[LoveIsNull]

WolfCoder, on 23 Dec, 2009 - 09:45 PM, said:

LoveIsNull, on 20 Dec, 2009 - 01:11 PM, said:

This is the last time I am going to say this:
There is no direct link between smoking cannabis and lung cancer....

It has nothing to do with the cannabis as so much, well I don't know, the SMOKE IN YOUR LUNGS! Seriously, you think your lungs are going to be fine and dandy after you've inhaled any kind of smoke? It's SMOKE!

It is quite the remarkable thing, and there was a time that I would have just agreed with such a statement. This is not to say that the consumption of anything via smoking could be healthy. Certainly, the inhalation of smoke could cause some irritation of the lungs if not minor damage in extreme cases even just from the smoke being too hot. You might also be at an increased risk of contracting an infection of the throat and\or lungs depending on your personal smoking habits, set and setting.
It is just that so far as any significant, perceivable long term effects in individuals who are or were casual or frequent smokers of marijuana, the proof just isn't in. At least, there isn't the 'smoking-gun' correlation familiar to tobacco. What is even more interesting is that perhaps even tobacco wouldn't be so deadly were it not for traditional tobacco farming methods that call for phosphate fertilizers (source of the radiation) and whichever of the 599 chemical additives they also wish to include in their final product.
Here you can find out a bit more about the radioactive heavy metals present in cigarette smoke as well as a review of toxic compounds present in tobacco smoke. There is no way of knowing just how much of the illness that we attribute to 'tobacco' is actually the result of the presence, accumulation and decay of those radioactive heavy metals.
Now, I've just been thinking about how almost everybody associates tobacco smoking with lung cancer and illness. Of course, we know the link is there, so most of us find it easy to conclude: cigarette smoke must damage the lungs and cause cancer. Considering that we also know that many of the chemicals resulting from the combustion of tobacco are nasty, some even carcinogenic (minute quantities), it further asserts that belief and therefore lends people to believe that the act of smoking other herbs must be equally detrimental. However, if you think about it for another second you might come to the realization that 'smokeless' tobacco is available in forms that are intended to be chewed or as 'snuff' which is intended to be insufflated. These forms of tobacco product are also hazardous to your health and can cause cancers of the mouth, head and neck. This is a very odd thing so far as I can see and really suggests to me that something other than the traces of carcinogens and aromatic hydrocarbons present in tobacco smoke is causing the majority of the illness.
To really underscore the lack of any observable or significant detrimental long term effects related to the smoking of cannabis, consider a man named Irvin Rosenfeld. For those who have never heard of him, Mr. Rosenfeld is a successful stock broker with an extremely rare and painful bone disorder known as multiple congenital cartilaginous exostoses. He was lucky enough to be enrolled in the federal "Compassionate Investigational New Drug" program which was established after a legal battle and petition involving another medical marijuana patient named Robert Randall. The purpose of the program was to provide a very limited number of severely ill patients with marijuana grown at the University of Mississippi. Of course, the program is now closed to new applicants, but there are a handful of people who are still alive and still get marijuana supplied by the federal government. Irvin Rosenfeld is one of them, he has been getting his medicine from the government since 1982. Something to keep in mind about NIDA-supplied marijuana is that it really isn't very potent. That being the case, Irvin has to smoke a great deal of it to get through the day and according to him it doesn't even get him high. Irvin says he has been smoking marijuana for 30 years, but so long as he has been getting his supply from the government he has smoked over 115,000 joints, each one of them documented, which puts him in the record books. That is 12 joints a day of just about the crappiest weed available for the past 30 years without so much as a sore throat. Above all, if it wasn't for the ganja Irvin likely wouldn't be with us today.

[modi123_1]

LoveIsNull, on 24 Dec, 2009 - 10:30 AM, said:

Mr. Rosenfeld is a successful stock broker with an extremely rare and painful bone disorder known as multiple congenital cartilaginous exostoses.
<snip>
Above all, if it wasn't for the ganja Irvin likely wouldn't be with us today.

Did you just tell us marijuana cured an extremely rare and painful bone disorder?

[333OnlyHalfEvil]

While we're on the topic of lung cancer, here is another study for you anti-marijuana people to look at. This study is taken from the American Association for Cancer Research.

AACR.org

The section of this article about THC is about 2/3 of the way down the page and is titled: "Δ-9 Tetrahydrocannabinol inhibits growth and metastasis of lung cancer: Abstract 4749"

[WolfCoder]

All smoke causes lung cancer.



Common sense, people.

modi123_1, on 24 Dec, 2009 - 11:21 AM, said:

LoveIsNull, on 24 Dec, 2009 - 10:30 AM, said:

Mr. Rosenfeld is a successful stock broker with an extremely rare and painful bone disorder known as multiple congenital cartilaginous exostoses.
<snip>
Above all, if it wasn't for the ganja Irvin likely wouldn't be with us today.

Did you just tell us marijuana cured an extremely rare and painful bone disorder?

If you're trying to herald Marijuana as a multi-purpose cure for things, perhaps you should realize that would mean the chemicals inside would be extracted and medicines would be made containing precise amounts of only the chemicals you need. Rolling up and toking isn't exactly the medical science way to do things.

You know, Δ-9 Tetrahydrocannabinol inhalers. Without the smoke (especially if you're trying to treat lung cancer, it would help IF THERE ISN'T SMOKE). Given by prescription. Like all the other controlled substances you get when prescribed such as painkillers.

Well, just make clear whether or not you're for legalizing the Marijuana as typical smoking itself or whether you just want the materials found inside the plant to be used in medicines? If it were manufactured for medicines, it would still be a controlled substance and would still be illegal for usage without prescriptions (just like any controlled substance used for medicine today).

This post has been edited by WolfCoder: 28 December 2009 - 07:38 PM

[LoveIsNull]

WolfCoder, on 28 Dec, 2009 - 08:28 PM, said:

All smoke causes lung cancer.
Common sense, people.

modi123_1, on 24 Dec, 2009 - 11:21 AM, said:

LoveIsNull, on 24 Dec, 2009 - 10:30 AM, said:

Mr. Rosenfeld is a successful stock broker with an extremely rare and painful bone disorder known as multiple congenital cartilaginous exostoses.
<snip>
Above all, if it wasn't for the ganja Irvin likely wouldn't be with us today.

Did you just tell us marijuana cured an extremely rare and painful bone disorder?

If you're trying to herald Marijuana as a multi-purpose cure for things, perhaps you should realize that would mean the chemicals inside would be extracted and medicines would be made containing precise amounts of only the chemicals you need. Rolling up and toking isn't exactly the medical science way to do things.

You know, Δ-9 Tetrahydrocannabinol inhalers. Without the smoke (especially if you're trying to treat lung cancer, it would help IF THERE ISN'T SMOKE). Given by prescription. Like all the other controlled substances you get when prescribed such as painkillers.

Well, just make clear whether or not you're for legalizing the Marijuana as typical smoking itself or whether you just want the materials found inside the plant to be used in medicines? If it were manufactured for medicines, it would still be a controlled substance and would still be illegal for usage without prescriptions (just like any controlled substance used for medicine today).

All smoke causes lung cancer? Is this something that has been proven conclusively?

Quote

It is quite the remarkable thing, and there was a time that I would have just agreed with such a statement. This is not to say that the consumption of anything via smoking could be healthy. Certainly, the inhalation of smoke could cause some irritation of the lungs if not minor damage in extreme cases even just from the smoke being too hot. You might also be at an increased risk of contracting an infection of the throat and\or lungs depending on your personal smoking habits, set and setting.
...
Now, I've just been thinking about how almost everybody associates tobacco smoking with lung cancer and illness. Of course, we know the link is there, so most of us find it easy to conclude: cigarette smoke must damage the lungs and cause cancer. Considering that we also know that many of the chemicals resulting from the combustion of tobacco are nasty, some even carcinogenic (minute quantities), it further asserts that belief and therefore lends people to believe that the act of smoking other herbs must be equally detrimental. However, if you think about it for another second you might come to the realization that 'smokeless' tobacco is available in forms that are intended to be chewed or as 'snuff' which is intended to be insufflated. These forms of tobacco product are also hazardous to your health and can cause cancers of the mouth, head and neck. This is a very odd thing so far as I can see and really suggests to me that something other than the traces of carcinogens and aromatic hydrocarbons present in tobacco smoke is causing the majority of the illness.

The point is that, while I can understand how it is that people 'logically' conclude that "smoke causes cancer" due to, I don't know, maybe hearing the words "smoking causes cancer" for your entire life and/or experiencing or witnessing the effects that long term tobacco use can have on a person to further that assumed association...things just don't quite add up. Consider again the aforementioned examples of tobacco snuff, dip and chew, collectively and appropriately referred to as smokeless tobacco. And the fact is that long-term use of this smokeless tobacco also poses quite a serious risk to your health and can also result in various cancers and cancerous lesions of the mouth, head and neck. Keep in mind that this smokeless tobacco has never been combusted, it contains no aromatic hydrocarbons, no carbon monoxide, no formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, no pentacyclic hydrocarbons such as benzopyrene, no nitrogen oxides, no toulene...none of that stuff is present unless by way of an additive, but all of those things are pretty volatile anyways and would certainly have evaporated from the final product before consumption. Despite all of the things it does not contain that actual tobacco smoke would, smokeless tobacco could still cause cancer with prolonged exposure, it is still dangerous and few people would deny that. Of course, even smokeless tobacco contains polonium 210. People who use chew or dip tobacco are putting great big wads of polonium laced plant material between their lips and gum's of their mouth and typically they will always put it in the same spot. Twenty-years later a cancerous white lesion appears in that very spot, what could possibly have caused that: the plant material itself or the freaking radioactive Po210 it contains constantly bombarding skin cells with alpha-particles for twenty years? I wonder, I really do.
Remember, laboratory animal studies have confirmed that Po210 is the only component of tobacco smoke that has been conclusively proven to cause cancers when administered independently. I wish I could point you directly to a renowned medical publication with this information, but if I recall correctly these studies were done several decades ago. Those interested could Google "polonium 210 only component of tobacco smoke" to find scores of references to this information. Here is a good one, which states quite eloquently:

Quote

Polonium -210 is the only component of cigarette smoke that has produced cancer by itself in laboratory animals by inhalation - tumors appeared already at a polonium level five times lower than those of a normal heavy smoker.

Lung cancer rates among men kept climbing from a rarity in 1930 (4/100,000 per year) to the No. 1 cancer killer in 1980 (72/100,000) in spite of an almost 20 percent reduction in smoking. But during the same period, the level of polonium -210 in American tobacco had tripled. This coincided with the increase in the use of phosphate fertilizers by tobacco growers - calcium phosphate ore accumulates uranium and slowly releases radon gas.

As radon decays, its electrically charged daughter products attach themselves to dust particles, which adhere to the sticky hairs on the underside of tobacco leaves. This leaves a deposit of radioactive polonium and lead on the leaves. Then, the intense localized heat in the burning tip of a cigarette volatilizes the radioactive metals. While cigarette filters can trap chemical carcinogens, they are ineffective against radioactive vapors.

The lungs of a chronic smoker end up with a radioactive lining in a concentration much higher than from residential radon. These particles emit radiation. Smoking two packs of cigarettes a day imparts a radiation dose by alpha particles of about 1,300 millirem per year. For comparison, the annual radiation dose to the average American from inhaled radon is 200 mrem. However, the radiation dose at the radon "action level" of 4 pCi/L is roughly equivalent to smoking 10 cigarettes a day.

In addition, polunium-210 is soluble and is circulated through the body to every tissue and cell in levels much higher than from residential radon. The proof is that it can be found in the blood and urine of smokers. The circulating polonium -210 causes genetic damage and early death from diseases reminiscent of early radiological pioneers: liver and bladder cancer, stomach ulcer, leukemia, cirrhosis of liver, and cardiovascular diseases.

The Surgeon General C. Everett Koop stated that radioactivity, rather than tar, accounts for at least 90% of all smoking-related lung cancers. The Center for Disease Control concluded "Americans are exposed to far more radiation from tobacco smoke than from any other source."

Cigarette smoking accounts for 30% of all cancer deaths. Only poor diet rivals tobacco smoke as a cause of cancer in the U.S., causing a comparable number of fatalities each year. However, the National Cancer Institute, with an annual budget of $500 million, has no active funding for research of radiation from smoking or residential radon as a cause of lung cancer, presumably, to protect the public from undue fears of radiation.

I would also like to add that any argument against legalizing marijuana just because it could potentially be smoked (which must make it dangerous!) is a moot point because so many things can and are being smoked every day. Over the past couple of decades, in fact, a new market has emerged for so called "legal budz" or "herbal smoke". These products are not marijuana and [those sold in the US] contain no active ingredients. Actually, nobody is really sure what they contain. Some products are "herbal" mixtures of different plants wrapped around a stick or otherwise commingled together and sprayed with some kind of sticky crap to give the illusion of a "resinous" coating, while others are solid-form mixtures or "extracts" of no-one-is-quite-sure-really pressed into bricks made to mimic the appearance of hash. These products [that are available from within the US] do not get you high, but they are marketed as "marijuana alternatives" and the product names mimic those of the different cannabis varieties while descriptions utilize common cannabis-related slang. These products are legal and are intended for human consumption via smoking. In my mind the only fools who could fall for something like that and actually think they're going to get high are morons and children who will probably grow up to be morons. To be brutally honest I would certainly rather have my children smoking real ganja than god knows what wrapped around a stick and sprayed with crap that wont change your state of mind anyways.

modi123_1, had Irvin Rosenfeld been totally cured then it would mean he'd no longer need to smoke the marijuana. Here is an excerpt from the Compassionate Investigational New Drug wikipedia article I linked to in my previous post.

Quote

Irvin Rosenfeld, who joined the program in 1983, is the most public of the remaining patients and has been using legal federal marijuana for the longest amount of time. He has been featured in numerous print articles and on the Penn & Teller: Bullshit! cable television series. Rosenfeld has the disease Multiple Congenital Cartilaginous Exostoses, a painful disorder which causes bone tumors to form at the joints, stretching the surrounding tendons and veins, making movement almost impossible. Rosenfeld has had 30 tumors removed in six operations. He still has 200 tumors, some too small to remove, yet in the 30 years he has been smoking marijuana, he says, he has not had a new tumor.

Apparently he also suffers from pseudohypoparathyroidism, which the cannabis also treats. Were it not for the cannabis he would have remained in constant pain, bedridden, as the tumors kept growing and growing. And keep in mind this is with the crappy NIDA-provided stuff, had he access to the good stuff it might damn well have him cured, who knows, but he certainly wouldn't need to smoke as much.

WolfyCoder, cannabis and the ingredients it contains may very well have the potential to cure a plethora of illnesses (research suggests Alzheimer's and tumors for instance, but the amounts required would likely have to be ingested orally, or injected, but cannabinoids must be specifically prepared for such purposes) but who could possibly know what it does and to what extent when it has been blacklisted as the subject of any research, while previous research has been destroyed and barley saw the light of day. It is just that there is no doubt in my mind that it definitely helps to treat certain conditions and the symptoms thereof, most notably those involving nausea, inflammation, neuropathic pain, migraines, menstrual cramps, morning sickness (in pregnancy), even asthma believe it or not (look into Ms. New Jersey). And for those who didn't know, cannabis doesn't have to be smoked! It can be baked into foods, tinctures can be made (though this is explicitly banned according to California MMJ law) or administered via emerging vaporization technology. A vaporizer heats the herbal material to the temperature required for the active ingredients to become volatile, a substantially lower temperature that will not cause combustion meaning there is no smoke, just cannabinoid-rich vapors to be inhaled.
Interestingly enough about medical science and cannabis, none of that is allowed to take place in the US. The federal government has not and will not allow research into marijuana for medical purposes or otherwise. Couple this with the fact that the only source of cannabis available for study (as far as our government is concerned) is University of Mississippi grown, NIDA-supplied garbage, not that any of even the countries top researchers would have access to it.
Beyond this, the chemicals inside of cannabis come from nature and in a most remarkable way. As far as I am concerned the pharmaceutical industry has absolutely no right to synthesize or even extract those chemicals so that they can turn around and sell them for some outrageous price. They are already doing this in parts of Europe and Canada, it is called "Sativex" and it is a combination of THC and cannabidiol in a mouth spray. It costs about $125 per vial.
Still, who knows if Sativex is really even as effective as herbal cannabis, which contains over 60 cannabinoids. There is an astonishing variety of specialized cannabis strains with varying amounts and ratios of these cannabinoids, many associated with the treatment of specific conditions. If these were legal, regulated products (for medicinal purposes or otherwise) we should be allowed to know exactly what is in them. George Washington's physician, Benjamin Rush is quoted as saying:
"Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others; the Constitution of the Republic should make a special privilege for medical freedoms as well as religious freedom."
As a side note, many of our founding fathers including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp. The first laws related to cannabis in the new world actually made it illegal for farmers not to grow hemp, and you could pay your freaking taxes with it for gods sake! John Adams was quoted as having said "We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption".

In conclusion, I believe in personal freedom of thought and consciousness, the right to choose what one wants to put in ones body and in whatever manner so long as there is no operating heavy machinery or looking after children and individuals are held accountable for their actions. I also believe in medical freedom, the right to treat oneself in whichever manner one sees fit, including a right to self-medicate. This should all go hand in hand with religious freedom, provided of course that the rights of others are not being infringed upon. I believe cannabis is a gift from the divine and that within this plant lies the solution to many of the problems faced by humanity today. Within this plant lies our number one source for food, fuel, fiber, paper and medicine. If this plant is evil, Jesus himself is the anti-christ.
Edit:
To really appreciate this plant consider where these cannabinoids come from. These compounds are by no means easy or cheap to have synthesized in the laboratory, hence why Dronabinol costs patients hundreds of dollars per month. This plant can manage to manufacture a wide variety of them and a key few in abundant quantities. In nature, the biochemical synthesis occurs in only one place- those tiny little 'crystals' on the surface of the flowering buds and leaves which are known as "capitate-stalked trichomes". When light from the sun (UV-B rays) hits a fibrous mat of terpenes and phenols that have accumulated at the cuticle of the trichome head the cascading reactions within produce the cannabinoids, which build up, ooze out and sometimes cause the cuticle to burst. Why would it evolve to make such substances? Various suggested roles include to protect it from the cold, the sun and/or discourage insects (they tend to get stuck) and other pests, or perhaps just to get human affection. Undoubtedly, it is one of the most advanced plant species on the planet and somehow also evolved to produce very flavorful seeds with an astounding nutritional profile, rich in the highest quality proteins, with all essential amino acids (17 total), essential fatty acids in the perfect ratio for human health, vitamin e and an array of minerals and phytosterols, plus high quality fiber.

This post has been edited by LoveIsNull: 29 December 2009 - 03:21 AM

[Choscura]

wait a minute, you mean cigarettes are nuclear powered, and marijuana is better because nuclear power is bad?

The fundamental flaw in this is that if marijuana is legalized, it will be grown in exactly the same way as tobacco, with the same fertilizers, pesticides, etc. So even if this is true- which I find highly unlikely- it will be a null point if the legalization ever happens.

[LoveIsNull]

Choscura, on 29 Dec, 2009 - 05:00 AM, said:

wait a minute, you mean cigarettes are nuclear powered, and marijuana is better because nuclear power is bad?

The fundamental flaw in this is that if marijuana is legalized, it will be grown in exactly the same way as tobacco, with the same fertilizers, pesticides, etc. So even if this is true- which I find highly unlikely- it will be a null point if the legalization ever happens.

This is where you're wrong, I've heard this ridiculous excuse for an argument before. The thing nobody seems to be aware of is that tobacco and cannabis are two very different plants, they are grown using entirely different farming techniques (for one thing it is definitely grown hydroponically indoors more often than tobacco). Cannabis is a dioecious plant, there are male and female plants, males must be destroyed after sex can be determined. It is also photosensitive, in order to initiate flowering the plants require a longer period of darkness. Most varieties of nicotiana tabacum are day neutral, it flowering does not depend so much on the light cycle. The reason tobacco is grown with these kinds of phosphate fertilizers, so they say, is to make the tobacco more flavorful by starving it of nitrogen. Cannabis requires nitrogen in abundance during its vegetative growing period, during flowering the feeding regime changes, fertilizers applied are higher in phosphorous and potassium. Too much nitrogen at this point will inhibit flowering, but there is no still need to intentionally starve it out because the plants are likely to need whatever is left of it for the duration of their lives. Additionally, cannabis grows very well without the use of pesticides.
Even so, radioactive heavy metals may not be so likely so accumulate on cannabis plants the way they do for tobacco. Above all I would hope that the majority of the cannabis consuming population would be wary of this and refuse to buy their product from such sources. It's a connoisseur thing, all of the aficionados know that the best ganja is grown organically with sustainable farming techniques.

[LoveIsNull]

While I was attempting to edit my previous post, I apparently lost the ability to edit my previous post...so here is my clarification.
A note about fertilizers
There are 18 elements that have been identified to be essential to any plants' growth. These are oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, magnesium, sulfur, calcium, iron, zinc, manganese, boron, copper, chlorine, molybdenum, silicon and cobalt. Oxygen, hydrogen and carbon are obtained from water and the atmosphere while the other elements must come from the soil. The elements most consumed from the soil are considered the macronutrients: nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and in some cases sulfur, magnesium and calcium. These are the ones that the soil needs replenished frequently, especially nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. The rest of the essential elements are micronutrients and are typically maintained at adequate levels in the soil.
Agricultural chemicals, which includes these fertilizers, is a multi-billion dollar industry. Agricultural fertilizers can come from a variety of sources; they can be synthesized in a laboratory or derived from nature. Miracle Grow is an example of synthetic fertilizer products, they are very concentrated and can be used on a wide range of house plants, herbs, fruit and vegetable plants although I am not sure why anyone would want to. The more naturally or organically derived fertilizer products come from things like worm castings, bat and seabird guano, bone meal, crab meal, liquefied seaweed, various composts (manures, sphagnum moss, forest humus), fish emulsions, etc. The phosphate used in the tobacco farming industry is neither synthesized nor organically derived. It is mined from the Earth, as I have mentioned, from apatite rock which also contains traces of radioisotopes. It is this, coupled with the nature of the tobacco plant, that leads to the accumulation of radioactive compounds on tobacco leaf surfaces. My point is that this appears to be mainly a tobacco-related phenomenon, and beyond that growing high-quality cannabis requires much more care, knowledge, and attention to detail.

For those who find it hard to believe that tobacco could be radioactive:
http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/8850254
http://journals.lww....Smokers.31.aspx
http://journals.lww....soluble.32.aspx
http://www.theage.co...54.html?page=-1
http://ajph.aphapubl...tract/98/9/1643
http://www.sciencema...t/150/3692/74-a
http://www.sciencema...ct/188/4189/737
http://www.sciencema...ct/153/3738/880
Scores of them: http://scholar.googl...ium+210+tobacco

[Programmist]

Unless it infringes on the rights of others then it should be legal. But I have unfortunate news to stoners. The number of people in our jails on MJ crimes is ridiculous and wasteful. Even if MJ becomes legal I guarantee you that many companies will still test for it and use it as a reason to exclude you from jobs.

[motcom]

No, Not be legalized, it smells bad and makes people stupid.

I could not care about all the good reasons Weed has there can always be an alternative way....

It's like those adds on tv where you can buy an electric body building message/trainer thingy, If you apply it to your head and you keep telling yourself "I will not by stupid shit for no reason", will you learn from that???

Cheers have a Joint and think about it, you might have something to talk about for the whole day...

[mono15591]

Original question: Yes.

Marijuana is a very good

It should be treated like tobacco and alcohol.
You can't become physically addicted to it AND you can't OD on it. Also Alcohol effects your decision skills and vision WAY more than weed ever could.

Why should something be illegal just because of the label it's been given throughout history?
It's better for you than alcohol and it's better than smoking cigarettes/cigars and chew.


And the people who say "Why would you want to do it, all it does is make you sit on the couch" I hate you!
It takes A LOT of smoking to get you couch locked. I guess you could compare it to the amount of alcohol it takes to get black out drunk.

[baavgai]

motcom, on 12 March 2010 - 02:21 AM, said:

No, Not be legalized, it smells bad and makes people stupid.

Love this argument. I'm reasonably certain I could say the same for after shave.

It really doesn't matter if cannabis is a wonder drug or just another substance humans have found to get messed up on. The real interesting point is it's simply no worse for someone than alcohol. And, indeed, in all fundamental arguments for and against its legality you may simply replace weed with whiskey.

It's not a debate about good or bad. It's a debate about legal or illegal. Given the current existence of liquor stores, and all the lessons we continue to ignore from Prohibition, there's simply no justifiable reason that cannabis should be illegal.

My home state, unexpectedly, just passed the Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act. Again, this is actually arguing to perceived value rather than rights. Still, it's a start.

[motcom]

Trust me i just to be on that same boat... but it sank because of low maintenance... (Hmmm wonder why)

[raziel_]

baavgai +100

[Brewer]

I'm going to go with the small amount of people here who believe that weed should stay illegalized. Even while it is illegal, I've seen people do incredibly stupid stuff while smoking it.

It wouldn't be such a problem if people knew how to handle theirselves, but as with liquor, a lot of people don't. Marijuana makes you stupid, it also kills motivation.

If the government wants to cut down on cigarette smoking, why would they release another evil into our world?

Nothing good could come from legalizing marijuanna. Even if it is heavily taxes by the government, more harm than good would be done. If it were legal to smoke weed, then people would just walk down the street with a joint in-hand. They would decide that it would be a fun idea to mess with someones stuff, the people would call the cops, and the kids would get arrested.

There you go, all the money the government just made from taxing your weed -- and then some -- is gone. And thats just a few more kids that are in jail.

How about this: unstead of going out and getting high, go to the library and read a book.

This post has been edited by Kr0w: 18 March 2010 - 11:17 AM