I only have my own observations as to the effects of marijuana use. I know people who have watched their children become schizophrenic and go through the trauma of trying to find them some sort of appropriate accommodation, being unable to ensure they are taking their medication then dealing with escalating violent episodes.

I have also seen those who are occasional users and do not manifest those behaviours. However, these users do display memory loss, anxiety, loss of ambition and drive, a sense of hopelessness and apathy that I have not seen in non-users to anywhere close to the same extent. The people I have seen are Gen X/Y, more predominantly male than female. Some... and I mean only some, have moved past some of this... but too many still sit on their butts in a smoke filled haze with the XBox running.

Isn't this significant slice of a whole generation a price too high?

I am astounded by the way people feel able to comment with such authority on a drug they've never tried or didnt like. Many people seem to be simply regurgitating the propaganda that has been pumped into them by the media for the last few decades.

As I said before I have a son who has psychotic episodes if he smokes - I throw up if I eat cheesecake - you know how I handle it? I dont eat cheesecake. However I dont go around telling other people who enjoy it that it should be banned because I dont like the effect on me and I've seen a lot of fat people eating it and you know how dangerous obesity is!

Most herb smokers are invisible because they are perfectly normal functioning individuals - people only notice the extreme cases and they may well be extreme for a whole gamut of reasons - dont mistake a symptom of dysfunction for its cause - and drug abuse (any drug abuse) is a symptom of dysfunction.

All the people I have seen who developed marijuana related psychoses - have taken large quantities of other much more powerful drugs like LSD - all of them took huge quantities of marijuana over a long period of time and all of them had dysfunctional and abusive childhoods. Maybe there were other reasons for their psychoses?

Blaming marijuana has been handed to youth as an excuse for their aberrant behaviour. Of course they will take any excuse they are offered because if they are allowed to blame the drug, it shifts the blame away from them personally and who could blame them for that?

And as for 'first time psychosis' I am very sceptical about that, especially without a reference, although I do not think it is impossible I think it would be much more rare than peanut allergy. I suspect someone had a psychotic episode after smoking a huge quantity of herb and when the police asked them if it was their 'first time' they said 'Yes.'

Spendocrat “Changing a law so I’m no longer considered a criminal would have absolutely zero effect on your life.”
- Until some drug crazed looney attacks me or breaks into my house to burgle me to fund their habit which followed on from experiments with cannabis.

“Any objective person who knew the facts of the substance would agree with me that you are blowing these cases waaay out of proportion.”

Someone who I knew and cared about is dead, murdered by a schizophrenic, a condition induced by use of cannabis Sure he could have died by a drunk driver but he was not. We have lqws for illegal use of a motor vehicle whilst intoxicated. He is not the only one. When I was 23 I heard of a guy I was at school with who I liked as a person was already dead from drug which started with cannabis.

Of course you can deny all the studies and history of how the use of cannabis leads to dependency and escalation into even more insidious drugs. You might even claim the whole issue is a beef-up to do with hemps competition to rayon or other manmade fibers but reality is, it has everything to do with the insidious consequences of its habitual use and the patterns of behaviour which lead to participation in more debilitating pursuits

Hmmm! I've always believed that the difference between dope being illegal and alcohol being legal was simply down to the fact that one can be grown and processed by a six year old, the other requiring an elaborate brewing and/or distillation process. Government can easily tax alcohol, but you can grow dope anywhere making Government intervention by way of tax very difficult, hence legal verses illegal.

And on damage control, I have a strong association with nurses at an adult psych ward. They claim that up to 70% of their charges are there because of using dope (sorry can't spell the "M" word). Maybe it's only a small percentage of users that end up psychotic, but records in that same psych unit show that most of those they see that become psychotic whilst using dope never fully recover and not all of them come from a traumatised background either. It's been well observed that many dope users go on to other and more deadly drugs. I never thought it was too dangerous myself until I began work in the field of mental health. It's also interesting to note that alcoholics are no longer treated in psych units, whereas the staff of these units see many dope users on a Friday and Saturday night. I've spoken to several psych nurses who used to smoke dope on a regular basis until they did a stint at a psych unit. Try and get then to start now! If they're so scared of what they've seen, than something sure isn't right and yet I agree that it should be legalised for those suffering from certin illnesses.

Aime,
What goes on in a psych ward, is scary.

But exactly what is the attraction of smoking marijuana? We're often told that marijuana, unlike tobacco, is not addictive. In Western Australia, tobacco use is now at about 20%, with about 80% of smokers having [so far unsuccessfully] tried to quit. It's probably true that most tobacco addicts got hooked before they were old enough to adequately rationalise the situation. But what about pot smokers? Why are they still doing it?

Yes, naughty little boys and girls often go against authority, but we're not talking here about rebellious kids and teenagers. My understanding is that many pot smokers are generally responsible adults, often people who are doing quite well for themselves in various ways. So what really is the attraction? Or, despite what is often said to the contrary, are most of the regular pot smokers simply addicted? Or do they fall back on what I regard as a generally pathetic excuse, at least for adults, peer pressure?