another bill to legalise weed

[Danny]

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=1550&year=2011#documents

You know, it really makes you wonder what the long term effects of legalised marijuana would be. would it act as a boon to the local economy? would people choose it over tobbaco or liquor? would it keep kids from buying something altogether more sinister and lethal from dealers on street corners?

Personally i dont touch the stuff, and my friends who do get pretty suggestible and stupid when they do, but if im honest i worry less about them than the hardcore drinkers and smokers in my social circle.
Plus it is genuinely interesting to see where this is going. Personally i dont think its gonna take because the big business of tobacco would not like such a strong competition. certainly not if they just advertised: this one doesnt give you lung cancer y'know?

[krakenslayer]

Per joint/cigarette, cannabis is actually just as bad at causing lung cancer as cigarettes. However, it's nowhere near as addictive as tobacco so you'll rarely find someone who smokes 10-20 joints in a single day. Therefore, people who only smoke cannabis and not tobacco are less likely to get emphysema or the big C, purely thanks to the difference in volume smoked.

[rongravy]

Per joint/cigarette, cannabis is actually just as bad at causing lung cancer as cigarettes. However, it's nowhere near as addictive as tobacco so you'll rarely find someone who smokes 10-20 joints in a single day. Therefore, people who only smoke cannabis and not tobacco are less likely to get emphysema or the big C, purely thanks to the difference in volume smoked.
I'd like to see where you got those figures.
Alot of shit is added to cigarettes, especially the lower tar/nicotine versions. We inhale alot of shit wayyy worse than pot. It has been here since the beginning of time. Maybe we should eat it instead?

[ProfessorChaos]

Maybe we should eat it instead?

that's my dog's philosophy. little guy loves the stuff. i think in a past doggie life he was a narcotics dog.

edit: as for the legalization of marijuana, i just don't see it happening anytime soon. i used to think that maybe that would be something that was only a few years down the road, but there's just too many squares in the u.s. and groups that would be up in a tizzy over other people having too much fun. maybe one of these days, but it seems highly unlikely to me.

[Publius]

Alot of shit is added to cigarettes, especially the lower tar/nicotine versions. We inhale alot of shit wayyy worse than pot. It has been here since the beginning of time. Maybe we should eat it instead?

I've heard a lot of pot users say things like they use marijuana but not manmade drugs like Ecstasy, on the basis that marijuana is "natural," and it must be healthy because it comes from the earth. Those people must not get outdoors much, because they apparently don't realize that Mother Nature can be one cruel bitch. There are poisons in nature that are every bit as deadly as anything man has been able to invent.

Maybe someone should start packaging poison ivy and marketing it to potheads as "nature's toilet paper." They can argue that it must be better than manmade toilet paper with all those chemical bleaches and other additives, because it's "been here since the beginning of time." ;)

[krakenslayer]

I'd like to see where you got those figures.
Alot of shit is added to cigarettes, especially the lower tar/nicotine versions. We inhale alot of shit wayyy worse than pot. It has been here since the beginning of time. Maybe we should eat it instead?

www.ersj.org.uk/content/31/2/280.full

Actually I was wrong in my estimation. According the above study and a few others I've seen, one joint is about equal to one whole packet of cigarettes in raising lung cancer risk.

[DjfunkmasterG]

www.ersj.org.uk/content/31/2/280.full

Actually I was wrong in my estimation. According the above study and a few others I've seen, one joint is about equal to one whole packet of cigarettes in raising lung cancer risk.

I take any scientific study with a huge grain of salt. Having work in biologics, scientists can make anything out to be a doomsday scenario. Many studies counter that Marijuana smoking is less harmful than cigarettes. I still partake here and there, but not like I used too. I think last time I got snickered was a month ago, prior to that almost 1 year.

[krakenslayer]

I take any scientific study with a huge grain of salt. Having work in biologics, scientists can make anything out to be a doomsday scenario. Many studies counter that Marijuana smoking is less harmful than cigarettes. I still partake here and there, but not like I used too. I think last time I got snickered was a month ago, prior to that almost 1 year.

Well, then we're screwed since our whole understanding of medicine is based on scientific studies. :p

Seriously, I get what you're saying: we don't base conclusions on a single study, we build them up over time by comparing, contrasting and contesting the results of many studies over long periods of time. And yes, there are a lot of studies that seem to show that cannabis is less harmful overall than tobacco. However, there is a difference between overall harm and lung cancer, specifically.

From a strictly armchair scientist point of view, having now looked at a fair few studies online since this thread began, the pattern that seems to emerge is that cannabis does not carry as high a risk as cigarettes for many other smoking-related diseases (heart disease, stroke, oral cancers, etc.), but as for lung cancer in particular, the risk factors tend to show up as being about equal at a ratio of one joint to ten cigarettes.

But even if it is only a minority view that cannabis causes lung cancer, the existence of even one or two well-executed studies to the contrary would make it legally and ethically difficult for a cannabis retailer to get away with putting "lung cancer free" on the packet.

[Tricky]

Every time this debate comes up people go on about how weed isnt as bad for you physically as booze or cigs and conveniently either dismiss or skirt around the mental health issues involved, and that really annoys me seen as I messed my head up with the stuff in my late teens and have known a fair few people who "arent right in the head" as a result of caning the strong stuff over a period of time.

[Danny]

Every time this debate comes up people go on about how weed isnt as bad for you physically as booze or cigs and conveniently either dismiss or skirt around the mental health issues involved, and that really annoys me seen as I messed my head up with the stuff in my late teens and have known a fair few people who "arent right in the head" as a result of caning the strong stuff over a period of time.

ive seen it turn literal geniuses into slow witted idiots. they drop the stuff and are still like "dude....what?" and never get back the state they used to be. But i suppose you take in anything to get high on and your own biology is going to be uniquely effected to a point. but we never heard people talk about 'but what could happen to me if i have x?' y'know?

[AcesandEights]

I love the occasional, recreational use of cannabis. My problem is that our society, at this point, has almost collectively agreed to having so many vices dedicated to allowing people to fuck their lives up, go numb as a lifestyle or just drop out of life altogether, that I don't know if legalizing yet another one is the best way to go. Is it hypocritical to allow some drugs that offer low immediate danger to be legal and collect the taxes from the revenues while allowing other drugs of similar strengths to remain illegal? Probably, but we have bigger problems than opening up the floodgates of freedom to further plumb the potential of humanity to blitz their brains and make excuses for their own inability to get shit done.

In the meantime, consider buying your illegal narcotics as a litmus test for whether you're still smart enough to be doing the stuff.

[rongravy]

Maybe someone should start packaging poison ivy and marketing it to potheads as "nature's toilet paper." They can argue that it must be better than manmade toilet paper with all those chemical bleaches and other additives, because it's "been here since the beginning of time." ;)
Ummm, because no one over eons has used poison ivy to wipe their ass, hopefully? Geeez.
I hear Cherokee hair tampons are still a good bet, though...

www.ersj.org.uk/content/31/2/280.full

Actually I was wrong in my estimation. According the above study and a few others I've seen, one joint is about equal to one whole packet of cigarettes in raising lung cancer risk.
Studies schmudies...
Global warming, anyone?
Brrrrrr.
Oh, I agree. Inhaling any kind of smoke into one's lungs can't be good for you, but do a unbiased study of people who only smoke pot as opposed to ones that only smoke cigs, and let's just see those lungs. Normal people don't have to smoke near enough weed to achieve the buzz as opposed to that ever intolerant tolerance to nicotene that makes you smoke more and more cigs. Even if they smoked the same number of spliffs to fags, and even were the weed/cancer thangie higher, I still seriously doubt it's as high as a whole pack of cigs.
I do like cigs, but try to fight the urge. When I give in, I smoke like a chimney.
But a joint passed betweens friends is like ceremony, done right.
Something's gonna kill us anyway, dammit, lol.
Ramble, ramble, ramble...