You are dead right about alcohol Arjay, I have seen some shocking things and some serious injuries happen because of alcohol, but you don't tend to hear about this in the media.

As for marijuana, each to their own, but I find it tends to make people very boring. Not usually likely to make people beat someone up or rape them though!

--- Deus_Abscondis

---"Even if you consider it’s not important to you that a 'small' harm is unimportant."

Yes. Throat and lung irritation and possibly bronchitis are important. That's why vaporizers were developed. But these minor effects are not, by any stretch of the imagination, a basis for maintaining the counter-productive fraud of prohibition.

---"Regarding your falacious argument about peanuts. It is a legislated labeling requirement on products that might contain traces of peanuts to say so-good eh!"

You somehow think you have refuted my comparison? You just veered off into a new thread about labeling that is irrelevant. Peanuts have killed many people. Marijuana has killed none. Peanuts aren't banned, so neither should marijuana be.

+++(me) "Depression is a myth"

---"with a statement like that you are an asset to the prohibitionists"

No. The research proving it is all there in the link I gave.

+++(me)"legalize and regulate it like alcohol, of course"

---"It would be electoral suicide for any government in Australia in the foreseeable future to try, that’s just a political reality.

I doubt Australia is so different. No politician has ever suffered a decrease in support because he backed reducing penalties for marijuana consumption. We saw just yesterday where the wise core of Alaskan legislators tossed out Governor Murkowski's underhanded attempt to recriminalize marijuana. The people are ahead of the polticians when it comes to marijuana.

+++(me)"Marijuana consumers OVER COMPENSATE for their light impairment by driving slower and more cautiously"

---"Wish to try to ‘overcompensate’ yes but when in traffic there’s no evidence that users actually slow down.

There is actually. -- http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1849/a09.html --- http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98/n945/a08.html ---http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1161/a02.html

---"It is difficult for users to estimate dosage of cannabis."

Wrong. One of the benefits of smoking cannabis is the user can easily titrate the dose.

---KRS1

Your pooh-poohing the information I brought does not invalidate, or even diminish it in any way. In a debate, anecdotal stories, or opinions, carry close to zero weight. The research supports my positions. Addiction is continuing to use an addictive drug primarily to avoid the severely uncomfortable/painful withdrawal symptoms. Marijuana doesn't have them.

JayTee:

"Did you even bother looking at the link which contains the great body of research about marijuana?”

D_A:

Yes. Did you look at mine? From one of the sources you referred me to in (druglibrary.org) supports linkage between cancer and smoking.

Show me one peer reviewed med/biomed journal article that shows as you claim “The only harm associated with cannabis is some minor throat irritation”–your statement is inaccurate.

"There is reasonably consistent evidence that THC can produce cellular changes such as alterations in cell metabolism, and DNA synthesis, in vitro (Bloch, 1983). There is even stronger evidence that cannabis smoke is mutagenic in vitro, and in vitro, and hence, that it is potentially carcinogenic for the same reasons as tobacco smoke (Leuchtenberger, 1983)". [typo in vitro and in vivo? D_A] http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/general/who-probable.htm

More recently,

“THC is very likely to have protective effects against the carcinogens present in smoke in humans too, but cannabis smoke remains nonetheless carcinogenic” Cannabis Smoke Is Less Likely To Cause Cancer Than Tobacco Smoke Dr. Melamede
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051019003339.htm

In general, there are difficulties in establishing the effect in the population (epidemiologically) due to the high correlation in users between cannabis and tobacco use.

The combined carcinogenic load is higher than either alone. While it is contended there may be some offset of carcinogenic action due to the protective function of cannabidiods the research in this area is thin. Additional confounding factors include bong vs joint.

JayTee

(ME) "most effectively with vaporization"

--- "yes of oils–but not commonly used which is a shame as it's relatively easy to produce."

OK I should have said yes especially with oils. Oil is readily extractable, compact, stores well and makes for better dose control-this is why it’s preferred by medico’s.

If you’re an experienced ‘reformer’ you should know invective …“And there you show your ignorance…”, “Like all prohibitionists etc” is self destructive to your argument.

I believe a particular decriminalization model could be workable and free up funds for education and treatment. Or do you equate dicriminalisation with prohibition?

Check out this up to date info about cannabis and driving http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s838743.htm

JayTee-

A. Show me research that proves marijuana enhances creativity.

B. Addiction has both psychological and physiological elements, as any smoker, nail-biter, compulsive gambler or pot-smoker will tell you. Unfortunately, people such as yourself tend to downgrade the psychological elements to avoid having to take personal responsibility for their actions. This has a corrosive effect on society as a whole.

--- Deus_Abscondis

(The post limits on this forum are maddening and a tremendous obstacle to communication. -- Bother!)

---"Did you look at mine?"

I have seen excerpts from that study before. Like this one: http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521819407&ss=exc

Like I said, I keep up with all research on marijuana. The funny thing about research that purports to find great "harms" of marijuana - it doesn't bear up when compared to statistics of populations trends. Take the new marijuana/schizophrenia "discoveries." If marijuana did play some role in causing schizophrenia, then when looking at schizophrenia rates in the general population over time, there should have been an explosion of schizophrenia occurring in the sixties and seventies, at the time when the explosion of marijuana consumption began. There wasn't.

---"From one of the sources you referred me to in (druglibrary.org) supports linkage between cancer and smoking."

That observation validates Shaffer's drug library, and the studies therein, as being inclusive. The relevance of the data is not found in the body of the research, but in the conclusions. None of the studies have concluded marijuana consumption is a significant cause of cancer. Yes, several studies have shown that marijuana, among it's myriad other benefits, appears to protect against cancer. That's part of the reason. The other is that typical marijuana consumers don't consume anywhere near the volume of smoke of typical tobacco smokers. As a matter of fact, a typical marijuana consumer consumes more vehicle exhaust, smoke from campfires and other sources, etc., then he does from marijuana. It's quite logical then that the miniscule amount of smoke involved would not result in cases of cancer. Because the use of marijuana is so widespread - an estimated 50 million lifetime users in the U.S. alone - there is really no problem separating the effects of those who smoke only marijuana from those who smoke marijuana and tobacco. A large group of marijuana only smokers would be easily found. Indeed, most marijuana consumers I know, do not smoke tobacco. It's unhealthy, don't you know? 8^)

Again. The posting restrictions on this forum are so restrictive, they prevent effective communication. I've NEVER seen such an impossible situation in a forum. I only posted a fourth of what I had written yesterday, and then I have to wait 8 hours before I post another fourth - RIDICULOUS!

I invite all to the New York Times Drug Policy Forum where you can post as much as you want, whenever you want. (Free Registration) http://forums.nytimes.com/top/opinion/readersopinions/forums/national/drugpolicy/index.html

Another poster there just zapped the marijuana "mental illness" nonsense. TIMEMACHINIST says:

"The reefer madness correlations are the best-funded government research programs regarding cannabis. Try proposing research that might undermine the current laws and you'll find there isn't any money available for that. But this excerpt below shows the kind of caveats one should keep in mind when reading such reports:"

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3098

* They found that people who used cannabis by age 15 were four times as likely to have a diagnosis of schizophreniform disorder (a milder version of schizophrenia) at age 26 than non-users.

* But when the number of psychotic symptoms at age 11 was controlled for, this increased risk dropped to become non-significant. This suggests that people already at greater risk of later developing mental health problems are also more likely to smoke cannabis.

"In other words, the cannabis didn't actually "cause" the mental illness after all -it was more likely an attempt to self-medicate, even if not consciously motivated as such. People who feel bad take various drugs to change those feelings, but the drugs are not therefore the "cause" of those bad feelings they started with."

--- COME JOIN US AT THE NYT DRUG POLICY FORUM! ---

Free MARC EMERY! http://www.pot-tv.net/archive/shows/pottvshowse-3298.html