MB Civic

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 20th, 2006 at 10:01 PM and filed under Articles, Health, Politics. Follow comments here with the RSS 2.0 feed. Skip to the end and leave a response. Trackbacks are closed.

2 Responses to “AlterNet: Why Smoking Marijuana Doesn’t Make You a Junkie”

1. Ian Alterman said:

   I have long held that marijuana should be removed from the generic term “drugs,” for a host of reasons. This article is one reason.

   Here are a couple of others:

   1. Although any foreign substance in the lungs is probably not good for you, marijuana is far safer than tobacco. Consider. The country of Jamaica has the highest per capita rate of consumption of marijuana in the world; but it has one of the lowest lung cancer rates in the world. Yet China, which has among the lowest per capita rates of consumption of marijuana, has one of the highest lung cancer rates in the world. It is no coincidence that the Chinese smoke cigarettes in copious amounts.

   2. Cigarettes kill over 440,000 people each year in the U.S. alone. Marijuana has never been listed as the cause of death in a single instance, unless it was tainted with something else (PCP, etc.). Indeed, even if statistics could be found linking marijuana to death, such would be rare: more people die from snake bites and lightning.

   3. Cigarettes have never been shown to have a single benefit (other than the “pleasures of smoking”). Yet THC has been proven effective in easing pressure on the eyes in glaucoma patients, easing the nausea of chemo and radiation therapies, and increasing the appetites of AIDS sufferers. In addition, many cardiologists and other medical scientists believe that THC lowers blood pressure, and may thus be a highly effective therapy in preventing second heart attacks.

   Ultimately, I have always felt that if the government would separate marijuana from the generic term “drugs,” they might very well find additional allies in the fight against truly dangerous drugs like cocaine, heroin, crack, etc. However, as long as marijuana remains in the same category, the government will continue to alienate these potential allies.

   Peace.

   Posted on 21-Dec-06 at 11:34 am | Permalink
2. Mike Blaxill said:

   another benefit of pot is when certain influential people smoke it, it helps to change their persepective and they go on to help certain anti-war, anti-fascist musicals find a large audience 🙂

   Posted on 22-Dec-06 at 11:05 am | Permalink