The thing that bugs me most about the legalization is that now I have to tell my kids that "drugs are bad mmkay except that one .... that I already told you was bad. but I totally mean it about the others. Yes I know mushrooms are natural too but even though I was apparently wrong about the one, I'm not on the other."
Purpose of cannabis? Medical indications? Superiorty to other, more researched and safer medication? Good quality evidence is lacking for this. A lot of the studies linked on the cancer.gov page are on mice or in vitro studies and in very early stages of development. Saying that cannabis should be legal due to proposed anti-cancer effects in mice is akin to legalising access to pre-human testing chemotherapy drugs.
It's called 'the munchies.' One of the most common complicating problems for patients undergoing chemotherapy is eating enough. The chemo drugs tend to cause nausea, while simultaneously suppressing appetite. Cannabis has antiemetic effects and increases appetite.
I'm not joking when I say marijuana being legal would have lengthened my mother's life. That's not hyperbole. Toward the end, probably the biggest problem she was having was nutritional. There were very few foods she could keep down. Malnutrition weakened her body, and hastened the cancer's progress. And even before the later stages, access to cannabis would have allowed a more aggressive chemo regimen, by mitigating the side effects of the drugs.
Another 18 months, and she would have been able to see me graduate, and attend my wedding. If you sincerely don't see the value in the medicinal use of marijuana, then I really have nothing else to say to you.
you're = you are
your = belonging to you
their = belonging to them
there = not here
they're = they are
The thing that bugs me most about the legalization is that now I have to tell my kids that "drugs are bad mmkay except that one .... that I already told you was bad. but I totally mean it about the others. Yes I know mushrooms are natural too but even though I was apparently wrong about the one, I'm not on the other."
Would you really, though? I don't have kids, but if I did I certainly wouldn't be telling them that alcohol is healthy, or suggesting that tobacco isn't one of the most addictive and harmful (over the long term, anyway) substances out there. If you believed that marijuana was dangerous and that you wanted them to know that, why would this change anything?
Many of us (if we assume the people on this forum are more or less a normal sample of the population) drink some amount of alcohol from time to time, but I don't think there's anyone here who's been telling their kids, "it's perfectly fine, go for it." Realistically you don't want them to be testing and assessing the risks of these things until they're mature enough to understand all of the information. Basically, talk about it the same way you might alcohol: it's legal for adults to use it responsibly, but it has some negative consequences and it does the most harm to you when you're young.
I don't like this idea that we use laws to dictate what is good or bad for you at such a small scale. If we're going to go down that road, we should probably ban soda, candy, going outside without sunscreen, driving, mountain biking, skiing, skydiving, hiking, playing video games, and basically anything else with potential negative consequences. It's not an appealing world, and I think most people would rather be forced to take some responsibility directly than deal with such a situation. Obviously there are cases where the public good overrides the desire for a completely free society (I certainly don't think they should legalize meth, and I'm glad it's illegal to dump toxic waste in the water), but it's also quite possible to go too far when protecting people.
All of those things have potential consequences but do not impair thinking.
I think it's fair to maintain a ban on substances that impair thinking and may have other serious consequences.
Obviously we've seen the effects of banning a previously legal drug (alcohol) but cannabis is already restricted and on the balance of arguments I don't see why it should be made legal.
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
edited March 2013
We stopped banning alcohol partially because of the kinds of crime it led to, which the different levels of government were unable to effectively combat.
Restricting marijuana alone has created similar levels of unstoppable crime on a worldwide scale. "This might impair thinking" is a pretty sorry excuse for a justification for the kinds of violence, corruption, and death associated with the War on Drugs, particularly when other substances that are equally or more impairing are legal.
saying "oh, well it's already restricted so why worry" blatantly ignores the monumental costs associated with restricting it.
All of those things have potential consequences but do not impair thinking.
I think it's fair to maintain a ban on substances that impair thinking and may have other serious consequences.
Obviously we've seen the effects of banning a previously legal drug (alcohol) but cannabis is already restricted and on the balance of arguments I don't see why it should be made legal.
Fun fact, alcohol faced a federal ban about a decade before marijuana.
All of those things have potential consequences but do not impair thinking.
I think it's fair to maintain a ban on substances that impair thinking and may have other serious consequences.
Obviously we've seen the effects of banning a previously legal drug (alcohol) but cannabis is already restricted and on the balance of arguments I don't see why it should be made legal.
Because it makes people happy, the adverse effects aren't nearly as pervasive or severe as you imply, and your entire argument basically amounts to bullshit authoritarianism. You're right, far better to lock competent adults away in jail for using it than risk some hypothetical medical side effect.
You're one of those idiots who can't seem to understand the difference between "I highly recommend against doing [thing]", and "[Thing] should be illegal, and in fact a federal crime."
And I say this as someone who would pretty much be a Straight Edge, were I interested in post hoc catchy labels.
All of those things have potential consequences but do not impair thinking.
I think it's fair to maintain a ban on substances that impair thinking and may have other serious consequences.
Obviously we've seen the effects of banning a previously legal drug (alcohol) but cannabis is already restricted and on the balance of arguments I don't see why it should be made legal.
it seems you have had a long and heated debate earlier in this thread, so all I want to say is that I REALLY encourage you to keep googling and find some more information. Literally EVERY one of your arguments has been better proven false elsewhere, and I'm not sure how much faith you would even have from an answer in this thread, regardless of it's logical strength or scientific weight. Aside from that, my personal summation for why I support legalization would include the argument that any of these "consequences" of marijuana could easily be examined in places where it is legal (or by examining medical patients where that's legal). On the other hand, the consequences of keeping marijuana illegal be seen clear as day when you look south of the border. It's really quite simple, criminal organizations make money by doing criminal things, and when you create a market for them to sell these drugs then they make A LOT of money. This market does not exist for alcohol because we can sell it legally and regulate it, and I think you would have a hard time arguing that alcohol has such a high demand that it ignores laws and that marijuana does not.
Purpose of cannabis? Medical indications? Superiorty to other, more researched and safer medication? Good quality evidence is lacking for this. A lot of the studies linked on the cancer.gov page are on mice or in vitro studies and in very early stages of development. Saying that cannabis should be legal due to proposed anti-cancer effects in mice is akin to legalising access to pre-human testing chemotherapy drugs.
It's called 'the munchies.' One of the most common complicating problems for patients undergoing chemotherapy is eating enough. The chemo drugs tend to cause nausea, while simultaneously suppressing appetite. Cannabis has antiemetic effects and increases appetite.
I'm not joking when I say marijuana being legal would have lengthened my mother's life. That's not hyperbole. Toward the end, probably the biggest problem she was having was nutritional. There were very few foods she could keep down. Malnutrition weakened her body, and hastened the cancer's progress. And even before the later stages, access to cannabis would have allowed a more aggressive chemo regimen, by mitigating the side effects of the drugs.
Another 18 months, and she would have been able to see me graduate, and attend my wedding. If you sincerely don't see the value in the medicinal use of marijuana, then I really have nothing else to say to you.
I'm sorry your mother died from cancer. Although I don't know the details of her case, I am pretty sure that cannabis would not have extended her life by 18 months or 3 years. Simply making someone eat more and have less nausea often doesn't reverse cachexia although it can help a little; we already have effective nausea drugs already that work to some extent in most patients. Cannabis has been tested in a blinded, randomised, controlled trial against placebo for patients with cachexia (reduced appetite in advanced cancer) and had no impact on appetite or quality of life.
If it was effective it would be in common use. I would be more than happy to prescribe it to people.
For example; opioids are also restricted and illegal. They are commonly used due to their effectiveness in pain control.
In response to the other posts, cannabis is harmful. It is linked to schizophrenia which can ruin a persons life. Not in everyone, but in enough that access to the product should be restricted. People who smoke marijuana are more likely to be involved in car accidents as the culpable driver. There are potential heart effects. Should we just let this sort of thing be distributed legally - obviously the majority of people on this thread think 'yes' - but think about the potential harms this could have.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I think it's pretty arrogant to speak on someone else's situation like someone close to them dying of cancer. "I'm sorry that happened but you're wrong."
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
1. Cite your assertions. You've repeated the same thing like 20 times and just demanded we accept you as a medical authority.
2.
If it was effective it would be in common use.
Wtf does this mean? If it's not in common use, it's because it's illegal. "Why should this be illegal? Because people don't use it much. Why not? Because it's illegal." Way to beg the question.
I did cite a bunch of articles before. I meant to include the RCT for cachexia, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, which is the journal published by the American Society of Clinical Oncology:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/16849753/
Here is the review of adverse effects of cannabis, published in The Lancet: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19837255
I concede that there is controversy about the cause and effect of cannabis and schizophrenia, but there is evidence supporting a causal link.
As for point 2, I was referring to medical uses. In my post above I mentioned opioids (e.g. Morphine). They are illegal outside of medical uses. They are effective at pain control. They are therefore used extensively for pain relief, particularly in cancer. As opposed to medical uses for cannabis.
When your sentence begins with "I don't know the details," and ends with you disagreeing with someone who does know the details, maybe consider keeping that little pearl of wisdom to yourself. At the very least, maybe spend 15 minutes looking up studies to double-check your assumption.
There is a difference between cachexia induced by the cancer itself, and the nausea and loss of appetite induced by chemotherapy. The NIH site you keep citing is littered with studies showing cannabis as an effective anti-emetic for chemo patients; which is exactly how Framling suggested it may have helped.
Purpose of cannabis? Medical indications? Superiorty to other, more researched and safer medication? Good quality evidence is lacking for this. A lot of the studies linked on the cancer.gov page are on mice or in vitro studies and in very early stages of development. Saying that cannabis should be legal due to proposed anti-cancer effects in mice is akin to legalising access to pre-human testing chemotherapy drugs.
It's called 'the munchies.' One of the most common complicating problems for patients undergoing chemotherapy is eating enough. The chemo drugs tend to cause nausea, while simultaneously suppressing appetite. Cannabis has antiemetic effects and increases appetite.
I'm not joking when I say marijuana being legal would have lengthened my mother's life. That's not hyperbole. Toward the end, probably the biggest problem she was having was nutritional. There were very few foods she could keep down. Malnutrition weakened her body, and hastened the cancer's progress. And even before the later stages, access to cannabis would have allowed a more aggressive chemo regimen, by mitigating the side effects of the drugs.
Another 18 months, and she would have been able to see me graduate, and attend my wedding. If you sincerely don't see the value in the medicinal use of marijuana, then I really have nothing else to say to you.
I'm sorry your mother died from cancer. Although I don't know the details of her case, I am pretty sure that cannabis would not have extended her life by 18 months or 3 years. Simply making someone eat more and have less nausea often doesn't reverse cachexia although it can help a little; we already have effective nausea drugs already that work to some extent in most patients. Cannabis has been tested in a blinded, randomised, controlled trial against placebo for patients with cachexia (reduced appetite in advanced cancer) and had no impact on appetite or quality of life.
If it was effective it would be in common use. I would be more than happy to prescribe it to people.
For example; opioids are also restricted and illegal. They are commonly used due to their effectiveness in pain control.
In response to the other posts, cannabis is harmful. It is linked to schizophrenia which can ruin a persons life. Not in everyone, but in enough that access to the product should be restricted. People who smoke marijuana are more likely to be involved in car accidents as the culpable driver. There are potential heart effects. Should we just let this sort of thing be distributed legally - obviously the majority of people on this thread think 'yes' - but think about the potential harms this could have.
Drugs and abortions have this in common: prohibition does not stop people from seeking and obtaining them. The primary effects of prohibition are to discourage safe, responsible use, and encourage hazardous practices. If you are really concerned about harm reduction, you should support legalization and regulation.
I did cite a bunch of articles before. I meant to include the RCT for cachexia, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, which is the journal published by the American Society of Clinical Oncology:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/16849753/
Here is the review of adverse effects of cannabis, published in The Lancet: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19837255
I concede that there is controversy about the cause and effect of cannabis and schizophrenia, but there is evidence supporting a causal link.
As for point 2, I was referring to medical uses. In my post above I mentioned opioids (e.g. Morphine). They are illegal outside of medical uses. They are effective at pain control. They are therefore used extensively for pain relief, particularly in cancer. As opposed to medical uses for cannabis.
Marijuana is a Schedule I drug under the Federal Controlled Substances Act, which makes it illegal even for medical uses, and prescriptions may not be written for them. Morphine, by comparison, is Schedule II and may therefor be used for medical purposes.
As I said, because morphine has proven effectiveness and cannabis has anecdotal reports of effectiveness.
Cannabis can be used in clinical trials.
How about instead of asking me to provide evidence, which I have done several times, you find some credible data of your own that supports your view. You know, outside of anecdotes, personal experience, studies on mice, and 'specialist' opinion.
As I said, because morphine has proven effectiveness and cannabis has anecdotal reports of effectiveness.
Cannabis can be used in clinical trials.
How about instead of asking me to provide evidence, which I have done several times, you find some credible data of your own that supports your view. You know, outside of anecdotes, personal experience, studies on mice, and 'specialist' opinion.
Regardless, you stated that the fact that marijuana was not used medically as proof that it had no medical value. When someone objected to that with the fact that marijuana was not used medically because it was illegal to use medically, you claimed that if it had value it would be used, as with morphine. I was simply pointing out that the two are not alike because while it is legal for a hospital to give a patient morphine, it is not legal for them to give a patient marijuana.
Posts
It's called 'the munchies.' One of the most common complicating problems for patients undergoing chemotherapy is eating enough. The chemo drugs tend to cause nausea, while simultaneously suppressing appetite. Cannabis has antiemetic effects and increases appetite.
I'm not joking when I say marijuana being legal would have lengthened my mother's life. That's not hyperbole. Toward the end, probably the biggest problem she was having was nutritional. There were very few foods she could keep down. Malnutrition weakened her body, and hastened the cancer's progress. And even before the later stages, access to cannabis would have allowed a more aggressive chemo regimen, by mitigating the side effects of the drugs.
Another 18 months, and she would have been able to see me graduate, and attend my wedding. If you sincerely don't see the value in the medicinal use of marijuana, then I really have nothing else to say to you.
your = belonging to you
their = belonging to them
there = not here
they're = they are
Would you really, though? I don't have kids, but if I did I certainly wouldn't be telling them that alcohol is healthy, or suggesting that tobacco isn't one of the most addictive and harmful (over the long term, anyway) substances out there. If you believed that marijuana was dangerous and that you wanted them to know that, why would this change anything?
Many of us (if we assume the people on this forum are more or less a normal sample of the population) drink some amount of alcohol from time to time, but I don't think there's anyone here who's been telling their kids, "it's perfectly fine, go for it." Realistically you don't want them to be testing and assessing the risks of these things until they're mature enough to understand all of the information. Basically, talk about it the same way you might alcohol: it's legal for adults to use it responsibly, but it has some negative consequences and it does the most harm to you when you're young.
I don't like this idea that we use laws to dictate what is good or bad for you at such a small scale. If we're going to go down that road, we should probably ban soda, candy, going outside without sunscreen, driving, mountain biking, skiing, skydiving, hiking, playing video games, and basically anything else with potential negative consequences. It's not an appealing world, and I think most people would rather be forced to take some responsibility directly than deal with such a situation. Obviously there are cases where the public good overrides the desire for a completely free society (I certainly don't think they should legalize meth, and I'm glad it's illegal to dump toxic waste in the water), but it's also quite possible to go too far when protecting people.
I think it's fair to maintain a ban on substances that impair thinking and may have other serious consequences.
Obviously we've seen the effects of banning a previously legal drug (alcohol) but cannabis is already restricted and on the balance of arguments I don't see why it should be made legal.
Restricting marijuana alone has created similar levels of unstoppable crime on a worldwide scale. "This might impair thinking" is a pretty sorry excuse for a justification for the kinds of violence, corruption, and death associated with the War on Drugs, particularly when other substances that are equally or more impairing are legal.
saying "oh, well it's already restricted so why worry" blatantly ignores the monumental costs associated with restricting it.
Fun fact, alcohol faced a federal ban about a decade before marijuana.
Because it makes people happy, the adverse effects aren't nearly as pervasive or severe as you imply, and your entire argument basically amounts to bullshit authoritarianism. You're right, far better to lock competent adults away in jail for using it than risk some hypothetical medical side effect.
You're one of those idiots who can't seem to understand the difference between "I highly recommend against doing [thing]", and "[Thing] should be illegal, and in fact a federal crime."
And I say this as someone who would pretty much be a Straight Edge, were I interested in post hoc catchy labels.
it seems you have had a long and heated debate earlier in this thread, so all I want to say is that I REALLY encourage you to keep googling and find some more information. Literally EVERY one of your arguments has been better proven false elsewhere, and I'm not sure how much faith you would even have from an answer in this thread, regardless of it's logical strength or scientific weight. Aside from that, my personal summation for why I support legalization would include the argument that any of these "consequences" of marijuana could easily be examined in places where it is legal (or by examining medical patients where that's legal). On the other hand, the consequences of keeping marijuana illegal be seen clear as day when you look south of the border. It's really quite simple, criminal organizations make money by doing criminal things, and when you create a market for them to sell these drugs then they make A LOT of money. This market does not exist for alcohol because we can sell it legally and regulate it, and I think you would have a hard time arguing that alcohol has such a high demand that it ignores laws and that marijuana does not.
I'm sorry your mother died from cancer. Although I don't know the details of her case, I am pretty sure that cannabis would not have extended her life by 18 months or 3 years. Simply making someone eat more and have less nausea often doesn't reverse cachexia although it can help a little; we already have effective nausea drugs already that work to some extent in most patients. Cannabis has been tested in a blinded, randomised, controlled trial against placebo for patients with cachexia (reduced appetite in advanced cancer) and had no impact on appetite or quality of life.
If it was effective it would be in common use. I would be more than happy to prescribe it to people.
For example; opioids are also restricted and illegal. They are commonly used due to their effectiveness in pain control.
In response to the other posts, cannabis is harmful. It is linked to schizophrenia which can ruin a persons life. Not in everyone, but in enough that access to the product should be restricted. People who smoke marijuana are more likely to be involved in car accidents as the culpable driver. There are potential heart effects. Should we just let this sort of thing be distributed legally - obviously the majority of people on this thread think 'yes' - but think about the potential harms this could have.
2. Wtf does this mean? If it's not in common use, it's because it's illegal. "Why should this be illegal? Because people don't use it much. Why not? Because it's illegal." Way to beg the question.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/16849753/
Here is the review of adverse effects of cannabis, published in The Lancet:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19837255
I concede that there is controversy about the cause and effect of cannabis and schizophrenia, but there is evidence supporting a causal link.
As for point 2, I was referring to medical uses. In my post above I mentioned opioids (e.g. Morphine). They are illegal outside of medical uses. They are effective at pain control. They are therefore used extensively for pain relief, particularly in cancer. As opposed to medical uses for cannabis.
There is a difference between cachexia induced by the cancer itself, and the nausea and loss of appetite induced by chemotherapy. The NIH site you keep citing is littered with studies showing cannabis as an effective anti-emetic for chemo patients; which is exactly how Framling suggested it may have helped.
Drugs and abortions have this in common: prohibition does not stop people from seeking and obtaining them. The primary effects of prohibition are to discourage safe, responsible use, and encourage hazardous practices. If you are really concerned about harm reduction, you should support legalization and regulation.
Marijuana is a Schedule I drug under the Federal Controlled Substances Act, which makes it illegal even for medical uses, and prescriptions may not be written for them. Morphine, by comparison, is Schedule II and may therefor be used for medical purposes.
Cannabis can be used in clinical trials.
How about instead of asking me to provide evidence, which I have done several times, you find some credible data of your own that supports your view. You know, outside of anecdotes, personal experience, studies on mice, and 'specialist' opinion.
How about a patent on a medical use of marijuana, held by the Federal government? http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6630507.html
Regardless, you stated that the fact that marijuana was not used medically as proof that it had no medical value. When someone objected to that with the fact that marijuana was not used medically because it was illegal to use medically, you claimed that if it had value it would be used, as with morphine. I was simply pointing out that the two are not alike because while it is legal for a hospital to give a patient morphine, it is not legal for them to give a patient marijuana.