Cannabis haul! This is a Joke, Wake Up Smell the Beans

[truthisfree]

If you wouldn't mind posting the collection of whatever you find on here so that I can have a look at the quality of the studies and try to find out about their funding too, that would be great!

I just put it here and I will link all articles for and against the legalisation of cannabis. I wish to re-examine all the facts once again as there must be way more medical evidence out there now than when I was a teenager.

[sarahj]

Sarah, if people take drugs for the thrill of it, I don't think they should be protected because of the fact that some people take the same drugs to relieve a diagnosed medical condition. If people become dependent on recreational drugs to socialise or sleep properly, that's a problem of dependency they need to address.

No femme. That is not the case.

Some people have problems sleeping or socialising before they take any substance. I personally have always had problems sleeping, even since a child. I just sleep badly and that is it. I sleep better when I am stoned. When I was a teenager I was chronically sleep deprived. Cannabis has allowed me to feel refreshed in the morning after a good night's sleep.

And even those people who developed a problem with either of the above disorders AFTER they started taking drugs, there is no guarantee and in some cases, no chance that they can solve those problems by giving them up.

Your argument is spurious. Simply because something is a problem and not a medical condition doesn't give you the right to deny sufferers their preferred medication.

I also feel the need to say that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with using a substance recreationally just to get high. Is there something wrong getting drunk, getting a buzz off rollercoasters or extreme sports? No there's not. It's natural. Similarly, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with getting stone just coz you like it.

[truthisfree]

The article that Thranduil posted has a link in it from which this article was written as far as I can see. the original article is here.

This is a quote from it:

"Psychiatrists such as Robin Murray and others spent many years in the 1990s – described as "the decade of the brain" – trying to find a biological and genetic cause for psychosis, but with little success. The latest focus on cannabis can be viewed as the dying gasp of the "blame the brain" brigade who seek to justify a biological approach to madness."

Rufus May, a clinical psychologist

The original article has been well spun to produce the one in the Independent.

[cactusflower]

A different perspective on drugs

Machinenation.org • View topic - Drugs and the CIA - Conspiracy Theory or Conspiracy ?

[Thranduil]

I disagree with you femme. If one uses a drug to relax or to socialise or to sleep, is that recreational use or medicinal? If you drink coffee or tea in the morning to wake up, are you recreationally using caffeine? Is that wrong. Should caffeine be criminalised for users aren't using it for a specific medical complaint? Personally, though I don't use caffeine as it affects me very negatively (far more so than cannabis - upsets my stomach, makes me jittery, causes my thoughts to race, makes me dizzy sometimes) but I wouldn't want to see people criminalised for using it, even to what I would consider excess, dehydrating their bodies and not sleeping enough.

That is not a justification for NOT decriminalising across the board in my view.

All we seem to get from the Yes side is comparitive arguments, ie caffeine exists, has effects, alcohol is legal has effects etc. Caffeine acts in a way that is different to cannabis or even alcohol (though comparing it to alcohol is obviously better, since the drugs are similiar in some ways (strongly affect the brain, overuse can lead to psychosis).

I just put it here and I will link all articles for and against the legalisation of cannabis. I wish to re-examine all the facts once again as there must be way more medical evidence out there now than when I was a teenager.

Thanks for that, one of the links is to an alternet site which claims that cannabis helps to prevent head and neck cancers....which links to the study here....

A Population-Based Case-Control Study of Marijuana Use and Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma -- Liang et al. 2 (8): 759 -- Cancer Prevention Research

But after a quick search elsewhere i found evidence that cannabis uses increases the likelihood of developing this specific form of cancer HNSSC....

Cannabis and cannabinoids ... - Google Books

The second article suggested that results from science showed that the effects were more than multiplicative with cigarette smoking (ie you smoke both you have more than the likelihood you would get if you added the likelihoods of smoking either together). Factors such as smoking nicotine, alcohol use and so on were accounted for in controls.

Both the lung research article posited by the Alternet article and the second link by me were written by the same UCLA Professor!

And in the alternet article they also report on a study that smoking marijuana helps to reduce lung cancer, but there is no link to the study homepage or way to look at the details of the experiment. On the site i link to immediately above on pg 328 it sets out a range of studies that show that marijuana smoking is indeed strongly implicated in lung cancer formations. What i found interesting is that it suggested THC (the active ingredient in cannabis) might itself promote cancer by interfering with cytochrome p4501 turning it into a form that turns other chemicals present in cigarette smoke into cancer promoting compunds. This may explain the multiplicative effect seen with smoking of cannabis and cigarettes.

The article that Thranduil posted has a link in it from which this article was written as far as I can see. the original article is here.

This is a quote from it:

"Psychiatrists such as Robin Murray and others spent many years in the 1990s – described as "the decade of the brain" – trying to find a biological and genetic cause for psychosis, but with little success. The latest focus on cannabis can be viewed as the dying gasp of the "blame the brain" brigade who seek to justify a biological approach to madness."

Rufus May, a clinical psychologist

The original article has been well spun to produce the one in the Independent.

Complete hocus pokus. This is just some article by some psychologist about how he smoked drugs, it has nothing to do with the Lancet article! Unbelievable deception, we should think twice about considering the list of links you posted as neutral after this.............

[Thranduil]

In fact now that i look at them, every single one of TruthIsFree's articles are from the same source alternet, and every one of them tries to spin the Cannabis issue in a pro-legalisation way! And some of them that quote studies give no links to websites dealing with those studies, you just have to take their word for it!

[myksav]

You don't think it might be a factor in making these kids deranged?

I give you an example in which a mother believed that giving these kids psychoactive substances might make them sleep (to go with all the other bulls^it in this thread from people who believe this is some kind of panacea drug for all of life's problems) and you think it is irrelevent? The message of decriminalisation is that the drug is ok, that message was sent out about nicotine decades ago and now thousands die every year from smoking related diseases. If we are going to consider decriminalisation we are damn well going to be mature about how that is carried out and keeping this cr"p away from the home-possession of people like that mother is an absolute imperative, either that or we keep things as they are. In fact if the level of debate from advocates is this irresponsible it makes me lean more on the side of keeping this stuff illegal.

Substitute alcohol for cannabis in that story and what is the reaction?

As to the deranged-ness of those to kids and attributing that to cannabis, you have to think of this, why was the mother giving those kids cannabis? To "help" them sleep. Presumably, the sleep problem preceeded the drug giving as it was given to "help" them sleep.
Lack of sleep or poor sleep patterns in youngsters does cause problems in their minds, adding any intoxicant to that will exacerbate the problem.

Would you be as vehement if she had given them warm milk and whiskey as a "help" to sleep?

[juanpablo]

All we seem to get from the Yes side is comparitive arguments...

And all we get from the no side is the same bluster over alleged links to a variety of differing woes affecting the cannabis user, but the no side fail to acknowledge the most obvious point; Cannabis usage is widespread and has been for a long time. If there are significant public health concerns from cannabis then it has yet to manifest itself in an obvious manner.

The comparative arguments are made simply because there is a double standard in play, alcohol & tobacco will still be used by people irrespective of laws, as will cannabis.

[truthisfree]

A different perspective on drugs

Machinenation.org • View topic - Drugs and the CIA - Conspiracy Theory or Conspiracy ?

I am not fond of conspiracy theories at all, but when there is the sums of money involved that change hands at an international level for illegal drugs anyone's involvement is possible.

The example of prohibition shows what happens. This is a complex subject and has many social responsibilities. The main one would be to provide a fairer, safer and as crime-free society as is possible. I know that this discussion will lead to all sorts of other illegal drugs and tbh I am far from knowledgeable about other drugs.

I do know that all sorts of head shops have been selling various "highs" around the country and although some of them have been removed they still seem to be selling other "highs" What these are and their effects both mentally and physically I am of an impression that they have not been studied in much depth at all.

The other use of drugs that has concerned me was (or is it still going on?)the use of extacy which was initially used as a drug to help relationships that were having difficulties. From what I have followed on this one, the ingredient that were used to make the first wave of them were pure MDMA which as far as I know was used certainly in trial form for relationship counselling. Due to this drugs popularity this MDMA was banned and followed soon after with MDA. this too was banned and it seems what followed were cocktails of up to 15 diferrent drugs combined.

I am not in any way up to speed with what has developed in these areas in the last few years, but I would think I am not far off the mark guessing that there are probably several new chemicals available on the streets/clubs/pubs and the consumer certainly has no idea of the side-effects. This is a serious situtation that young people could end up taking a drug that could do permanent damage to them Psyclogically.

This is why I wish to look at this subject and see if the approach of banning and policing is in fact creating way more problems than solving.

There is a lot of pressure to change the laws in the US right now so it is as good a time as any to look at it here.

One of the things that piqued my interest recently was that they have three prisons empty in the Netherlands. Also that on average that there is an arrest every 20 min. in this country for possesion.

I did a google and found an Irish site called legalise cannibas ireland, I have not spent any time on the site but will quote some of their figures. I have not had time to crunch these figures so I have no idea how accurete they are, save for saying it looks like a reputable site at first glance. These figures at least give some idea of what we are dealing with.

"Besides saving money, ending the unjust war on cannabis would free up resources and manpower to fight serious crime.

If the government decided to regulate cannabis sales, this could be expected to bring in over €200 million in VAT on Irish cannabis sales alone.
Regulation of the cannabis industry would result in the creation of hundreds of jobs. It would generate an estimated €243.8 million per year in employer taxes, and a further €26.3 million in PAYE taxes.

The Netherlands generates an estimated €360 million per year from tourists visiting their cannabis vending coffeeshops; Ireland could expect to generate up to 80% of this revenue from tourism."

From here

[Abacus]

If a person decides to grow a few cannabis plants in his own back garden, what is the reasoning for making that person a criminal for so doing ? If no one else is involved, how then does this imperil the state to the extent that it insists on banning the activity which is a well nigh hopeless exercise. Unless of course, soviet style whistleblowing were put in place to leak everything to the police.

Now there's a thought and while they are at it, they might train the self same police to keep a sharp lookout for greedy bankers and developers who are negligent and reckless to an unimaginable extent in placing the whole economy at risk of collapse, creating massive unemployment, losing peoples lifesavings willy nilly, as they pursue their hedonistic lifestyles with scoundrel behaviour.

Y'see that's not a crime. All that money lending stuff and losing peoples savings and being negligent, that's not a crime. I guess our legislators did not consider it serious enough to legislate but by god, we will not let that smoke sodden hippy half way up yon mountain do his thing even unto himself without decent legislation to hold him in check. And if he doesn't stop seeding the patch in his garden, we will jail him at a cost in excess of €1,000 per week, that'll teach him. He will search in vain for greedy gullet bankers on his landing tho'. Oh no, that's not on any time soon. But just you wait, Henry Higgins, just you wait...../

Sometimes, this reminds me of the law on prostitution which was created by a gang of male legislators. And just who was it, that they left out of the equation when defining offenders ?
Answers on a postcard, please, and the prize is a visit and guided tour of the all new state of the art prison out in North County Dublin which will be the envy of......oh Dear God, I don't like the way this is developing.

Hold it, hold it.....what's this I hear about the money being withdrawn, what....not even the foundations dug.....but but shure wasn't it all sorted ?

Ah...the RTE news.....and there's that nice Mr Reynolds again fresh from rifling Garda files, and now telling us that the Gardai have smashed another narcotics supply line. Although they are not in competition, merely complimentary public enemies, the tag sheet at the moment must be at least: Potheads > 100.....Bankers > Nil.

Honestly, I'm having flashbacks just thinking about the daftness of it all.