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Why I Changed My Mind On Weed

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Re: Why I Changed My Mind On Weed

#221

Post by kyro »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #216
kyro wrote: post #191

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…

Being a bit pedantic here, I'd just like to point out that development of schizophrenia is not a mild side effect. With higher THC% strains, we have no idea the extent of latent mental disorders we're stimulating.

Maybe my wording was confusing. I didn't mean to say Schizophrenia is a mild side-effect by any means. Rather, the most dangerous side-effect we know of is a possible link to the development of Schizophrenia, and other than that, the remaining side-effects are rather mild. In a 65yr old patient with advanced-stage cancer, development of Schizophrenia just is not high up on the list of concerns.

Re: Why I Changed My Mind On Weed

#222

Post by HNaTTY »

DamnYuppie wrote: post #3
tptacek wrote: post #2

This is a surprisingly thoughtful article for CNN.

I too am surprised to see such an article on CNN. The one thing it doesn't touch on is the cost we have incurred as a nation by making it illegal. We have seen this before with prohibition, it didn't stop people from drinking it just made better criminals. Once we legalize it we can stop spending money fighting it and start taxing it! Of course the funny thing will be watching all the farmers in Illinois plow down th…

It's unlikely that the end of prohibition would have a large impact on agriculture; growing weed usually requires an indoor or greenhouse environment to prevent pollination, it doesn't really lend itself to large-scale production, and the amount that people smoke is minuscule compared to tobacco/cigarettes. Of course, tobacco companies could roll out some industrial processing machines and drive the price of production down near to zero, but as long as the government uses taxes to keep the price high, people will demand the kind of quality that requires more of a greenhouse type of a solution.

Re: Why I Changed My Mind On Weed

#223

Post by mistercow »

doktrin wrote: post #195
mistercow wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine. I just feel like there's a dangerous overtrust of doctors among intelligent and educated people, and I hate to see comments that encourage that. If you're scientifically illiterate and generally uneducated, trusting doctors is a very good idea. If you have the cognitive tools to check their work, though, it is very smart to do so.

Fair, but a little knowledge really can be a dangerous thing. I'm not a practicing physician, but several members of my family are (whose characters I tend to trust). The annoyance you may feel when a non-engineer pontificates on a technical topic they clearly only have a surface level understanding of is similar to the aggravation they (M.D's) feel when patients who have perused pubmed and webmd decide they're bette…

Sure, but unfortunately, most doctors don't seem to be able to distinguish the patient who's been reading alt med forums and maybe skimming some cherry-picked articles (perusing would actually be the correct thing to do with a study), from the patient who is scientifically literate and has a reasonable knowledge of pharmacology and the evidence regarding their own condition.

When your doctor is giving you opiates and not even trying to find a sustainable alternative, and you do a ton of research, find an alternative drug (with few side effects and no recognized potential for abuse) that has been shown to help people with similar conditions, and send that study to the doctor, only to have him say "Well, I've never heard of that drug being used for this, so no", it is... frustrating.

Re: Why I Changed My Mind On Weed

#224

Post by dimadima »

I hope up next is MDMA. What a great drug with so much positive potential!

Everything can be abused, but that doesn't mean everything should be illegal. If anything should be illegal, it should be what's legal now: tobacco and alcohol. But we all know what happens when you make alcohol illegal! :D

Re: Why I Changed My Mind On Weed

#225

Post by 300bps »

mistercow wrote: post #189
300bps wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I have to take issue again with what you have said. You seem to be equating osteopathy (a completely accepted medical science) to homeopathy (a complete quackery). To quote Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_MD_and_DO_in_the_... Other than teaching manual medic…

>You seem to be equating osteopathy (a completely accepted medical science) No, osteopathy is not completely accepted by medical science. Osteopathy is absolute pseudoscience. Please do your research. Yes, I realize that DOs undergo actual medical training in addition to the quackery that gives their field its name, but they are still taught the pseudoscience on which the practice was originally based. That they beli…

If you are outside the U.S. then I understand your belief that osteopathy is quackery because outside the U.S., it is. Inside the U.S. though a D.O. is equivalent to an M.D.

You would know this if you bothered to read either of the citations I provided. You and the person downvoting me apparently disagree with the American Medical Association that says a D.O. is equivalent to an M.D.

For failing to read my citations before you replied to them and for providing no citations of your own other than "every experience I have had with a DO." you are currently in the category of Ignorant Fool. If you would like to provide a citation or two for what you say and perhaps if you actually respond to my citations instead of around them I might be able to upgrade you to Misguided Goof.

EDIT: Never mind, I see in another comment below you are saying that you are just as suspicious of medical doctors. I have no further desire to discuss this with you.

Re: Why I Changed My Mind On Weed

#226

Post by michaelwww »

diydsp wrote: post #201
michaelwww wrote: post #67

I think people are forgetting his target audience, which is probably older. I doubt many young people watch CNN. Even the title "Why I Changed My Mind On Weed" sounds like it was written for the Readers Digest, which I used to read as a kid because my grandmother would give me her copies.

One title from RD which still sticks out in my mind: "My Posse Don't Do Homework".

Teens these days with their 'smart' phones! This is interesting and something I'm just learning [from Wikipedia]:

For many years, Reader's Digest was the best-selling consumer magazine in the United States, losing the distinction in 2009 to Better Homes and Gardens...it reaches more readers with household incomes of $100,000+ than Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week and Inc. combined.

They've got the app market pretty well covered; http://www.rd.com/readers-digest-mobile/

Re: Why I Changed My Mind On Weed

#227

Post by duaneb »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #216
kyro wrote: post #191

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…

Being a bit pedantic here, I'd just like to point out that development of schizophrenia is not a mild side effect. With higher THC% strains, we have no idea the extent of latent mental disorders we're stimulating.

It's not clear whether the schizophrenia induced is stimulated or just aggravated—i.e., was the person already a schizophrenic with a high threshold for psychosis that the weed lowered? I don't think we'll know for a long time.

Re: Why I Changed My Mind On Weed

#228

Post by dimadima »

Also, you know what I suspect _actually_ happened?

Gupta finally _actually smoked_ some weed, maybe like a few days in a row, maybe for a few month's worth of days in a row, only to discover: it ain't much of anything!!! Probably better not to smoke weed excessively and for no reason, but ask people who smoke a ton and almost all would say that smoking a ton does get old pretty fast.

Re: Why I Changed My Mind On Weed

#229

Post by bayesianhorse »

The discussion needs more balanced voices like this. There are a ton of voices already overhyping the harmlessness.

Besides the damage to developing brains, there are more immediate effects on the mind, which are less predictable than alcohol.

Make no mistake: The "learning process" of a society that legalizes weed will involve deaths.

Re: Why I Changed My Mind On Weed

#230

Post by btbuildem »

gadders wrote: post #57

"Much in the same way I wouldn't let my own children drink alcohol, I wouldn't permit marijuana until they are adults. If they are adamant about trying marijuana, I will urge them to wait until they're in their mid-20s when their brains are fully developed." Good luck with that.

Well, if distribution of pot was more like that of alcohol or cigarettes, kids would have a harder time getting their hands on it.
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