UCSD Study/ Pot Smoking Causes No Permanent Damage

I'm all for it being legal for medicinal purposes - i.e. it being prescribed by doctors.

As for industry, don't you think that if it was publicly legalized that new private industries would set themselves up to manufacture and promote sales, perhaps not divulging all the harmful long-term side-effects that may occur? It will just be another tobacco industry in my mind. Government doesn't want any responsibility, they will just be happy enough legalizing it and collecting the taxes it brings in.

I think they shouldn't be two-faced - condemning tobacco and then legalizing pot.

There is an industry working to make it more potent -- it's just not a legal one.

Anyway, I think both industries should be regulated and their practices transparent -- which means cracking down more on the ciggie people and legalizing pot.

goes back to the Puritan ethic of staying up all night worrying that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.

I think pot ought to be decriminalized.

I don't think tobacco out to be criminalized.

I have no problems with laws designed to keep both pot and tobacco out of the hands of minors, but let's allow adults to make up their own minds about substances like this.

Rollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

another one

Just like the other one

You've been holding on to it

An' i sure would like a hit . . .


I was gonna ask what the topic is again, but i really don't care . . . anybody got a light?

I'd not support the commercialization. Well, it's already commercialized but I think no branding should ever be allowed.

Well there already are some "brands"....

Some comedian has a bit where he explains the mentality of the vice cop. "If I can make just one person as miserable as I am, I've done my job." Something like that...

Re: Commercialization...

...just because a product is not illegal doesn't, in my opinion, mean there cannot be restraints on how it can be marketed; where it can be marketed; and to whom it can be marketed.

I just do not think the government should make substances like tobacco, alcohol, or pot illegal.

I also see nothing wrong in having the Surgeon General of the United States determine that these substances are harmful to the health of a person using them -- and using tax dollars to campaign against their use -- and certainly, their abuse.

I support the idea of government stipulated branding. Either none at all or all same color same font no ad budget....

Then a hefty tax (for health care). Then freedom to abuse my own body in any way that does not hurt others.

I think that something is being ignored here. There was a very bitter controversy about the issue of illegal drug use v. alcohol and prescription drug use which contributed mightily to the yawning gulf which separated the Dubya-Dubya-Two generation from their children in the 1960's. That resentment remains, always simmering beneath the surface. I've heard men and women of that generation who still refer to the young as "hippies," and i'd say that no such move to either legalize or simply decriminalize mary-juana will take place until they are all dead and buried . . .

You know, I was thinkin.

They have this free software, this Linux and GNU and Open Source Initiative widget things. (article here). Richard Stallman's been doing a bunch of it for twenty years now, growing it, cultivating it, purifying it. He's just your basic hippie doing code and making life better. He puts things, really good things, into the public domain.

So there's this Free Software Foundation that helps organize a whole lot of how it's organized, and what they think is that software needs to be free. All the good stuff anyways. That's it's not really property, shouldn't be treated like it, that it should be shared and improved and passed along, and we should just run whatever we need.

Which brings me to my point about good things, freedom and the public domain. Yah. What do you need?

I think we need a Free Growth Foundation.

Which is precisely when I expect it will happen -- or, rather, a couple of decades after that. Must allow for some lag time. Will be interesting to see when the federal government disengages and leaves the decisions up to the state. A lot of federal bureaucrats and agents have a lot invested in the war on drugs. I'm a little cynical about this since I work in a place where a great deal of bureaucracy manages to perpetuate itself through unnecessary hindrance...

Could not agree more with that, Setanta.

Perhaps the way to approach this is through the "medicinal aspects" of pot.

I used pot during my chemo/radiation treatment for non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

I damn near died because the treatment caused my taste buds to die -- and everything EVERYTHING tasted horrible.

The pot was able to desensitize me to the stress this put on my body -- and allowed me to get the muchies even though I could not taste the food.

Even with the pot, I went down to 114 pounds -- and looked like an extra on the Schindler's List set.

I have known many people who claim they have gotten relief -- or partical relief -- from various ailments and pains through the use of pot.

Why the hell is it not available for people who want to use it that way?

Because of these people Setanta mentioned -- and their mindset.

Note that cocaine/heroin etc are still used as medicine.

Well, also because no drug company has a patent on it. The damn stuff grows in the ground... They can fast track approval of a boner drug that makes you see blue and might, you know, give you a heart attack or something in addition to making it so you can't leave the house for a couple hours and scaring the living hell out of the cat, but...

Ah, what's the point of getting worked up about it right now?

I think that studies of this kind will give government the intellectual rationale to decriminalize pot. Seems that many people want it to be decriminalized, and besides, it is not the government's business what people put into their bodies.

Like everyting else, it is a matter of judgement. If you ate a gallon of Rocky Road ice cream every day, eventually it would cause health problems.

Great! Now you tell me! And I thought it was because I was drinking fat water...

Agreed, Phoenix -- but, ultimately, I think most governmental decisions on things that are really this simple are strictly political. By the same token, the public reading about these studies and changing their own opinion has an effect on the political decisions.

(Okay, I be quiet now.)

Hmmh.

I've been one of the only ones preferring cheap Lambrusco to pot.
(And I don't blame anyone else than myself for throwing away a couple of years until I went to therapy).

I remember having read some similar papers like the quoted about 20 years ago (when working as a social worker in an 'anonymus-drug-information-center').
It was very controversial at those times, but nowadays here in Europe (subcontinent Old Europe) most countries have already decriminalized marijuana de facto (not completely de iure!).

patiodog- Of course the decisions are political. Now that they have the rationale, the feds can tax the crap out of packs of pot, and gobble some more money.

When pot is decriminalized, and someone floats an IPO on a pot manufacturer, make sure that I am informed. I plan to make a bundle!

We'll, they're going to have to tax your gains on that for the new Federal Aid for Dependent Prison Guards, Narcotics Agents, and Staffers Who Fill Out Their Paperwork (FADPGNASWFOTP). Just so you're ready...