[oMFg ITz MeTaL]

First of all, I'M NOT SAYING I USE CANNABIS!!!!!!

I support Cannabis, "Cannabis has long been used for fibre (hemp), for medicinal purposes, and as a psychoactive. Industrial hemp products are made from Cannabis plants selected to produce an abundance of fiber and minimal levels of THC (?<sup style="font-style: italic;">9</sup>- tetrahydrocannabinol), one psychoactive molecule that produces the "high" associated with marijuana. The drug consists of dried flowers and leaves of plants selected to produce high levels of THC. Various extracts including hashish and hash oil are also produced.<sup style="font-style: italic;" id="cite_ref-erowid_0-0" class="reference">[1]</sup> The cultivation and possession of Cannabis for recreational use is outlawed in most countries." That's cannabis for you.

Now why I support Cannabis..
I support it because, millions of americans are suffering chronic pain, ADD & ADHD, HIV/AIDS, Asthma, Deep Depression, Chemotherapy, Diabetes, Epilepsy, Glaucoma, Herpes, All Cancers, Brain Tumors, Parkinson's Disease, and more.. And cannabis helps all these types of diseases, and problems in over 99.8% positive and 0.02% negative. I believe that these people need proper medicine to depend their lives on, as in enjoying life again, like a former patient who broke 10 bones in her back, and can no longer walk, she uses cannabis, but illegaly because the state hasn't accepted it medically, Shes got the chance to get out of bed alot more often and enjoy her time with her 3 children instead of being in chronic pain taking pill narcotics. This is why I support Cannabis, it's helping lives, but slowly and sadly media and government is still controlling and it's getting harder and harder to prove whats right and whats wrong these days..



MARIJUANA MYTHS

Take in mind that 3/4 of all these "FACTS (really the myths)" are on and promoted by abovetheinfluence.com
Myth: Today's marijuana is more potent and more harmful than it was many years ago.
Fact: There is no medical evidence that shows high-potency marijuana is more harmful than low-potency marijuana. Marijuana is literally one of the least toxic substances known. High-potency marijuana is actually preferable because less is of it consumed to obtain the desired effect; thereby reducing the amount of smoke that enters the lungs and lowering the risk of any respiratory health hazards. Claiming that high-potency marijuana is more harmful than low-potency marijuana is like claiming wine is more harmful than beer.
Myth: Smoking marijuana can cause cancer and serious lung damage.
Fact: There chance of contracting cancer from smoking marijuana is minuscule. Tobacco smokers typically smoke 20+ cigarettes every day for decades, but virtually nobody smokes marijuana in the quantity and frequency required to cause cancer. A 1997 UCLA study (see page 9) concluded that even prolonged and heavy marijuana smoking causes no serious lung damage. Cancer risks from common foods (meat, salt, dairy products) far exceed any cancer risk posed by smoking marijuana. Respiratory health hazards and cancer risks can be totally eliminated by ingesting marijuana in baked foods.
Myth: Marijuana contains over 400 chemicals, thus proving that marijuana is dangerous.
Fact: Coffee contains 1,500 chemicals. Rat poison contains only 30 chemicals. Many vegetables contain cancer-causing chemicals. There is no correlation between the number of chemicals a substance contains and its toxicity. Prohibitionists often cite this misleading statistic to make marijuana appear dangerous.
Myth: Marijuana is a gateway drug--it leads to harder drugs.
Fact: The U.S. government's own statistics show that over 75 percent of all Americans who use marijuana never use harder drugs. The gateway-drug theory is derived by using blatantly-flawed logic. Using such blatantly-flawed logic, alcohol should be considered the gateway drug because most cocaine and heroin addicts began their drug use with beer or wine--not marijuana.
Myth: Marijuana is addicting.
Fact: Marijuana is not physically addicting. Medical studies rank marijuana as less habit forming than caffeine. The legal drugs of tobacco (nicotine) and alcohol can be as addicting as heroin or cocaine, but marijuana is one of the least habit forming substances known.
Myth: Marijuana use impairs learning ability.
Fact: A 1996 U.S. government study claims that heavy marijuana use may impair learning ability. The key words are heavy use and may. This claim is based on studying people who use marijuana daily--a sample that represents less than 1 percent of all marijuana users. This study concluded: 1) Learning impairments cited were subtle, minimal, and may be temporary. In other words, there is little evidence that such learning impairments even exist. 2) Long-term memory was not affected by heavy marijuana use. 3) Casual marijuana users showed no signs of impaired learning. 4) Heavy alcohol use was cited as being more detrimental to the thought and learning process than heavy marijuana use.
Myth: Marijuana is a significant cause of emergency room admissions.
Fact: The U.S. government reports that marijuana-related emergency room episodes are increasing. The government counts an emergency room admission as a marijuana-related episode if the word marijuana appears anywhere in the medical record. If a patient tests positive for marijuana because he/she used marijuana several days before the incident occurred, if a drunk driver admits he/she also smoked some marijuana, or if anyone involved in the incident merely possessed marijuana, the government counts the emergency room admission as a "marijuana-related episode." Less than 0.2% of all emergency room admissions are "marijuana related." This so-called marijuana-causes-emergencies statistic was carefully crafted by the government to make marijuana appear dangerous.
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another myths/facts
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1. Marijuana Causes Brain Damage

The most celebrated study that claims to show brain damage is the rhesus monkey study of Dr. Robert Heath, done in the late 1970s.
This study was reviewed by a distinguished panel of scientists sponsored by the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences.
Their results were published under the title, Marijuana and Health in 1982.
Heath's work was sharply criticized for its insufficient sample size (only four monkeys), its failure to control experimental bias, and the misidentification of normal monkey brain structure as "damaged".
Actual studies of human populations of marijuana users have shown no evidence of brain damage.
For example, two studies from 1977, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed no evidence of brain damage in heavy users of marijuana.
That same year, the American Medical Association (AMA) officially came out in favor of decriminalizing marijuana. That's not the sort of thing you'd expect if the AMA thought marijuana damaged the brain.
2. Marijuana Damages The Reproductive System

This claim is based chiefly on the work of Dr. Gabriel Nahas, who experimented with tissue (cells) isolated in petri dishes, and the work of researchers who dosed animals with near-lethal amounts of cannabinoids (i.e., the intoxicating part of marijuana).
Nahas' generalizations from his petri dishes to human beings have been rejected by the scientific community as being invalid.
In the case of the animal experiments, the animals that survived their ordeal returned to normal within 30 days of the end of the experiment.
Studies of actual human populations have failed to demonstrate that marijuana adversely affects the reproductive system.
3. Marijuana Is A "Gateway" Drug It Leads To Hard Drugs

This is one of the more persistent myths. A real world example of what happens when marijuana is readily available can be found in Holland.
The Dutch partially legalized marijuana in the 1970s. Since then, hard drug use, heroin and cocaine, have DECLINED substantially.
If marijuana really were a gateway drug, one would have expected use of hard drugs to have gone up, not down.
This apparent "negative gateway" effect has also been observed in the United States.
Studies done in the early 1970s showed a negative correlation between use of marijuana and use of alcohol.
A 1993 Rand Corporation study that compared drug use in states that had decriminalized marijuana versus those that had not, found that where marijuana was more available, the states that had decriminalized, hard drug abuse as measured by emergency room episodes decreased.
In short, what science and actual experience tell us is that marijuana tends to substitute for the much more dangerous hard drugs like alcohol, cocaine, and heroin.
4. Marijuana Suppresses The Immune System

Like the studies claiming to show damage to the reproductive system, this myth is based on studies where animals were given extremely high, in many cases, near-lethal, doses of cannabinoids.
These results have never been duplicated in human beings. Interestingly, two studies done in 1978 and one done in 1988 showed that hashish and marijuana may have actually stimulated the immune system in the people studied.
5. Marijuana Is Much More Dangerous Than Tobacco

Smoked marijuana contains about the same amount of carcinogens as does an equivalent amount of tobacco.
It should be remembered, however, that a heavy tobacco smoker consumes much more tobacco than a heavy marijuana smoker consumes marijuana.
This is because smoked tobacco, with a 90% addiction rate, is the most addictive of all drugs while marijuana is less addictive than caffeine.
Two other factors are important. The first is that paraphernalia laws directed against marijuana users make it difficult to smoke safely.
These laws make water pipes and bongs, which filter some of the carcinogens out of the smoke, illegal and, hence, unavailable.
The second is that, if marijuana were legal, it would be more economical to have cannabis drinks like Bhang (a traditional drink in the Middle East) or tea which are totally non-carcinogenic.
This is in stark contrast with "smokeless" tobacco products like snuff which can cause cancer of the mouth and throat.
When all of these facts are taken together, it can be clearly seen that the reverse is true: marijuana is much SAFER than tobacco.
6. Legal Marijuana Would Cause Carnage On The Highways

Although marijuana, when used to intoxication, does impair performance in a manner similar to alcohol, actual studies of the effect of marijuana on the automobile accident rate suggest that it poses LESS of a hazard than alcohol.
When a random sample of fatal accident victims was studied, it was initially found that marijuana was associated with RELATIVELY as many accidents as alcohol.
In other words, the number of accident victims intoxicated on marijuana relative to the number of marijuana users in society gave a ratio similar to that for accident victims intoxicated on alcohol relative to the total number of alcohol users.
However, a closer examination of the victims revealed that around 85% of the people intoxicated on marijuana WERE ALSO INTOXICATED ON ALCOHOL.
For people only intoxicated on marijuana, the rate was much lower than for alcohol alone. This finding has been supported by other research using completely different methods.
For example, an economic analysis of the effects of decriminalization on marijuana usage found that states that had reduced penalties for marijuana possession experienced a rise in marijuana use and a decline in alcohol use with the result that fatal highway accidents decreased.
This would suggest that, far from causing "carnage", legal marijuana might actually save lives.
7. Marijuana "Flattens" Human Brainwaves

This is an out-and-out lie perpetrated by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.
A few years ago, they ran a TV ad that purported to show, first, a normal human brainwave, and second, a flat brainwave from a 14-year-old "on marijuana".
When researchers called up the TV networks to complain about this commercial, the Partnership had to pull it from the air.
It seems that the Partnership faked the flat "marijuana brainwave".
In reality, marijuana has the effect of slightly INCREASING alpha wave activity. Alpha waves are associated with meditative and relaxed states which are, in turn, often associated with human creativity.
8. Marijuana Is More Potent Today Than In The Past

This is not a myth, on average the THC content of marijuana tested from 2000-2005 was about two to three times as high as it was in the late 1960's and early 1970's.
9. Marijuana Impairs Short Term Memory

This is true but misleading. Any impairment of short-term memory disappears when one is no longer under the influence of marijuana.
Often, the short-term memory effect is paired with a reference to Dr. Heath's poor rhesus monkeys to imply that the condition is permanent.
10. Marijuana Lingers In The Body Like DDT

This is also true but misleading. Cannabinoids are fat soluble as are innumerable nutrients (like Vitamin A) and, yes, some poisons like DDT.
11. There Are Over A Thousand Chemicals In Marijuana Smoke

Again, true but misleading. The 31 August 1990 issue of the magazine Science notes that of the over 800 volatile chemicals present in roasted COFFEE, only 21 have actually been tested on animals and 16 of these cause cancer in rodents.
Yet, coffee remains legal and is generally considered fairly safe.
12. No One Has Ever Died Of A Marijuana Overdose

This is true. Animal tests have revealed that extremely high doses of cannabinoids are needed to have lethal effect.
This has led scientists to conclude that the ratio of the amount of cannabinoids necessary to get a person intoxicated (i.e., stoned) relative to the amount necessary to kill them is 1 to 40,000.
In other words, to overdose, you would have to consume 40,000 times as much marijuana as you needed to get stoned.
In contrast, the ratio for alcohol varies between 1 to 4 and 1 to 10. It is easy to see how upwards of 5000 people die from alcohol overdoses every year and no one EVER dies of marijuana overdoses.


SOURCES FOR ALL YOU NON-BELIEVERS!




Sources
1) Marijuana and Health, Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, 1982. Note: the Committee on Substance Abuse and Habitual Behavior of the "Marijuana and Health" study had its part of the final report suppressed when it reviewed the evidence and recommended that possession of small amounts of marijuana should no longer be a crime (TIME magazine, July 19, 1982). The two JAMA studies are: Co, B.T., Goodwin, D.W., Gado, M., Mikhael, M., and Hill, S.Y.: "Absence of cerebral atrophy in chronic cannabis users", JAMA, 237:1229-1230, 1977; and, Kuehnle, J., Mendelson, J.H., Davis, K.R., and New, P.F.J.: "Computed tomographic examination of heavy marijuana smokers", JAMA, 237:1231-1232, 1977.
2) See Marijuana and Health, ibid., for information on this research. See also, Marijuana Reconsidered (1978) by Dr. Lester Grinspoon.
3) The Dutch experience is written up in "The Economics of Legalizing Drugs", by Richard J. Dennis, The Atlantic Monthly, Vol 266, No. 5, Nov 1990, p. 130. See "A Comparison of Marijuana Users and Non-users" by Norman Zinberg and Andrew Weil (1971) for the negative correlation between use of marijuana and use of alcohol. The 1993 Rand Corporation study is "The Effect of Marijuana Decriminalization on Hospital Emergency Room Episodes: 1975 - 1978" by Karyn E. Model.
4) See a review of studies and their methodology in "Marijuana and Immunity", Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Vol 20(1), Jan-Mar 1988. Studies showing stimulation of the immune system: Kaklamani, et al., "Hashish smoking and T- lymphocytes", 1978; Kalofoutis et al., "The significance of lymphocyte lipid changes after smoking hashish", 1978. The 1988 study: Wallace, J.M., Tashkin, D.P., Oishi, J.S., Barbers, R.G., "Peripheral Blood Lymphocyte Subpopulations and Mitogen Responsiveness in Tobacco and Marijuana Smokers", 1988, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, ibid.
5) The 90% figure comes from Health Consequences of Smoking: Nicotine Addiction, Surgeon General's Report, 1988. In Health magazine in an article entitled, "Hooked, Not Hooked" by Deborah Franklin (pp. 39-52), compares the addictiveness of various drugs and ranks marijuana below caffeine. For current information on cannabis drinks see Working Men and Ganja: Marijuana Use in Rural Jamaica by M. C. Dreher, Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1982, ISBN 0-89727-025-8. For information on cannabis and actual cancer risk, see Marijuana and Health, ibid.
6) For a survey of studies relating to cannabis and highway accidents see "Marijuana, Driving and Accident Safety", by Dale Gieringer, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, ibid. The effect of decriminalization on highway accidents is analyzed in "Do Youths Substitute Alcohol and Marijuana? Some Econometric Evidence" by Frank J. Chaloupka and Adit Laixuthai, Nov. 1992, University of Illinois at Chicago.
7) For information about the Partnership ad, see Jack Herer's book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, 1990, p. 74. See also "Hard Sell in the Drug War", The Nation, March 9, 1992, by Cynthia Cotts, which reveals that the Partnership receives a large percentage of its advertising budget from alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical companies and is thus disposed toward exaggerating the risks of marijuana while downplaying the risks of legal drugs. For information on memory and the alpha brainwave enhancement effect, see "Marijuana, Memory, and Perception", by R. L. Dornbush, M.D., M. Fink, M.D., and A. M. Freedman, M.D., presented at the 124th annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, May 3-7, 1971.
8) DEA, NIDA, MAPS.
9) See Marijuana and Health, ibid. Also see "Marijuana, Memory, and Perception", ibid.
10) The fat solubility of cannabinoids and certain vitamins is well known. See Marijuana and Health, ibid. For some information on vitamin A, see "The A Team" in Scientific American, Vol 264, No. 2, February 1991, p. 16.
11) See "Too Many Rodent Carcinogens: Mitogenesis Increases Mutagenesis", Bruce N. Ames and Lois Swirsky Gold, Science, Vol 249, 31 August 1990, p. 971.
12) Cannabis and alcohol toxicity is compared in Marijuana Reconsidered, ibid., p. 227. Yearly alcohol overdoses was taken from "Drug Prohibition in the United States: Costs, Consequences, and Alternatives" by Ethan A. Nadelmann, Science, Vol 245, 1 September 1989, p. 943. -- paul hager hagerp@moose.cs.indiana.edu "The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason." -- Thomas Paine, _The Age of Reason_
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CREDIT: TO THE 5 BEST RAPPERS OF ALL TIME!
DYLAN! DYLAN! DYLAN DYLAN DYLAN!!!!!