any reasons why marijuana should still be illegal?

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settle down, please.

in terms of long term effects... there is a link with an earlier onset of schizophrenia and marijuana, but i think they haven't established cause/effect vs. correlation.

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article ... eid=177354

lung cancer is moot because marijuana can be ingested in many ways, not just smoking.

EDIT: the comment at top is not directed at the people who are respectfully debating.

Last edited by hyperlexian on 04 May 2012, 12:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

He's got a point.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOPCYVK76-k[/youtube]

I despise when people make the argument "It is bad, it has long term effects, it is the bane of society, etc", then refuse to back it up instead asking others to do the research. But the people against prohibition that argue from an intellectual standpoint have done their homework... Furthermore I would say it is intellectual laziness, I suspect caused by an opinion arrived at before actual knowledge, without the expectation of being called on it. I see it in almost every thread like this. Why even bother contributing to any discussion in PPR if one does not intend to source their material or at least provide an explanation on how this reasoning was arrived at

Like I said in my previous post, I believe that we need to solve problems like poverty, social inequality, lack of education, ghettoization, detrimental home environments, unemployment, and all other social deficits that rob people of a future perspective and result in increased risk-taking behavior such as excessive drug use or crime. If one's life sucks and there appears to be no reasonably easy way to improve it, there is no reason to try and prolong it with a safe and healthy lifestyle.

But even if we address these problems, there will still be people who use low-risk drugs like marijuana in their personal pursuit of happiness, for reasons that I think are good and valid. People like the Nobel Prize laureates Richard Feynman, Francis Crick and Kary Mullis. Scientists like Stephen J. Gould, Carl Sagan and Andrew Weil. Artists like Dali, Warhol and Pollock. Writers like Baudelaire, Hemmingway, Philip K. Dick and Douglas Adams. Actors like Jane Fonda, Jack Nicholson and Drew Barrymore, directors like Coppola, and musicians like... there are far too many to list It would be far easier to list all musicians that have never used pot.

If cannabis can give us only one more album like The Dark Side of the Moon, one more book like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (better known as Blade Runner) and one more movie like Apocalypse Now, it is worth legalizing for that reason alone, imho. I think it would be unfair to label people hedonists if they consume weed to boost their creativity and artistic inspiration, to gain new insights in and different perspectives on scientific issues (Sagan wrote that he used marijuana in this way), to increase their appreciation for art, or to have spiritual experiences as a non-religious person.

And there is nothing wrong with a little hedonism either, imho. I don't see why people shouldn't occasionally use pot to have sex that lasts two hours, followed by a ten minute orgasm. Or simply to unwind every once in a while. I only see a problem when people take drugs because their life sucks if they don't, because they have no future perspective and drugs are the only thing that makes their lives worth while for an hour or two. That's the kind of drug use that quickly becomes habitual, gets out of hand and destroys lives, and I think this can only be prevented by changing social conditions to give everybody a purpose and a fair chance in life.

If you oppose the legalization of cannabis due to the fact that it has detrimental long-term side effects, then does it follow that all substances with such effects should also be illegal? Alcohol and tobacco are legal and both have undeniably bad effects on one's health. Both are also recognized by most to be addictive as well. Why should these substances be viewed as more worthy of legality than cannabis?

If I understand sage_gerard correctly (I think I misunderstood him at first), he doesn't want to prohibit anything. If cannabis was meat, he would be a vegan who argues against meat based on ethical and/or health
concerns, but doesn't want meat to become illegal. I think he merely tries to convince people that his drug-free lifestyle is healthier.

Personally, I think that a life with moderate use of low-risk drugs, such as a pot brownie or a glass of wine once or twice a week, is about as healthy as an extremely health-conscious, ascetic lifestyle. Maybe even healthier due to the benefit of regular stress relief. There are good and bad reasons to use drugs imho, and there are also ways in which moderate drug use can be beneficial to society (such as music and art that were inspired by a psychedelic high). In my opinion, cannabis is far more likely to be used in a reasonable and beneficial way than any other psychoactive drug.

PS: I currently don't use any drugs other than caffeine, pharmaceuticals and herbal remedies. But the only reason that I abstain from cannabis and alcohol is the negative effect that it has on my Crohn's disease. If I could afford it (health wise), I would get high every now and then. I think my life would be a little richer for it, and I might be able to get along without antidepressants.

If I understand sage_gerard correctly (I think I misunderstood him at first), he doesn't want to prohibit anything. If cannabis was meat, he would be a vegan who argues against meat based on ethical and/or health
concerns, but doesn't want meat to become illegal. I think he merely tries to convince people that his drug-free lifestyle is healthier.

Personally, I think that a life with moderate use of low-risk drugs, such as a pot brownie or a glass of wine once or twice a week, is about as healthy as an extremely health-conscious, ascetic lifestyle. Maybe even healthier due to the benefit of regular stress relief. There are good and bad reasons to use drugs imho, and there are also ways in which moderate drug use can be beneficial to society (such as music and art that were inspired by a high). In my opinion, cannabis is far more likely to be used in a reasonable and beneficial way than any other psychoactive drug.

PS: I currently don't take any drug other than prescription pharmaceuticals, herbal remedies and caffeine. But that's only because both cannabis and alcohol trigger my Crohn's symptoms. If it wasn't for that, I would treat myself to the occasional beer or vaporizer hit. I think my life would be a lot richer if I was able to do that, and I might get along without antidepressants.

Meth and coke are too intense on the user and they are highly addictive.

As someone who can't smoke it due to mental health issues, I feel the same way as you do.

I have very bad psychotic episodes when I smoke. Getting stoned is like a form of torture to me. I think if I did it even semi-regularly, I'd certainly end up being sectioned.

I have depression with psychotic features, anyway, currently in remission, thank non-existent god. Being stoned is a whole other level of depressed and psychotic compared to my absolute worst. If my absolute natural worst was -10, being stoned is -100. It's like I'm psychologically allergic to THC. Like some people are allergic to peanuts, but that's not enough reason to ban them.

I support cannabis legalisation even though I hate the stuff.

I had years on haldol then risperidal and it seemed to immitate a lot of the negative effects of both medications. Back when I was between 17 and 20 and still the meds my friends wanted to smoke regularly, wanted me to, and the whole thing of having my spit turn to Crisco, having the over-the-top sinking in feeling, I'd even stare at a hutch and just about see it disappear into a white wall - really nothing like an LSD hallucination but more like visual burn-in. My social skills would be extra-shite for two weeks after I smoked as well.

After being off antipsychotics for years by my mid 20's - it still wasn't my 'favorite' thing but it it was a much more positive, bearable, and less functionally degrading experience than it had been previously.

So agreed on that front as well - chemical balance, what meds you're on, etc. have a lot to do with it. A lot of my friends who've been daily smokers for a long time, actually have been all the way from their teens through now in their early 30's; incredibly ambitious guys, post-graduate, high grades, going places. For them they're naturally uptight and it levels them.

This is in essence why I like both alcohol and pot, it levels out my over-ambition and lets me relax and take things easy for a while. Sober my mind is racing 1000 miles per hour, some substances let me take a break.

I'm not even on anti-psychs and never have been.

The visual burn-ins were a lot like you described. However, I have really scary auditory hallucinations when I smoke, which I only have very rarely and mildly normally. I also can't communicate in any way with any human beings, which is way worse than my normal slightly rubbish social skills.

My brain is just faulty.

That kills the fun of just about anything when it goes like that. The only thing I ever did that put me in the non-social direction was Ketamine and even there we could talk, just that it was us laughing about how difficult it was or throwing a ball around to challenge ourselves to catch it.


Probably not. I still remember a girl we used to hang with in college with who mentioned that while she was for seeing it legal she herself had such a bad allergic reaction herself that she was hospitalized with respiratory problems. Life's a box of gamble chocolates; some are filled with caramel, orange fondit, or marzipan, others with cat s**t.

Oh I wasn't implying it has no downsides...I mean there are some people who react badly to it, I was more talking as a general rule it does not do a lot of damage. But in some people it can have negative psychological effects, then again in some people prozac can have more negative than positive effects I'm one of them.

But basically physical danger from marijuana is from smoking it, and according to rather new study..I might be able to dig up the link to from that other thread it doesn't even contribute to lung cancer. But yeah its nearly impossible to suffer a fatal overdose of marijuana mostly because a human cannot smoke or eat enough in one sitting to die as chances are they would vomit or pass long before they had that much.

Okay, looking back at this, and from the POV of a smoker, I would say that this doesn't really represent what would happen. I'm used to smoking cannabis that has a THC level from 26-31% nowadays. Although I have a card, there are only certain dispensories that I will do business with, because so many of them use mass produced stuff that maxes out at like 19%. It doesn't taste as good, and doesn't smoke as well, so it seems like a waste of money to me. A lot of people who smoke cannabis are pretty discerning, maybe even more discerning than me (maybe, hehehe).