marjuana legal or illegal?

[esmerelda]

what is your postiton on marjuana. My feeling on this is that ther are perscription and over the counter drugs with way more side effects and much more addictive. Also unlike legal drugs like ciggaretts and alcohol, marjuana can not kill you. i feel that it should be legalized. it would could down much of the gang activity.

[Father_0f_7]

Marijuana is harmless...by itself. But you never know what people (drug dealers) have laced it with. I think and some point it could get legalized but they would need to have some sort of way to "test" it and make sure it wasnt/isnt laced with anything.

[pet_psycho]

I understand the view point of legalising drugs to reduce the criminal elements and I kind of think it is a little crazy that some one can serve more jail time for drugs than murder……..(and yes I can see the point of well drugs kill.)
I think one point is no matter what the substance some humans will abuse it.
Pharmaceutical and over the counter products being worse than cannabis I don’t agree.
I think it falls back on the consumer, consumer education and also better management by Dr’s and allied health professionals.

I have spent 20 years in the health prof. And worked for defence and I know that a lot of soldiers whom received significant injuries often end up with drug and alcohol problems.
This usually stems from the patient not being treated in whole- this might be PTSD or other psychological factors, insufficient pain-management……..the list goes on.
I guess what I am saying is that the medical system fails some people……

Oh and there have been deaths recorded from cannabis- and a lot of what I would call devastating side effects schizophrenia, mild to severe depression, suicide, psychotic episodes……..

[fallon]

Marijuana is harmless...by itself

this

[AmyBelle]

Originally Posted by Father_0f_6

Marijuana is harmless...by itself. But you never know what people (drug dealers) have laced it with. I think and some point it could get legalized but they would need to have some sort of way to "test" it and make sure it wasnt/isnt laced with anything.

And even to extend on the 'by itself' bit, we also have to take cars, motorcycles, infact, any type of vehicle out of the mix aswell.

Sounds stilly but back when I was nursing you had no idea how many people came in from an MVA where one of the drivers were high, but the idiot would sit there going "Nah its just pot, pot is harmless" and I could argue them till I was blue in the face that marijuana slows your reflexes, but not a single person would believe it, despite their own injuries and the injuries they caused to others.

[Xero]

Originally Posted by pet_psycho

Pharmaceutical and over the counter products being worse than cannabis I don’t agree.

Then you've definitely never witnessed someone overdose on narcotics just for the feeling.

I have seen countless people get high, and none of these times have EVER. EVER. Compared to seeing my mom overdose on pills over and over again, drool on herself, lick food off the floor, scream and yell slurred words that you can't understand, and pass out on herself just to wake up and go to the hall and fall down the stairs.

The worst I've seen out of people that smoke weed is them eating all their food or laughing a lot or saying a ton of stupid stuff.

Originally Posted by pet_psycho

Oh and there have been deaths recorded from cannabis- and a lot of what I would call devastating side effects schizophrenia, mild to severe depression, suicide, psychotic episodes……..

I would like to see where you are finding this information. So far, I have searched and searched and I cannot for the life of me find anything on recorded deaths from marajuana. I can find page after page of death statistics on cigarettes and alcohol, even cocaine and heroin and everything else. I can not find one sentence stating how many people died of marijuana last year. Not one. So please give me a link to these "recorded deaths" because it would bring some conclusions to my long empty-handed search. Even give me the name of a book, I will go find it. Seriously.

According to the internet, pot has never killed anyone directly.

If anyone is interested, search google for death statistics involving alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs and then search for death statistics for marijuana. You literally can't find anything. Certainly nothing solid, at least. It's crazy.

As for pot being legalized, I'm not all for alcohol or drugs and definitely not cigarettes and the only thing I'm going to say is that if things as harmful as cigarettes and specifically alcohol are legal, then pot should be legal too. Its still harmful in its own way (as it IS a drug, lol) where it messes with your brain and impares judgement and whatnot, but compared to everything else it is the absolute most harmless if nothing else. Just saying if that's gonna be illegal, so should the rest of it.

This is JUST referring to pot though, as everyone else said, when mixed with other things it can be a different story. But take the pot out of the story, and the drug or whatever they mixed it with would probably be just as harmful as it was with pot in the story. Just my opinion.

[Jeremy+3]

It is legal to smoke it in the UK or grow a small amount for your own consumption.

[zeitgeist]

I see absolutely no reason that pot should be illegal. Recreationally it's harmless, unless the munchies are considered a health risk. Medicinally it's beneficial in myriad ways.

Oh and there have been deaths recorded from cannabis- and a lot of what I would call devastating side effects schizophrenia, mild to severe depression, suicide, psychotic episodes……..

I'm sorry, but I don't believe you. I have seen some studies suggesting that people who already have schizophrenia may trigger bad episodes by taking pot, but as far as the other things you list... I've seen it suggested as a treatment for them, not as a causitive factor.

marijuana treat depression - Google Search
marijuana treat psychosis - Google Search
marijuana treat schizophrenia - Google Search

Browsing through those links, you'll see that there are people arguing on both sides of the issue. It appears to me that the most credible arguments are made for positive effects for depression and psychosis, negative for schizophrenia patients. Don't take my word for it, see for yourself.

Bad side effects for schizophrenia patients hardly qualifies as a reasonable justification for making it illegal for everyone. It's like outlawing peanuts because a small percentage of the population is allergic to them.

Originally Posted by Xero

I would like to see where you are finding this information. So far, I have searched and searched and I cannot for the life of me find anything on recorded deaths from marajuana. I can find page after page of death statistics on cigarettes and alcohol, even cocaine and heroin and everything else. I can not find one sentence stating how many people died of marijuana last year. Not one. So please give me a link to these "recorded deaths" because it would bring some conclusions to my long empty-handed search. Even give me the name of a book, I will go find it. Seriously.

I agree. It's easy to make that sort of claim without backing it up.

Ahem: Did you know that swiss cheese causes cerebral palsy? It's true. There have been documented cases. (It's the holes that do it.)

[Jeremy+3]

Zeitgeist, I am a teacher at a special school, for those 14+, guess what a lot of my students of 18+ have in common, major mental disabilities from weed, most of them have no family history of mental illnesses and none were diagnosed with any mental illnesses until quite a few years after smoking pot regularly. The older they become, the worse it seems to become as well.

[esmerelda]

Originally Posted by pet_psycho

I understand the view point of legalising drugs to reduce the criminal elements and I kind of think it is a little crazy that some one can serve more jail time for drugs than murder……..(and yes I can see the point of well drugs kill.)
I think one point is no matter what the substance some humans will abuse it.
Pharmaceutical and over the counter products being worse than cannabis I don’t agree.
I think it falls back on the consumer, consumer education and also better management by Dr’s and allied health professionals.

I have spent 20 years in the health prof. And worked for defence and I know that a lot of soldiers whom received significant injuries often end up with drug and alcohol problems.
This usually stems from the patient not being treated in whole- this might be PTSD or other psychological factors, insufficient pain-management……..the list goes on.
I guess what I am saying is that the medical system fails some people……

Oh and there have been deaths recorded from cannabis- and a lot of what I would call devastating side effects schizophrenia, mild to severe depression, suicide, psychotic episodes……..

marjuana on its own can not kill anyone. I would beg to differ about over the counters and perscription drugs being more dangerous. there are people who break their own arm so the can get another perscription for percaset. Sudafed is used to make crystal meth. Cough syrup is used as a mixer with alcohol and has caused many reported deaths