WASHINGTON -- Marijuana isn't what it used to be -- it's way more.

A White House report said pot potency increased last year to the highest level in more than 30 years, thanks to more sophisticated growing techniques.

The report said that means greater health risks to people who may view the drug as harmless. It also increases the potential for dependence on stronger drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

The main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana is THC. Since 1983, the percentage of THC has more than doubled from 4 percent to 9.6 percent.

The analysis from the University of Mississippi used samples seized by law enforcement.

But a professor at State University of New York at Albany disputed the added danger factor.

He said marijuana users generally adjust to the level of potency by inhaling less. The professor serves as an advisor to pro-marijuana activists.

Source

Here's a link giving the long term effects of smoking marijuana:

Link

Are There Any Long-Term Effects?
Research has found some of the side effects of chronic marijuana use are:


changes in the brain. Marijuana can affect the areas of the brain that play a part in response to stress, motivation, and reward.
fertility implications. Animal studies suggest that heavy users may experience disruptions in ovulation or produce less sperm. Studies also show that babies born to women who use marijuana when they are pregnant may be more likely to have developmental and behavioral problems.
respiratory problems and other illnesses. Marijuana smoke has 50% to 70% more carcinogens (cancer-causing substances) than cigarette smoke does. Because users inhale more deeply and hold their breath longer with marijuana than cigarette smokers do, their lungs are exposed to these substances for longer periods of time. This is why people who smoke marijuana have more respiratory problems - such as having more mucus, chronic cough, and bronchitis (irritated breathing passages). They may also have an increased risk for neck, head, and lung cancers, and this risk rises with the amount smoked.
changes in blood pressure. Over time, continued use of marijuana can lead to decreased blood pressure, which may cause dizziness. It also seems to impair the body's ability to fight off infections and some other diseases.
emotional problems. Heavy users are more likely to report symptoms of depression than nonusers. They also feel more anxiety, have more personality disturbances, and are at an increased risk of developing schizophrenia, a severe form of mental illness.

In addition to the long-term and short-term side effects, research is finding other potentially problematic aspects to marijuana use. One of these is marijuana's possible connection with other drug use. Although it is not certain that marijuana is the direct cause, people who have used marijuana are eight times more likely to have used cocaine, 15 times more likely to have used heroine, and five times more likely to develop a need for treatment for substance abuse.

... And interesting to note, that the poster of this didn't even bother to mention the positive effects of pot on AIDs victims, chemotherapy users and sufferers of glaucoma was not even touched upon. The article of course says that At present, not enough data exist for scientists to determine whether smoking marijuana is any more beneficial than taking its active ingredient in pill form, although studies into this are ongoing..

POT IS THE DEVILS WEED! OMG!!

I've only ever read that marijuana is apparently so bad for you, has so many ill side-effects, yaddah yaddah. On the other hand, I've actually heard from dozens of people that I know who smoke pot and would find the posted article atrocious, and have for the passed 30 years. I've heard people claim that pot has helped with their anxiety attacks.

All I can say is, if people are against pot, they HAVE to, absolutely MUST be against alcahol. In all forms. I mean, honestly, booze is totally a "gateway" substance to pot, wouldn't you think? No? People who drink and don't smoke disagree?! Shocker.

Why is pot always the gateway drug? These days all the other harsher chemical drugs are just as easily and readily available. The whole war on pot thing is old hat and unneccisary.

And don't even get me started about how totally uneducated the public seems to be on the differences between hemp and pot. It's disgusting how blind and stupid many people can be.

*snip*

LOL! Spooky Shagswell
Of course I'm not going to advocate for drug use outside of medical treatment (Alcohol included)
I'm a mom and grandmother and besides being raised in a family of addicts and seeing first hand those long term effects on my older siblings...nope
It's sad to see my brothers and the effects that achohol and pot has made on their lives over the past years, so I don't have much good to say about it, sorry

Hydroponics, oh yeah.

Moved to the 'Science & Technology' section.

Claptrap from the government who gave us Reefer Madness.

*snip*

See, you must look at their addictions and the effects from not as someone who is effected personally. I did that for a long time... However, now I am very emotionally and personally attached to my boyfriends family for obvious reasons (we're very serious, and all that young-love dribble, living together, blahblahblah). His family is as fu**ed up due to the abuse of drugs and alcahol as you can get. It's really been an eye-opening experience (despite the fact I've known users of crystal meth, cocaine and heroine for many many years)(all of these drugs actually addictive, along with alcahol, whereas I have never had anyone say that pot was actually addicting).

And yet, and it's still their problem. These people chose to use the drugs, chose to drink, choose to give into their addictions, and choose to recklessly endanger their family's mental health, as you yourself Ciss have evidently been emotionally/mentally abused by the behavior of these people. It's pathetic to use the substace as a scapegoat. People have their own free will. I assume you do not live in a country where it's people are forced to use dangerous illegal... because I don't think that place exists yet.

And besides, if they wanted to help themselves, they'd check into rehab and get clean. I'm not saying that I have no sympathy to addicts, BUT they have no one else to blame but themselves.

And Incorrigible1, you are absolutely right about that annoying, bogus "claptrap". It's so rediculously annoying, and somewhat saddening, when I read those "facts". It's nearly as annoying as hearing people lump pot and hemp together (which I already touched on). Hemp is basically a miracle material which can be used for so many things (replace cotton, plastics, wood) yet people still mislabel it as the same thing as marijuana, which they have also been lied about to.

Pot is and forever will be completely harmless (as long as you know where and how it's grown). These are scare tactics by the government. How can they make money busting you if it's made legal? And who cares about pot when cigarettes are the number one killer of all substances?

Pot does attribute to all the things mentioned in the original post. It can also have some positive affects however. And if you don't use it "too much" then you can avoid some of those problems mentioned in the article. Too much of anything is pretty much always bad for you, and yea, that includes marijuana useage.

Now on the other hand, I find alcohol is way more harmful to society and individuals than marijauna has ever been. Yet it's legal to have establishments built for the sole purpose of people drinking until two in the morning and then driving themselves home. Go figure.

I'd also argue that alcohol is just as likely, if not more likely, to lead to the use of cocaine than marijuana is. People that smoke pot don't have much reason, or use for cocaine. It's those that drink too much that tend to turn to cocaine in order to keep them going, and make them feel as if it negates the affects of alcohol so that they can then continue drinking all through the night, and all through the day, and continually repeat the process until they crash, only to then start all over again.

Just a reminder, people, to keep your comments limited to discussing the merits or falabiltiy of the article. Comments condoning the use of drugs or references to drug use have been removed/edited out, they are not allowed on the forum. Thank you for your co-operation.

MM

As an ex-smoker (bout 18yrs now)...Naturally grown (outdoor) Mary Jane '' use NOT abuse'', imo is ok taken in moderation (I don't condone it tho)...But that 'toxic pumped/chemically laced indoor grown' crap thats everywhere is turning the next generations (kids & adults alike) into a bunch of psychotic paranoid schizoids...Do a search, see 'what type & how many different chemicals' it takes to grow that indoor poison...(about 90% of what your smoking).

Effectively crippling one side of the debate... you might as well just close the thread.

FYI:
Occasional marijuana use by adults is not only harmless (particularly if you eat it rather than smoke it), and can not only be pleasant and enjoyable, but actually beneficial.

Its amaising the damage the chemicals used nowadays can do. I wouldnt call it sophisticated just potentially more harmfull to the mind and body.

You could grow it in the heavens with gods help, but you'll never get the Hydro stinky stink without the chemicals man.
Coconut husks, drippers, lights, camera, action and the works.
Home jobs are the more natural, non mentally evaisive ways to enlightenment, smashed.. what ever, but without the headach effect.

Oh yeah, how does the "White House" know and would they care". Who in the top ranks is of their head running that country,hey.?
Those that are still at home smoking up are the ones that waiting for the white house to bring our soldiers home.
Sitting at home smoking is not killing the husband ,wives, babies that have been sent to war.
""""Be constructive not destructive!"""

!Drugs are bad, But Im happy in the clouds!

Yes. Try taking anti-inflamitorys for Scolioscis of the spine for more that six months and see what it does for ones liver!!

Painkillers do more damage than medical Pot use, and I have seen contructive sudies that have shown this and the effects.

Like any drug, alcohol, etc, the user needs to take full responsability.

100% correct. That indoor stuff will destroy your brain, and indeed cause problems with paranoia among other things. Use that and I have no doubt it can lead to schizophrenia, as mentioned in the original post.

The outdoor stuff though is quite different, and can have positive aspects from it.

If they can regulate alcohol sales, I don't see any reason why certain forms of marijuana can't be made legal. I'd rather be able to go to the store and buy marijuana from which I know what type of "high" I will get, rather then buy whatever I can get my hands on and not know what type of effect it will have on me.

And totally illegal, hence why discussion of personal drug use is specifically disallowed here.

From our terms of service:


It is not necessary to talk about your own personal drug taking experiences to debate this subject.

You may believe you know all about this but you don't I have seen this drugs affect in people and it is dangerous its not the benign drug you think, Everything is a "gateway " if you let it be. Its not as much the drug itself but the behavior it illicits, the stress, if its not available to the individual. The justification that seems to come from it not "really" being harmfull and " I just need it to relax" I have seen this tear many lives apart, and as far as medical uses well thats different from street use I cant believe you would stand up for something like that which tells me you have no idea what your talking about. so you and woody can just smoke away but in the short of it its still drug abuse and its illeagal for a reason, and not because the goverment wants to tax it and can't. Any justifacation of this subject usually is from ignorance of its affects...Aanica

It's not nearly as problematic as you make it sound. Can it be that much of a problem, yes. Is it for everyone that dares to smoke the stuff, absolutely not.

Alcohol destroys just as many lives and families as marijuana does, if not more, yet not only is it legal, there are establishments set up for the sole purpose of going to them and drinking alcohol. Places that when most people leave, there is a very high chance they are intoxicated in regards to what would be considered drunk driving by the legal definition.

There's no such thing as a gateway drug, and if there was, it would be alcohol or nicotine or caffeine.

Oxygen...........

Alcohol is legal, and there are many people who aren't responsible enough to handle that fact, and they destroy their own families, or someone else's by drinking and driving. If marijuana is made legal there will be just as many irresponsible people abusing it. Even if Uncle Sam gets a slice of profits, i can't see anything "good" about it.

Agreed. Its good to know some one here has a moral compass.

Fascism does not equal morality.

If you support making choices for people in the name of the greater good of the whole of the populace, you'll soon find yourself eating some sort of government issued nutrient jelly rather than making your own poor dietary decisions.

I wouldnt go that far. I also know the American people wouldnt let that happen. There is a reason why weed is illegal think about it or is your brain too fried?

This whole potency issue seems a bit iffy to me, surely if potencies are getting higher than so are our tolerances?

I'm sure most will agree that marijuana has negative side effects, but that's hardly an excuse for taking the decision of whether one is willing to endure this damage out of the hands of the general populace, I strongly believe no one should have the right to tell myself or anyone else for that matter what we may or may not ingest or do to our bodies.

Yeah LF.
It's been known for a long time (common knowledge) on studies done that ''GM/Hydro'' grown Mary Jane poison causes ''psychosis and schizophrenia'' and once ya 'loose it', you ain't never gonna recover.

50 top experts confirm mental health risk. (The Independent UK)

Later...

edit: tpyo...only

Hey I want you to tell that to my sister in law, who started with liquor, then pot and then hard drugs. All before she was 18. It is safer to simply keep pot, liquor and cigarettes away from kids.

I agree that the mass produced stuff is probably what is horribly bad, but how are young people supposed to know one from the other? Even if it was legal, you know that the same stores that sell liquor to kids, and there are a lot of them, would sell pot to kids too.

Ban it is what it I say. Legal tobacco and liquor is already too much for todays kids. I find it bad enough that 5 year olds are drinking coffee these days.

Wasn't there an article a couple years ago saying pretty much the same thing about tobacco? That it was getting more and more powerful, nicotine wise?


And what is the difference between hemp and pot? Don't they come from the same plant?

it's no bad for you. it's not adictive, it's just when you smoke it, you want more of a high so you try other stuff so it's not that the drug is bad for you but when you smoke it peopel want more of a high so the try E,oxycotten,PCP, and ect. So it all depends what your using the drug for.

yes it does but hemp is made for clothes,and braclets and ect. Pot is in a smoking form and pot and hemp come fro mthe same plant BUT i think its put in a dif form like himp they can weave it somehow idk to much about it

Weed is made from the leafs after you dry them out. Hemp products are made from stems and stalks of the cannabis plant.

The most insidious of the "gateway" drugs is oxygen.

All of these horror stories may very well be true, (I could tell a few of my own about people that I know) but if it wasn't pot it would have been something else for the addictive type of personality. I also know prominent business people that have been smoking for more than thirty years and it never lead to anything else and a lot of them don't even drink or smoke cigarettes.

I am certain that there are individuals that can handle the responsibility of legal marijuana, however if you make it legal, you make it legal for EVERYONE. I just dont think that society as a whole will be able to handle that responsibility.

Society would be able to handle it a whole lot better than it does alchohol.

I disagree, I think society will handle it the same way they handle alcohol.

I am not the smartest man on earth but I do have a degree in health and have worked for a drug rehabilitation service while in college.

I do not intend to insult anyone and it is not everyone that has made a post on this thread but some of you obviously learned about marijuana from your school lunch table.

My big concern is the chemical cocktail which is using marijuana along with alchohol and prescription medications or worse. For example smoking pot while drinking alchohol squares the effects of both drugs on an individual as it does if abusing pain medications while smoking pot. Marijuana by itself is not that big of a deal ... though with some personalities it can be.

That doesn't make sense... they're two completely different substances with effects that are incredibly different as well. So why would it have the same effect on society as a whole?

It wouldn't.

There will be people who abuse anything. From what I'm gathering it would seem you might favor mind control of the populace instead? You know, just so we can keep people from making the "wrong" choices...


(edited for typo)

I agree Bog, and there are a lot of people who would be fine with legal marijuana, however there also a lot that would not be fine with it. Thats the gist of the pro's and con's of legal marijuana. A lot of people can handle it, however a lot of people can't. I personally don't see the pro's (yay, I can get high and not get arrested) outweighing the con's (the ones who abuse marijuana and screw it up for everyone)

I guess along those standards alcohol should be long gone... cigarettes shouldn't be considered even partially acceptable... and all prescription drugs should be done away with because there are so many people who abuse those. Those certainly weigh heavily against their pros. Oh and how about cars. Why should people be allowed to drive??? There are drivers who are irresponsible with cars and cause deaths EVERY DAY! Get 'em all out of here because someone could be irresponsible with them.

Lies form the basis of the legislation that originally made weed illegal in this country, and still does today. Do some research on it and you will find I'm not making that up.

There are people who misuse and abuse thing like that all the time, and it isn't fair for the rest of us when laws are passed against our freedoms, but what is the alternative? how can we ensure that legal marijuana isn't just 1 more thing that gets abused and leaves a scar on society?

Fewer laws=A very good thing

I very much agree. I don't like it when my freedoms are taken away because some idiots can't control themselves or some such. I guess I'm not a visionary, because i can't see a viable alternative though. I wish I had a good answer.

Banning drugs dosn't make them go away, it just leaves a whole bunch of dangerous criminals with a major income. It's like diggin a ditch between human communicative pathways. Treating people who need help, like dirt.

I will never understand how society think it's helping anything by punishing addictive personalities for their self destructive behaviour instead of helping them out, passing information on how to handle these substances safely. Teaching them about the sideeffects and advantages to taking these drugs. Educating doctors in treatments.

Punishment is what you do to people who wish to cause harm to others, not themselves. You push these people away, you only push them further out into self destructivity.

IMO

We can educate people on it, not make it illegal and tell lies to make it sound worse than it is. Marijuana being illegal does what to stop it's use? Nothing. It means people who use it need to step outside of the law to do so which in itself has a negative effect on society. People who are not usually committing crimes smoke weed and are putting themselves on the wrong side of the law in doing so. So they have to buy weed from shady people if they want it or take the risk of growing it themselves and risking felony charges. And just so people can enjoy themselves. Does this sound familiar? Prohibition, anyone? The fact that the type of person who normally wouldn't break the law has to in order to smoke blurs the line of the law itself in the perspective of that individual. Everyone talks about how weed's a gateway drug. I think it's a gateway crime because if you have to break the law to do something that's so harmless to others as well as yourself, (when used in moderation) then are you going to be more apt to break other laws? I'd say, from my experience, it's very likely.

So what does making marijuana illegal do? Ensure that marijuana doesn't get abused, as you say? It doesn't even address that issue. It pumps a few bucks into the state governments who process fines on people caught with it. Knowledge is power. Teach people about it, just like you are taught about the proper way to handle alcohol. Teach people the effects that marijuana use can have if abused, and the positive effects it can have as well. If people are educated on it, and have the choice in their hand, then I guarantee there will be less petty criminals tying up the system.

But Slave2Fate, I promise you there is no way to ensure that anything doesn't get abused. You can only take the steps to make it less likely. The truth behind the plant is something that everyone should know, whether they ever intend to use it or not. This is the only way logical decisions can be made about it.

As if there aren't far more people that abuse alcohol than those that use it "properly" (as if there is a proper way of using alcohol).

Alcohol is way more harmful to oneself, and to society in general than marijuana would ever be.

The things we have are trouble enough. We don't need legal drugs and pot on top of it.


Wrong. Fewer laws = more crime. A much greater then 50% of people will follow the limit of the law. Speeders do 65 mph. People will drink one and a half drinks and drive, figuring they will just make the limit. People in general do stupid stuff. Legalizing things that are illegal is not the answer. Removing those illegal things all together should be the answer.


The same arguement can be made for guns. You can say, "It is not the drug harming the people, it is the people abusing it", all you want, but if the drug is not available the problem then does not exist at all.


And there is the key to the arguement. It is a statistical fact that teenagers find everything hard to do "in moderation". Taking away temptation is the easiest way to do so.

The problem is that pot is systemic. Even when my sister-in-law was sent to a Baptist Christian school with an excellent record, she fell in with the "wrong people" and was smoking again inside a week.

Pot growers are not any better people then other criminals. Growing up I went into the State Forest near my Parents house and was chased for a half hour by Pot growers who fired shots at me and my friends. They may have been trying to scare us off, but it sure seemed like they wanted to kill us.

The next thing the Pro-Pot people will want will be Pro-Ecstasy or Pro-Meth. Because, the only ones getting hurt are those using it. That logic sucks.

In the words of Mr. Mackay, "Drugs are bad. M'kay."

OH MAN if that is true great. I live in washington

all i can say is

poor the alcohol out and pass that stuff to me



on another note i know a lot of medical marijuana advocates and they never once told me they want any other drug made legal
thats all a matter of opinion i guess

hemp is one hell of a plant tho you can't deny that
up there with the soy bean

IMO if alcohol is legal they should legalize everything cause chronic alcohol consumption is just as damaging as a lot of illegal drugs and pharmaceuticals.