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Originally Posted by TSGracchus
Oh, I agree with this! The drug war is a true fountain of hype and deceit. Still, it's also important not to overreact; one can make an equal and opposite error. Drugs, legal or illegal, are never good for you and can potentially be dangerous, depending on the substance.
For myself, I never use pot any more, not because I think I'm going to keel over dead or become a heroin addict (or grow tits, or any of the other weird shit that's been peddled), but because I'm a writer and marijuana torpedoes my verbal abilities. The high just isn't worth that.
That's pretty much what I would expect. Marijuana isn't addictive while tobacco is. If you smoked as much pot as a 2-pack-a-day nicotine junky smokes cigs, your lungs would look like moth-eaten cloth, but nobody does.
But as I said, if you're talking about second-hand smoke, the "single joint" effect is more important than the long-term. Also, there are effects from the drug itself that are more noticeable from secondhand pot smoke.
I'm a firm believer in declaring victory in the war on drugs and going home; I think trying to ban drugs of any kind is counterproductive and stupid. But just the same, I can see some value in sensible regulations, which would include such things as the current ban on driving while intoxicated, and restraints on public consumption. I think that Holland is being silly not to include pot in its ban on public smoking.
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I know 3 people who smoke pot all day long. None of them smoke joints, since the paper used to roll a joint can be more dangerous than the actual pot(my opinion)
Since I know 3 people out of a few thousand people that I know, there must be others who smoke large amounts of pot on a daily basis.
If the health effects of pot are half as bad as we are told, then these 3 people I know and others should have serious lung problems.
If you check this data, it will show that there is a small number of people who are very heavy users.
House of Lords - Section 3 - Consumption patterns of regular cannabis users
The top credible consumption was 400g or approximately 1/2oz per day, by a grower who had produced 208 plants in his most recent crop. At 3%-15% THC, this could represent between 400mg and 2000mg THC per day. He reported "memory loss" as a health problem and did not report any health benefits! There was a small cluster of 19 respondents in the range 200-250g (approx. 2oz per week), representing THC intakes of between 200mg and 1250mg per day. This contrasts with the maximum reported cannabis use in the literature of 10g/day (McBride) in the UK, and 50g per day (Schaeffer et al) in the Caribbean (estimated at 4000mg THC/day based on determined 8% THC content).
Now, what we need is a study of the health effects from heavy marijuana smokers who do not smoke tobacco, as well as comparisons on the method used to smoke the marijuana.
Here is a piece from New Scientist.......
Regular marijuana use can harm memory and the ability to make decisions, according to Jean Cadet at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Baltimore, Maryland, US. To find out why, he monitored the flow of blood through the brains of 54 marijuana smokers, among whom the heaviest user smoked 50 joints every day.
50 joints a day? Wow. Why anyone would smoke that much is beyond me, but these heavy users need to be studied. IMO.
Marijuana makes blood rush to the head - health - 07 February 2005 - New Scientist
There are other studies which show that very heavy marijuana users do exist. It is time to study the effects of marijuana smoking and the lungs for these heavy users.
As to 2nd hand smoke, I have never looked for studies on 2nd hand smoke for marijuana.
Do you have any good info to share on this? If yes, I would be happy to look at it.