Prodigal Son wrote:
there really is no reason why alcohol should be legal and marijuana not.
Wrong again:
Medical Pot-heads
by Gary Aldrich
That one becomes addicted and unlike alcohol, drugs can quickly damage brain cells and cause the addict a lifetime of mental and physical health problems that never go away.
Marijuana is also a sneaky drug. It's considered a gateway drug because once the casual user smokes it and enjoys its “benefits” without a serious consequence, the user concludes that the same could be true for other, more serious drugs. Thus the escalation begins and, for so many poor souls, their lives completely unravel. To feed their out-of-control drug habit, the addict often turns to a life of crime. After they have begged, borrowed, and stolen money and valuables from their friends and families, their future becomes the life of a serious criminal, and prison cannot be far behind.
The looting of family and friends often results in the loss of support from those closest to the addict, thus the user-addict's only companions end up being fellow users. Very few can break their drug habits, and their lives are irreversibly destroyed.
Pushing to legalize marijuana is the best evidence of the remarkable, deadly selfishness of your average, self-centered Liberal. They know the above facts better than most because many of their close friends have become addicts, and their lives were destroyed.
Yet selfish, self-centered Liberals don't care about any of that — they just want their marijuana, cocaine, or whatever designer drug is in fashion. What they won't admit is that many cannot enjoy their sexual activities without using the drugs — this is the dirty little secret that nobody wants to talk about. The effects of marijuana and cocaine are often more powerful than Viagra. The Liberal guy pushes drug use because everyone knows drugs sweep away a woman's natural reluctance to behave like a barnyard goat.
Will the Supreme Court say “yes” to the use of marijuana in medical circumstances? If so, will the Liberals be satisfied? Will the 80% of us who never used illegal drugs and never will, be allowed to continue to enforce laws that were created to maintain a civil, decent society? Or will the Liberals continue to push the limits like they did with abortion, until the medical reasons to use marijuana include lessening the “stresses” of life, or for the prevention of the effects of the “inconveniences of life?”
I think we already know the answer, and Conservatives should not budge one inch on this issue. We have ceded enough ground to the selfish, self-centered, and often deadly Liberals who really don't give a damn what happens to their brothers and sisters.
They just want their drugs.
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/drugfact/marijuana/
Marijuana abuse is associated with many detrimental health effects. These effects can include frequent respiratory infections, impaired memory and learning, increased heart rate, anxiety, panic attacks and tolerance. Marijuana meets the criteria for an addictive drug and animal studies suggest marijuana causes physical dependence and some people report withdrawal symptoms.
Marijuana has the potential to promote cancer of the lungs and other parts of the respiratory tract because marijuana smoke contains 50 percent to 70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than does tobacco smoke.
Marijuana's damage to short-term memory seems to occur because THC alters the way in which information is processed by the hippocampus, a brain area responsible for memory formation.
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/ongoing/marijuana.html
Exposing the Myth of Smoked Medical Marijuana
Marijuana: The Facts
Q: Does marijuana pose health risks to users?
Marijuana is an addictive drug1 with significant health consequences to its users and others. Many harmful short-term and long-term problems have been documented with its use:
The short term effects of marijuana use include: memory loss, distorted perception, trouble with thinking and problem solving, loss of motor skills, decrease in muscle strength, increased heart rate, and anxiety2.
In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of emergency room mentions of marijuana use. From 1993-2000, the number of emergency room marijuana mentions more than tripled.
There are also many long-term health consequences of marijuana use. According to the National Institutes of Health, studies show that someone who smokes five joints per week may be taking in as many cancer-causing chemicals as someone who smokes a full pack of cigarettes every day.
Marijuana contains more than 400 chemicals, including most of the harmful substances found in tobacco smoke. Smoking one marijuana cigarette deposits about four times more tar into the lungs than a filtered tobacco cigarette.
Harvard University researchers report that the risk of a heart attack is five times higher than usual in the hour after smoking marijuana.3
Smoking marijuana also weakens the immune system4 and raises the risk of lung infections.5 A Columbia University study found that a control group smoking a single marijuana cigarette every other day for a year had a white-blood-cell count that was 39 percent lower than normal, thus damaging the immune system and making the user far more susceptible to infection and sickness.6
Users can become dependent on marijuana to the point they must seek treatment to stop abusing it. In 1999, more than 200,000 Americans entered substance abuse treatment primarily for marijuana abuse and dependence.
More teens are in treatment for marijuana use than for any other drug or for alcohol. Adolescent admissions to substance abuse facilities for marijuana grew from 43 percent of all adolescent admissions in 1994 to 60 percent in 1999.
Marijuana is much stronger now than it was decades ago. According to data from the Potency Monitoring Project at the University of Mississippi, the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content of commercial-grade marijuana rose from an average of 3.71 percent in 1985 to an average of 5.57 percent in 1998. The average THC content of U.S. produced sinsemilla increased from 3.2 percent in 1977 to 12.8 percent in 1997.7 Q. Does marijuana have any medical value?
Any determination of a drug's valid medical use must be based on the best available science undertaken by medical professionals. The Institute of Medicine conducted a comprehensive study in 1999 to assess the potential health benefits of marijuana and its constituent cannabinoids. The study concluded that smoking marijuana is not recommended for the treatment of any disease condition. In addition, there are more effective medications currently available. For those reasons, the Institute of Medicine concluded that there is little future in smoked marijuana as a medically approved medication.8
Advocates have promoted the use of marijuana to treat medical conditions such as glaucoma. However, this is a good example of more effective medicines already available. According to the Institute of Medicine, there are six classes of drugs and multiple surgical techniques that are available to treat glaucoma that effectively slow the progression of this disease by reducing high intraocular pressure.
In other studies, smoked marijuana has been shown to cause a variety of health problems, including cancer, respiratory problems, increased heart rate, loss of motor skills, and increased heart rate. Furthermore, marijuana can affect the immune system by impairing the ability of T-cells to fight off infections, demonstrating that marijuana can do more harm than good in people with already compromised immune systems.9
In addition, in a recent study by the Mayo Clinic, THC was shown to be less effective than standard treatments in helping cancer patients regain lost appetites.10
The American Medical Association recommends that marijuana remain a Schedule I controlled substance.
The DEA supports research into the safety and efficacy of THC (the major psychoactive component of marijuana), and such studies are ongoing, supported by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
As a result of such research, a synthetic THC drug, Marinol, has been available to the public since 1985. The Food and Drug Administration has determined that Marinol is safe, effective, and has therapeutic benefits for use as a treatment for nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy, and as a treatment of weight loss in patients with AIDS. However, it does not produce the harmful health effects associated with smoking marijuana.
Furthermore, the DEA recently approved the University of California San Diego to undertake rigorous scientific studies to assess the safety and efficacy of cannabis compounds for treating certain debilitating medical conditions.
It's also important to realize that the campaign to allow marijuana to be used as medicine is a tactical maneuver in an overall strategy to completely legalize all drugs. Pro-legalization groups have transformed the debate from decriminalizing drug use to one of compassion and care for people with serious diseases. The New York Times interviewed Ethan Nadelman, Director of the Lindesmith Center, in January 2000. Responding to criticism from former Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey that the medical marijuana issue is a stalking-horse for drug legalization, Mr. Nadelman did not contradict General McCaffrey. "Will it help lead toward marijuana legaization?" Mr. Nadelman said: "I hope so." Q. Does marijuana harm anyone besides the individual who smokes it?
Consider the public safety of others when confronted with intoxicated drug users:
Marijuana affects many skills required for safe driving: alertness, the ability to concentrate, coordination, and reaction time. These effects can last up to 24 hours after smoking marijuana. Marijuana use can make it difficult to judge distances and react to signals and signs on the road.11
In a 1990 report, the National Transportation Safety Board studied 182 fatal truck accidents. It found that just as many of the accidents were caused by drivers using marijuana as were caused by alcohol -- 12.5 percent in each case.
Consider also that drug use, including marijuana, contributes to crime. A large percentage of those arrested for crimes test positive for marijuana. Nationwide, 40 percent of adult males tested positive for marijuana at the time of their arrest. Q. Is marijuana a gateway drug?
Yes. Among marijuana's most harmful consequences is its role in leading to the use of other illegal drugs like heroin and cocaine. Long-term studies of students who use drugs show that very few young people use other illegal drugs without first trying marijuana. While not all people who use marijuana go on to use other drugs, using marijuana sometimes lowers inhibitions about drug use and exposes users to a culture that encourages use of other drugs.
The risk of using cocaine has been estimated to be more than 104 times greater for those who have tried marijuana than for those who have never tried it.12 In Summary:
Marijuana is a dangerous, addictive drug that poses significant health threats to users.
Marijuana has no medical value that can't be met more effectively by legal drugs.
Marijuana users are far more likely to use other drugs like cocaine and heroin than non-marijuana users.
Drug legalizers use "medical marijuana" as red herring in effort to advocate broader legalization of drug use.
