281–290 of 381 posts
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Not the most dangerous thing. Try driving on LSD. While drunk. And high on xanax. While shooting heroin. Obviously, there are more dangerous states to drive in than tired and unfocused...
I would rather drive on LSD than drive tired, no question.
Honest question: How many drug companies' bottom lines would be affected if marijuana was legalized right now? Reminds me of the quote: If you're not a part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem.
The problem with drug and tobacco companies is that marijuana is a garden weed. Anyone can grow it (if it becomes legal). Or rather, no large investment to start a weed farm. Tobacco and drug manufacturing plants require a significant larger investment. So the lobby for anti-marijuana is strong and controlled by rich people.
I am wondering why British employers are testing employees for drugs usage. Is this justified? Are cannabies, etc. really affecting badly people? If yes, then it makes sense for the employer to spend its money on tests. If no, it means that employers in UK are victims of some kind of paranoia against cannabies.
I'm glad that Gupta has made this public apology. It takes a lot of courage to make that statement especially for someone with great public influence. I'm just curious as to why it took him this long. Medical marijuana has been prescribed in hospitals for some time with great benefit. I mean, just from a clinical standpoint, he should've seen the great upsides and limited downsides to using the drug. Patients, typica…
He's a media-savvy guy who was considered for surgeon general and has a career appearing on mainstream TV, including Oprah and Larry King Live. Someone like that can't afford to be too far ahead of the curve. I'd say this about-face means the marijuana legalization debate is ready to go national.
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Hmm, it seems I was mistaken. We do let osteopaths prescribe medicine though, and that's almost as dumb. The rest of my point still stands.
Osteopaths are doctors. They aren't chiropractors.
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Interesting that you don't get high any more. I wondered whether MMJ would fall into the category of "do not drive or operate machinery" whilst using.
Definitely would fall into the impairs motor skills category. You can develop a tolerance for almost all drugs, even alcohol and yet many still fall within that category so wouldnt expect ganja to be any different.
That seems to be the common wisdom, but is there any evidence that that's true?
This is a great article, but how can you mitigate the abuse of the system by people who just want to smoke weed and complain of headaches or glaucoma? I'm all for easing the pain of people who have real pain issues, but it's abundantly clear people are abusing the system.
Even if what you are saying is correct, what exactly is the harm in that? There is obvious harm in preventing people from having access to a drug which mitigates their symptoms. There is obvious harm when you imprison someone for a drug related crime. There is obvious harm when you prevent a business from legally existing and profiting from the sale of the substance. Where is the obvious harm when a user recreational…
But this is not the case, at least not in California. Medicinal marijuana primarily serves recreational users. Medical users get it by posing as recreational users.
By that, I mean that you don't get a prescription for MMJ by going to your normal doctor. You go to the doctor advertised in that shady free newspaper by the bus stop, in the classified section, just past the escorts. That doctor almost certainly "specializes" in medical marijuana, which means that he doesn't actually practice medicine, or do any real evaluation of patients. He just writes prescriptions all day, $70 a pop. Nice gig if you can get it.
(A Colorado doctor landed in trouble for prescribing MMJ to a pregnant woman. He didn't even bother to take her basic medical history.)
This article shares one couple's experiences, with one sick person attempting to go through Kaiser, and one healthy person going through "Dr. Herb Smoker" (the actual name on the nametag): http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/10/california-medic...
An excerpt:
...medical pot is readily available to recreational users while it remains inaccessible for many truly sick people who might benefit from it. My wife has no plans to visit Price-Less Evaluations, and I suspect that many people like her wouldn't consult the likes of Dr. Herb Smoker.
So there's your harm. The medical marijuana industry is targeted towards recreational users, in every way - from the decor in the dispensaries, to selling strains bred for getting high instead of getting healthy. Medicinal users are an afterthought.
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This data point is over a decade old, but still: "the proportion of state prison inmates who were sentenced for marijuana-only offenses rose from 2.6% in 1990 to 3.6% in 2000" http://www.aclu-wa.org/library_files/BeckettandHerbert.pdf The DOJ reported that there were 1,236,476 state inmates in 2000 ( http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p00.pdf ). So 3.6% of that would be 44,513 state inmates who were imprisoned for ma…
It's important to remember that in most states, sentences of under one year are served in county jails, not state prisons. The state prison numbers you describe are likely significantly to understate both absolute numbers and relative proportion, for this reason.
"King and Mauer (2005) estimate that at least 68,000 people were in prison, on probation, or serving a jail sentence for a marijuana offense in 2003"
So, that's 52% higher than the number I quoted for state prisons.
This is a surprisingly thoughtful article for CNN.
"We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that." Wow. Ownership of a mistake. Rare to see on a 24 hour news network. +1 for Sanjay Considering CNN's role (as a 24 hour news network) in forcing politician's to defend anything and everything they've ever said, I really like seeing something like this coming from someone within the netwo…
I do think he's doing the smart/right thing (now).
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As a person who had a roommate whose schizophrenia was likely induced by heavy marijuana use (along with his tripping on multiple bottles of Robitussin), the fact of the matter is that the harm done to this small percentage of people is vastly outweighed by the damage done to people who can't get access to it for their medical needs. And that's ignoring the huge harm caused by prosecuting recreational users due to an…
The problem is that there are two simultaneous arguments happening. The first is whether cannabis should be legalized and available as a business opportunity. You'll find very few people here to disagree with about this; there's a practically universal belief that cannabis should be legalized. The second is whether cannabis is benign. There is a valid discussion to be had about how safe cannabis is. Having it does no…
Given that, its health effect is still important, as it impacts how much it should be taxed, how we allow it to be advertised and sold, and whether we should treat vaporization differently (as, all evidence shows that vaporization is healthier than smoking).