Marijuana: Does it kill brain cells or does it affect only the lungs?

BillRM, unfortunately, you are still wrong.
What about the link I posted about marijuana increasing the risk of neck cancer, stomach cancer, and mouth cancer?
And by the way, I have long since corrected myself after someone pointed out to me that it isn't the brain CELLS that are damaged by marijuana, but the nerve connections that send signals to the brain.

Yes I am sure that you can find some harm in smoking marijuana however you can also find some harm from almost anything else human beings do.

And there is zero solid proof that marijuana smoking harm the intellect over decades of times studies had shown zero harm as a matter of fact.

This is only anecdotal evidence but all the maryJ smolers I know have shocking memories and they are only in their late 40's.

Well, yes, of course other things such as caffeine are harmful as well, when taken in too large quantities. But that's not what I am talking about. I am talking about marijuana specifically, if IT is harmful, not the rest of the things out there.
So, yes, that's all I needed to hear.. that you agree that it is harmful.

It's been generally concluded that while it does kill brain cells, so does tapping your head and hanging around the gas station. Some research has even concluded that it would be profitable in the long term for developing brain cells, but this is subject to much controversy.

Ok, this debate topic started off great... but ignorant people after another keep throwing in fallacies with their argument.

First off, let's start with the main argument: Is marijuana bad for humans?.. Yes it is, but what would you consider bad? As presented by Bill, caffeine is harmful and people are capable of overdosing on it. Even oxygen and water is bad for you. Ionus, you said you know about a lot of science stating you know chemistry, so you should know that oxygen is deadly. It makes our bodies age faster and is extremely flammable. As for water, there was this woman that died from water overdose after she partook in a water drinking contest. It diluted her blood so much she died hours later. There are many things that are bad for people, but if we were to compare marijuana with other things that people enjoy, I definitely know that it does not even come close to being the most harmful despite the fact that its illegal.

Secondly, I keep hearing the argument that if you smoke marijuana, a pothead/stoner/druggie, then you are a bad person. Don't BS me and tell me "well thats not what I said, look at what I wrote" (Aloof tone). Yea, you might not have said it, but you definitely implied it. People within this society have been so conditioned to believe that marijuana is bad that they actually think that this is what they truly believe. Guess what? Your parents, teachers, and those so-called figures of authority have been lying to you. They have been feeding you this bull crap because they have been fed it too, they don't know the difference between what they truly feel and what they are brought up to believe. Using the phrase "It's common sense" proves to me you are a tool and lack the ability to think for yourself. Just because its common amongst people does not mean that its always true. Its is bad by law, but if you look behind the anti-drug campaigns, they are funded by big pharmacy, the tobacco industry, and the alcohol companies. Why??? Because heres the truth, marijuana would take out a fair share of their market. It provides a more natural medical alternative to synthetic drugs for people who suffer from insomnia, glaucoma, or pain... (Not to mention more illnesses that I have not looked up). It does have a practical medicinal use, and believe it or not if people had the ability to legally choose, they would pick this better alternative to cigarettes or alcohol as well. With these companies pushing billions of dollars to the government and media, people are definitely bound to conforming into this propaganda.

Third and finally, this is my own sub-claim that I'm throwing in. Legalizing marijuana would greatly benefit America. California is attempting it this November and I am definitely voting to pass this proposition (Prop 19). Do you know why there are drug dealers/cartels out there? It's because drugs are illegal!!! duhhhh come on now, we should have learned by now from history that prohibiting anything to people is going to have backlash. Did you catch the key word, prohibiting? it comes from "Prohibition" and what happened when it when into law in the US? People started making and distributing their own alcohol and so many problems came from it. If you don't support legalizing marijuana, you are unknowingly contributing to international drug cartels. They depend on cannabis being illegal because if the US started selling pot they can drive away the competition, that being the drug dealers. Additionally, the money they make from taxing it like they tax cigarettes and alcohol could help get us out of this recession, or dare I should say even depression, that we are in. If it was legal, after a while the glamor of it wears away and it would be just like cigarettes or tobacco. Its nothing special, people just make it that way because it is forbidden. Its human psychology, if you give a baby a ball they will play with it and eventually get bored, but the moment you take it away they will whine and cry and want it back more than ever.

So to sum it up if you want to stop all this BS about whats bad for you or not, just give it to them and they will eventually forget about it. I mean last time I re-called, I live in America and for someone to tell me what I can and can't do to my own body... well thats just unamerican. ITS AMERICA BITCHES!!! lmfao

No I didnt.

As a matter for future reference, I think drugs should be legal as they do more damage by being illegal. As for them being harmless and good for you, this is unadulterated dribble by true believers who already take drugs and dont want to live in fear or be seen as doing something stupid. Well, bad luck because they are harmful and people who take them are stupid, but so are people who eat too much, dont exercise, etc.

From Wiki source:







There are still many counties in the USW that are "dry". Indian Reservations, for the most part, disallow liquor for their tribal members (even casinos are in special tribal "green zones".

ALSO, many states have an exhorbitant taxation amount for booze. (Pa, for example has a huge booze tax as well as a separate sales tax (this amounts to about 25% added onto the cost to a consumer) and it spurs a local bootleg and smuggling economy to bring illicit booze INTO the center parts of the state to avoid taxes).
SO, the business of moonshine, of course its not as huge as it was during Prohibition, still flourishes in several states .Its quite active in Appalachia, Alaska, and some other states. Export of illicit booze is quite lucrative to moonshiners going TO Canada also. (The Canadian sales taxes are quite regressive, and all the "Harmoniozed sales taxes", "VATs", and "basic product taxes" can sometimea add another 20% to a high cost (in which a license fee is built in).

Hauling booze into Canada is a local economy booster along the MAine and Great Lakes borders with our northern neighbor.

Profit margins on "shine" can net a thousands of bucks a week to the entrepreneur, and the enforcement, ever since the mid 90's , has been greatly curtailed.

Booze making by shine methods , no longer produces a toxic product as it did in the days of Volsted. There are even some legal shine stills that produce products of ethyl alcohol that they pack in "Mason jars" to give it a faux authenticity. SOme mountain folks prefer it, and its very strong. 180 proof or about.

Still, there is a small , but active shine market in the US, and its all just a means to evade paying taxes at the producer and consumer ends.

@Ionus


Your talk like you know how to debate, but you keep using fallacies with your arguments. First of all, yes, drugs are harmful but as we mentioned before marijuana is not as dangerous than most of the things we enjoyed in life. Of course they are harmful and to deny that is ignorant, but we are not arguing about drugs. We are talking about marijuana, and you cannot use the word drugs and marijuana interchangeably. Alcohol is considered a drug but its funny how anti-drug proponents tend to omit the fact that an occasional drink here and there is worse than a toke once in a while. But yet the pothead is much more stupider than the social drinker. Ionus, I cant take you arguments seriously because you keep contradicting yourself. You say drugs should be legal yet you point out that they are bad for you. Then why argue?, cheeseburgers have probably caused more deaths through heart failure and obesity than MJ but i dont see you mentioning anything about that. Like I talked about before in my earlier post, pot is no more harmful than the next indulgence in life. It is up to that individual person to choose what they want to do. To criticize them and call them stupid is extremely ignorant. Do you not dabble once in a while on an occasional cheeseburger or burrito? Why can't we have a blunt here and there? Don't be a hypocrite.

I tend to agree with you.

Here you assume there is a contradiction because anything illegal must be harmful and vice versa. You are incorrect.

I am not sure what you think the next indulgence is....
The basis of my life choices is that I have done the right thing...you have the same attitude, that is why you defend drugs. I think it is telling that you dont argue abstinence is stupid, but are forced to defend taking drugs. I dont think of people as stupid, I think of them as doing stupid things.

Do you mean the sort of person who takes drugs and says they are not harmful ? I say they are harmful and dont take them...how is that hypocritical ?

@Ticomaya
I was being sarcastic about that qoute

You keep using the same argument. Like I said earlier, you cant classify marijuana with drugs. If I used the same techniques as you, I would say that well if you ever took penicillin or any types of anti-boitics, then you are making stupid decisions because technically they are classified as drugs. "Drugs" is a loaded-word, its always going to have negative connotations with it. You keep mentioning that I defend drugs, when if you read my argument I specifically mention marijuana. MJ is not cocaine, crack, or even alcohol. You obviously do not understand how to properly debate versus another on a specific topic because you keep using ad hominems trying to attack my character. Basically your trying to discredit me and call me a druggie and brag about how righteous you are, but I have yet to see you present a substantial and clear rebuttal. This is how you are supposed to present a rebuttal:


Actually what I'm trying to say is that it is very contradictory to argue against drugs and want it to be legal. If thats the case then why are you arguing.


Well let me make a few examples of indulgences in life that have been shown to be just as or even more harmful: Alcohol, tobacco, red-meat, sugar,


Ummm... Last time I recalled, I don't remember me asking you about your life's goal or morals. You say you are doing the right thing, but thats your opinion right. Of course anyone who talks about themselves is always going to have a bias, so yea... to you, you are doing the right thing. I'm not judging you or saying that you are unjust to freedom of choice, but you try to defend yourself for no reason because obviously you feel guilty of something...


Yet again another ad hominem and a bad one I might have to say. Obviously you were trying to imply that towards me. Like I said you shouldn't use the word drugs, its loaded... I am not talking about drugs, just MJ. You like to cluster MJ with the word drugs. Anyways what I mean about not being a hypocrite is that yes, I have already agreed to the fact that MJ is harmful. I stated it so clearly in my first post, but harmful is a very malleable word. What would you considered harmful because like I said, there are many legal things that are more or just as harmful as pot, yet you don't argue against those things. Ergo, don't be a hypocrite if you indulge in fast-food or alcohol, and look down on people that smoke weed. The fact of the matter is, its not the harmfulness that tells you its bad, its the fact that you have been so conditioned to see it as bad in society that it makes you believe it truly is harmful. Dont get me wrong, I used to be against marijuana... but then I did my research and utilized cognitive thinking to decide on my own view of this subject. Instead of just following along to what I've been taught in society.

What actually is "Heavy Marijuana Use" it states that the tested persons had smoked 6 joints daily for about 5-6 years, so does that mean as long as you are under that limit you're safe? There is still no proof of anything positive or negative, so I believe marijuana simply does nothing to affect someone's health.

and you are included in this thread

The theory that marijuana kills brain cells has been proven wrong again and again and again it's based off a study with NO scientific proof nearly a century ago in the 30's the goverment tested this on primates. First they had them smoke several joints a day and the results showed that nothing happened. THEN when they couldn't find anything they gassed them with marijuana smoke until there was nearly no oxygen and their brain cells were destroyed from the suffocation. Obviously they were just looking to dish something out so they could ban marijuana but after that they have been proved wrong time after time after time again. Marijuana doesn't destroy any brain cells it promotes brain activity THC the active ingredient in marijuana stimulates parts of the brain that are the central cause of anxiety, depression etc and helps to rid these mental illnesses as well as calming cells all over the body causing in less cancer cells (the human body generates 8 cancer cells a day, marijuana can reduce this by nearly half). Here ya go.

I put his information in a different thread, but it really belongs here.
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Cannabis Is Neuroprotective
A fascinating new study shows that cannabis offers some neuroprotection to young people who engaged in binge drinking episodes. The binge drinkers were young – aged 16-19. This is an age at which the effects of drugs on the brain may be particularly bad, since the brain is continuing to develop.
What was shocking was that binge drinking in adolescents caused the type and degree of damage that it did. Binge drinking caused actual losses of white matter in the brain, similar to the damage seen with drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine.
The study was fascinating because if the adolescents used cannabis in addition to binge drinking, the damage was notably less than if they binge drank alone. Therefore, cannabis use was somewhat neuroprotective to the brain in terms of the damage caused by binge drinking.
This does not mean that cannabis use is good for your brain, or that it does not damage the brain. But no study of cannabis use has ever found anything as dramatic as extensive white matter losses in the brain (that’s a pretty serious type of damage). So, if anything, binge drinking in adolescence (which many adolescents do) is remarkably worse for your brain than using cannabis in adolescence, which is an amazing thing to say right there.
http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/cannabis-is-neuroprotective/


A more recent report entitled "Marijuana and Actual Performance", DOT-HS-808-078, noted that "THC is not a profoundly impairing drug....It apparently affects controlled information processing in a variety of laboratory tests, but not to the extent which is beyond the individual's ability to control when he is motivated and permitted to do so in driving".

The study concluded that: "...An important practical objective of this study was to determine whether degrees of driving impairment can be actually predicted from either measured concentration of THC in plasma or performance measured in potential roadside "sobriety" tests of tracking ability or hand and posture stability. The results, like many reported before, indicated that none of these measures accurately predicts changes in actual performance under the influence of THC...".

The researchers found that it "appears not possible to conclude anything about a driver's impairment on the basis of his/her plasma concentrations of THC and THC-COOH determined in a single sample". Note: "THC" stands for Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, which is the intoxicating ingredient in marijuana. THC is fairly quickly converted by the body into inert metabolites, which can stay in the body for hours or even days. It is these metabolites that police blood tests in DUI arrests detect and measure.

In other words, (1) marijuna may not impair driving ability at all, and (2) the blood "evidence" only measures an inactive substance which may have been there for days.


Lawrence Taylor is a former prosecutor, Fulbright professor of law, and author of the standard legal textbook, "Drunk Driving Defense, 6th Edition". He is the senior member of an AV-rated firm of California DUI lawyers practicing DUI defense exclusively since 1979.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Does-Marijuana-Impair-Driving?&id=1550088



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A total of 2,964 babies were drug-tested at birth to see if they were positive for drugs - cocaine, opioids or cannabis were studied. 44% of the infants tested positive for all varieties of drugs, including the 3 being studied. During the first two years of their lives, 44 babies from the original group died. Since statistics are a drag to slog through, I'll cut right to the chase - the deaths per thousand live births - the numbers tell the story.
"No drugs at birth" deaths....... 15.7 deaths per 1000 live births
"Cocaine positive" deaths.......17.7 deaths per 1000 live births
"Opiate positive" deaths.......18.4 deaths per 1000 live births
"Cannabis positive" deaths.... 8.9 deaths per 1000 live births
The cocaine and opiate babies have a higher death rate than the "No drugs" babies - that was to be expected. But look at the "cannabis" babies! Having extra cannabinoids in their bodies at birth (and likely later, from 2nd-hand exposure, or breast milk) seems to have some sort of a protective effect. The "cannabis" infants have a mortality rate almost half of what the "No drugs" infants have!
Cannabis has a remarkable safety record - it has never caused a single death by overdose, so it is safer than the Tylenol that we give to our children. Some cannabinoids, like CBD, can't get you high no matter how much you take, but are still quite effective medically. Perhaps it is time that someone considers doing a study of pediatric, non-psychoactive cannabinoid use to treat "failure to thrive" infants! http://www.salem-news.com/articles/june272010/marijuana-infants-sc.php
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Comparing the two groups, the neonates of mothers who used marijuana showed better physiological stability at 1 month and required less examiner facilitation to reach an organized state and become available for social stimulation.
The results of the comparison of neonates of the heavy-marijuana-using mothers and those of the non-using mothers were even more striking…
• The heavily exposed neonates were more socially responsive and were more autonomically stable at 30 days than their matched counterparts.
• quality of their alertness was higher;
• their motor and autonomic systems were more robust;
• they were less irritable;
• they were less likely to demonstrate any imbalance of tone;
• they needed less examiner facilitation to become organized;
• they had better self-regulation;
• judged to be more rewarding for caregivers than the neonates of non-using mothers at 1 month of age
http://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/marijuana-cannabis-use-in-pregnancy-dr-melanie-dreher/