Long-Term Effects on the Body
People who smoke marijuana tend to pull in deep breaths of smoke and hold that smoke in their lungs for long periods of time. People who use marijuana in conjunction with tobacco could be exposing their lungs to dangerous amounts of carcinogens as a result of this practice. Even people who do not use tobacco with their marijuana could face a higher risk of chest colds and chronic coughs due to the constant exposure of smoke to their lungs.
The NIDA also reports that smoking marijuana can cause serious long-term damage to the heart. The drug increases heart rate 25 to 100 times, and it can cause some people to experience a skipping, jittering, out-of-control heart rhythm. People who have existing heart conditions may be at particular risk for this side effect, and it’s possible that some people could have heart abnormalities and not even know it. These people could be exposing their heart to damaging chemicals, making their underlying problem even worse.
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Long-Term Effects on the Mind
While these bodily side effects might be frightening, the mental risks of marijuana abuse are far more extensive and can be much more severe. For example, a study published in the journal The Lancet found a clear link between chronic use of marijuana and the mental illness schizophrenia. People who used marijuana on more than 50 occasions had a much higher risk of developing schizophrenia than did people who had used marijuana fewer than 50 times. That risk persisted, even when researchers controlled for other mental illness risks and economic status. In other words, marijuana use and this mental illness are closely linked. Researchers aren’t yet sure why this link exists, and more work is ongoing on this issue.
Chronic marijuana use has also been linked to a wide variety of other mental illnesses, including depression. A study published in BMJ found that daily use of marijuana resulted in a five-fold increase in the risk of depression in young adults. Weekly use of marijuana resulted in a two-fold increase in the risk of depression. Interestingly, the researchers also attempted to discern if these young adults used marijuana because they were depressed. In other words, they tried to discern if the link was there because people who are depressed used marijuana to help with their depression or if marijuana use itself caused the depression. Researchers found no link between depression scores and later augmented use. It seems that the depression was caused by the drug use.
In addition to serious and chronic mental illnesses, marijuana use has been linked to cognitive declines. People who abuse marijuana slow down the speed and function of their minds, and they may be working at an impaired level of cognition most, if not all, of the time. One study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Associationfound that people who used marijuana over a long period of time performed worse on tests of memory and learning than people who did not use marijuana. The poor scores on the test were directly correlated with the length of time the person used marijuana. In other words, the longer the person used the drug, the worse score the person got on the test. It’s clear that marijuana can have a serious impact on the brain’s ability to function properly.
Marijuana has also been linked to a form of apathy, particularly in young people. Smoking marijuana seems to make people feel disconnected, sedated and unable to work up the energy to achieve a goal. It’s possible that the underlying mental illnesses caused by marijuana use, combined with the lower level of brain activity caused by marijuana, could stand behind this lack of motivation. But, it’s also possible that this is a separate mental illness altogether.
When I was a smoker I was lectured sooooo many times and warned of the ills of my addiction. It seemed that everywhere I turned there was a "new" study relating cigarettes to every ill and disease under the sun. Everything from cancer to tooth decay to aging was the result of cigarettes and if you did not smoke - then second hand smoke did it.
ReplyDeleteThis gave government the "right" to tax me - in hoping to get me to stop and in the meantime padding the coffers.
So, where is big daddy government on the issue of marijuana? These SAME people are now supporting marijuana! I guess brain damage is soooo much better than what cigarettes do...
Wow... I'm schizophrenic and so am I......but maybe it just a brain damaged illusion....
ReplyDeleteHey.... did you just see that? ;-)
"Marijuana has also been linked to a form of apathy, particularly in young people. Smoking marijuana seems to make people feel disconnected, sedated and unable to work up the energy to achieve a goal."
ReplyDeleteFunny how welfare does exactly that same thing yet people are endlessly trying to expand it and give people even more opportunity not to give a dammmm....
"Funny how welfare does exactly that same thing yet people are endlessly trying to expand it and give people even more opportunity not to give a dammmm...."
DeleteSo solid on paper and yet so meaninglessly hollow in real life.
Only to your liberal way of thinking Max. Don't get me wrong, I think a benevolent nation with the wealth of the US should look after its vulnerable, in that respect you and I aren't too far apart. The execution however is terrible. It's been said several times that we are indeed in a depression and if all of the social curtains did not exist we would see huge lines at the soup kitchen. I can almost guarantee that those that stood in the soup lines which provided a basic food ration were much more motivated than those with a debit card and a free run of the supermarket. Of course, having said that, we need to address the fact that our country does not have enough jobs to go around, particularly when we support the right of illegals to take them and corporate responsibility does not extend to a living wage....... But no, our current support system does not act as a safety net that motivates...
DeleteSo where is big daddy government? The use, sale, and possession of cannabis (marijuana) in the United States is illegal under federal law. Cannabis is listed as a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, the highest classification under the legislation. This means that the substance has been decided by the federal government to have both high abuse potential and no established, safe medical use.
ReplyDeleteHowever, individual state laws do not always conform to the federal standard. State-level proposals for the rescheduling of cannabis have met with mixed success. A number of states have decriminalised the substance to varying degrees, other states have created exemptions specifically for medical cannabis, and several have both decriminalisation and medical laws. Two states, Colorado, and Washington, have legalized the recreational use of cannabis following the approval of state referenda in the 2012 elections; a similar ballot measure in Oregon failed. Wikipedia
Speaking to The New York Times in a January 19, 2010 article entitled, "Researchers Find Medical Study of Marijuana Discouraged," NIDA spokeswoman Shirley Simson said: "As the National Institute on Drug Abuse, our focus is primarily on the negative consequences of marijuana use. We generally do not fund research focused on the potential beneficial medical effects of marijuana."
ReplyDeleteSince NIDA presently oversees an estimated 85 percent of the world's research on controlled substances, the agency's ban on medical marijuana research isn't just limited to the United States' borders; it extends throughout the planet.
As a person who has never smoked pot, but smelled it plenty of times at concerts and parties in my youth, I still don't understand the prosecution of "pot heads". I know it is bad for you and would never encourage anyone to try it, but where do we draw the line on keeping government out of our lives? I also support that if employers can require a piss test for a job, the government should require a piss test for anyone seeking government bennies. This country tried prohibition on alcohol and it was a miserable failure, now we have prohibited something else and it is filling up our prisons costing millions every year in law enforcement and incarceration charges directly to the taxpayer.
ReplyDelete"This country tried prohibition on alcohol and it was a miserable failure, now we have prohibited something else and it is filling up our prisons costing millions every year in law enforcement and incarceration charges directly to the taxpayer."
DeleteAnd again, full agreement. Your stuff about the Muslim from Kenya is mindless bullshit that appeals only to idiots, but this stuff here is dead on.
Hey Max,
DeleteEmptying the prisons here in Colorado. MJ is legal, illegals have drivers licenses, Illegals can attend college at in state rates. Gay marriages are now law, we have a democratically controlled legislature and a gov called Hickenlooper the liberal of liberals. California has arrived in style.
Might be time to leave before they start spending like Calif.
Burglary, child molestation, rape, armed robbery, fraud, identity theft cannot be stopped either so lets just legalize those actions also and empty out all our prisons.
ReplyDeleteDrugs alter personalities and I for one do not want to live around the mentally deranged -- hell, I do not even like communicating with them online..;)
Angie.... This is were the right is just as bad as the left. The problem that I have with both sides is that they want to control ANYTHING they don't like and allow, even if it is harmful to society, anything they do like. Smoking a joint, drinking a beer and watching a porno film is not harmful to anyone. Robbing a store, killing someone with an out of control car, and raping your neighbor is. The right defends the constitutional right to have weapons even those they are used daily by the mentally deranged. You can't pick and chose freedoms based on your personal likes.. If that were true I would have outlawed line-dancing decades ago. You can however have and enforce laws about behaviours that detrimentally effect others. I would say that their are some powerful but socially deranged corporate leaders that today should be in jail but they are protected by the right as some form of free market demonstration.... H3ll no! They should be in jail.
DeleteThe right, a truely constitutional right, will stop its support for all of these preemptive laws and start judging people on their deeds. The ONLY reason that the right doesn't like marijuana is that they are almost impossible to properly tax... As I posted above, the NIDA along with the DEA controls dammm near all of the research and message worldwide.... are you sure you are getting the right story?
I smoked quite a bit when I was young and do on much less frequent occasions now enjoy a joint when I sit at my favorite sidewalk cafe in Amsterdam with a wonderfully made grilled ham and cheese and a cup of hot chocolate. I've never been in trouble with the law and had a relatively successful career. You see, I choose not to drink alcohol because I had a very nice father except on the weekends when he would be out of control on drink. We all have our vices and as long as they harm no one... our constitution provides for it.
Burglary, child molestation, rape, armed robbery, fraud, identity theft cannot be stopped either so lets just legalize those actions also and empty out all our prisons.
Delete-----------------
Not the same IMHO. Everything above lists a VICTIM. If someone wants to smoke a joint in a "cafe" a.k.a. pot shop or in the privacy of there own home, who is injured?
gotta, the person that is in the other auto when the Smoker ran into them as they were impaired. The person that was harmed at work when the other person working the machine was impaired.
DeleteThere is a reason that people are not allowed to drink and drive, drink on the job, same reasons should apply to the smokers.
louman,
DeleteCouldn't agree more regarding that as well. This is the reason most states have done away with DWI and replaced it with DUI. I am referring to what people do at their own discretion. I believe you have the right to do just about anything you want until it affects another person, then it becomes a matter of public scrutiny.
I do not support drunk driving and I would not support driving while high on any other substance.
Brian, no they are not in the same category but to rationalize that since they since people will do it anyway so legalize it is not the way to go. To rationalize the costs are too high to incarcerate them so decriminalize it is the point I am arguing. To say we cannot enfore drug laws is bull shit! We choose not to in the same way we turn a blind eye to illegals crossing our borders.
DeleteScott;
Drugs like marijuana with continued use alter the mind and thinking process. Do people have a right to do this --- as long as I am not expected to pay financially, morally, or physically for their actions I would agree. When you see people living on the streets what is their mental capacity and how have they gotten to that point. Most importantly, are they safe to be around? Not always as some are so mentally damaged that they are a threat. Ask how they got that way and in many cases drugs were a contributor.
Do I care if people get stoned - no but I do care when I am expected to pick up the tab and take care of them and their children. I do care when they get so messed up that they believe that I or an innocent passer by is a threat for them to do away with. Drugs are not innocent recreational substances, they kill brain cells and alter the mind - now I do care about that.
Look at the bright side, maybe if it were legalized, the potheads would get off their butts and become farmers. ;-)
DeleteIt is now legal here. They have yet to figure out how to tax it, regulate it, test for under the influence, who can grow it, how much can be grown.
DeleteJust the beginning of the problems with legalization.
A question. If an employer has a no use policy and terminates someone for use, would they be in violation of a law? Discrimination?
Angie... You tend to throw a lot of elements together in this conversation about 'marijuana'... all people living on the street are mentally ill and all of them got that way because of drugs and then further infer that that drug was pot. I know someone who got that way from listening to professional 'doctors' and taking lithium by prescription. I do not like paying for the irresponsible actions of others either but the fact is yahoos will still gab on their mobile phones and claim they are perfectly in control of their vehicle, we will scrape up the brains of motorcyclists who don't/won't use helmet and pay for irresponsible actions of employers who drive a company in the ground costing the jobs of hundreds.... Fact is, at least under my constitution, until I do something to you, you have nothing to say.... and wasn't much in favor of the laws that said if I do something to your neighbour that you have to pay for it.
DeleteScott;
DeleteYou therefore are in favor of legalizing all drugs or at least decriminalizing them?
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteSorry about the delete above... the format was hard to read
DeleteAngie two points.
One, my major objection is, like abortion it has been pushed to the federal level. States and the citizens of those states should have the right to determine the social order and living atmosphere of their state , within of course, within the provision of the constitution (not the expanded ever liberalized version). Most things that I have objection to is using the federal government to set social policy. I come from Texas and from town to town, county to county, you will find 'wet' and 'dry' areas. These places have no bars, no bottle shops and no public consumption do people do it in the privacy of their own homes after a trip over the county line... you bet but the town itself chose not to have it publicly sold and consumed. They trade off business and revenue for the cost associated with public alcohol consumption and a social setting that THEY want locally. Not someone in New York telling someone in New Mexico how to live their lives...
Second. Behavior, any behavior must be judged on its merits. If we were to use marijuana as a true benchmark for problems caused to a society, alcohol would have been a schedual1 long time ago. As I said before, the rap that marijuana gets is governmentally sponsored and the truth is born out in places that have accepted and regulated its possession. Relative to the other major drugs, marijuana enforcement is already lax, and as a result prices are much less inflated. Also, social disapprobation is rather modest, that is, those who imbibe probably already do to some degree but with crack or heroin that is a different story, and dependence is easier to break. So legalizing marijuana is far less likely to produce highly problematic increases in dependence than legalizing any of those other substances. But I will say that having those other drugs legalized produces, homicides, drug over dosed, communicable disease and diversion of resource. Everything has the ability to bring about dependence in lesser or greater degrees and should be looked at and dealt with in that light.
The real question is how much damage legalized marijuana could cause. Proponents argue that marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. Unlike alcohol, for example, marijuana does not often produce dis-inhibited behavior that triggers the risk of violence. And unlike tobacco, it does not appear to be linked with lung cancer or other common cancers; the largest and most careful studies simply have not yet found a connection, even in the heaviest smokers. Studies conducted in Holland, which has come the closest to full legalization of cannabis, and Portugal, which decriminalized possession of all drugs, so far do not show negative effects on either addiction rates or misuse by young people.
One thing however is certain, incarceration of people for scehdule1 violations is a felony. if you want to talk the cost of pot on our society, thing about the cost think about the cost possession of a joint in terms of the cost of policing, prosecuting and incarcerating and the damaged felons we turn out of our 'rehabilitation system' .
Its interesting, I had a brief look at readily available information on the decriminalization project in Portugal. Thee DECRIMINALIZED the possession and use of small amounts of ALL drugs while trafficking and sales were still criminal offences that were pursued. Lots of articles have a positive review of the results over the last ten years.
Example:
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/drug-decriminalization-policy-pays
The only truly negative articles were centred on information that is linked in this article.... Where does this information come from.. a White House study and from our friends at the UN... As I have already said, most of what we think about drugs on society comes from a very bias who is determined not to let any objective discussion take place.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/12/10/portugal-decriminalisation-drugs-britain_n_2270789.html
Here is another twist on the issue and that is States rights. If I would choose to grow marijuana on my own property for my own consumption, with no intent of transporting it across State lines, where in the Constitution does it give the Feds to interfere? Drugs legal are not should be on a State by State basis. I know tobacco and alcohol are taxed because they cross State lines, but I can brew my own beer (have done that in the past), or grow my own tobacco and the feds cannot regulate or tax my activities.
ReplyDeleteWhat about a meth lab? Is there a line drawn ever?
DeleteAlthough the US Constitution does not mention drugs, one could argue human safety with reference to the pursuit of happiness- I said argue.... To be fair our US Constitution - although the best security we have as a nation - is not perfect. In fact I would argue that our forefathers constructed it with the underlying premise that our elected officials would be decent God fearing men with integrity --- yes I said GOD fearing men--- If all three branches were truly decent then issues that we face today might be handled differently. Our constitution NEEDS these decent reps and decent people to ensure our freedoms and safety.
But you are correct Brian, stats rights is an issue that is greatly ignored. Yet could a state right issue be forced to subdue a persons right to use pot, meth, PCP....
Do we regulate morals... yes.....
should we..... a God fearing person might argue yes..
Constitutionally ......
Gotta, your point is THE issue plain and simple. The constitution and its interpretation has been so skewed that even 'conservatives' think that we can set social policy at the national level ( they have been listening to progressives for to long and I guess to some extent adapting to the ever liberalized views of federal power)... except of coarse when they want states rights...
DeleteAngie.. please direct me to the line and passage that states that the federal government is charged with or indeed granted the privilege of setting social agenda other that the fact that people have the right to life... liberty and Pursuit of happiness... and states must create laws accordingly.... In other words no harm, no foul. What I think I am seeing here is a very liberal interpretation of the constitution...
I am talking about the "responsibility" of - in this instance Christians - who MIGHT argue that we have a moral responsibility.
DeleteI really do not care if people want to fry their brains I truly do not but the become a burden to society and the crime that comes along with drugs is damaging to our society. I would argue that drugs are a majority of our problems in this country. Decriminalizing them will not end crime associated with drugs.
To Angie,
ReplyDeleteMany Christian sects do not condone the consumption of liquor. My wife is a Baptist and while her church does not condone the consumption of alcohol, many do along with the likes of the Amish and the Mennonites. Regarding, meth labs, tell me one legal thing in our society that may be legal, but not regulated. You are free to make moonshine, you just cannot do it without paying the proper taxes and inspections for a proper manufacturing facility.
To Scott,
The federal government is out of control. I believe in State control with limited local control over issues like police and school services. The federal government should just do their Constitutional duty to make sure that no party of group of people should infringe on our Constitutional rights like making a local state religion, limiting free speech, or taking away gun rights has so many have already done.
The Federal government has four main responsibilities....
National security, immigration and customs, foreign relations, and interstate commerce. The EPA, Dept. of Ed., DEA, etc., etc., need to be sent to the dust bin.
Locally the dealers buy up houses, many times right in the middle of highly suburban developments. They cut a hole in the garage concrete floor, tunnel underground and connect to the electrical utility before the meter.
ReplyDeleteWindows are fitted with black out shades. Grow lights and humidifiers are placed in every room.
One dealer was caught when his laborer was burning so much weed in the fireplace that a blue cloud hovered over the entire neighborhood. Kids were getting high waiting for their school buses.
The bank who held the mortgage discovered all the sheetrock had turned to wet gypsum, the electrical service feeding multiple lines to the grow tables, and a huge hole in the garage floor.
A local electrician I know was helping to restore two or three of these homes per month. A real growth driver in the community.
Let's face it, dope, booze and butts are all deadly evils. Instead of legalizing Pot, let's get rid of the drunks out there too. All people who are found to be under the influence, even if not driving, should be given mandatory prison sentences of at least one year in the big house.
ReplyDelete