made this year, was left outta the list, which says:
- smoking marijuana is worse than smoking tobacco, for your lungs
- marijuana smoke is worse for your health than cigarette smoke
- if you're unstable, it will make you more unstable
- it can lower your fertility periodically

I'd give you a link but... it's in Dutch.

I'm gonna have to disagree with Surfer here: obviously he took the Beatles' worst two songs on from album that contains a lot of all-time classics. The White Album spawned Back In The USSR, Dear Prudence, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Blackbird, and the first ever hardrock tune Helter Skelter. Considering how Surfer took two throwaway songs to illustrate his argument, one has to wonder how selective and opinionated he is in this regard.

I smoke weed on a daily basis my friend. I've done so for over 15 years. So have a lot of people I know. Newsflash: it's legal! I did coke once, years ago. So did a lot of people I know. No-one does coke, no-one does heroine.
Weed is legal in Holland, yet we have LESS weed smokers per capita than for instance France or Great Britain. Less coke users, too.

 

I have asked my dad about this stuff. It's happened with a variety of drugs, including marijuana. You can think I'm lying, if that'll please you, but I'm not about to post the personal information necesarry to back up my statements. Take it or leave it; I honestly couldn't care less.

Concerning the spiked drink story: I understand full well that there are many kinds of illegal drugs. I was simply using the story to show one of the major reasons why illegal drugs should remain illegal, and in that context, it doesn't matter what the drink was spiked with.

Anyways, I think I'll leave this argument on that note. I've stated my opinion, which is that the belief in own's one invincibility is irresponsible and that drugs should remain illegal so as to protect others.

 

Well, those would be included in the "negligble health dangers" department, which are actually mentioned in the other reports. That said, the book which I used is from 2004, hence it wouldn't contain that report. =)

Oh, and, link me up, I'm Belgian (Flemish) .

Onotono,

So you're seriously claiming that a small dose of marijuana can turn you into a vegetable?

It can't, trust me. Maybe if you lace it with very bad acid or something, yes. Which would be an argument FOR legalization by the way, since that would put a quality control on the product.

Nobody is saying all illegal drugs are good for you. I'd strongly warn against using cocain or heroin or meth etc. That doesn't mean keeping them illegal is helping anything. It is making the use of the drug more dangerous than it already is and it fuels a criminal economy.

How is that good? How about legalization and information?

That said, I was arguing for the legalization of marijuana and there is no reasonable argument against it. Please inform yourself instead of basing yourself on scare tactics.

There's some other drugs that might as well be legal too, like say, LSD. Scientists would love to have it legal since they were getting some good results with the psychiateric research using it before all that was shut down because of freaked out conservatives.