Get your facts straight. The majority of the extreme activists I have talked to, read blogs on, or heard from blindly support legalization without any true justification. Sure, marijuana has benefits, and I am all for its legalization; but an activist who says "smoking weed won't/can't give you cancer" is just balderdash. Combustion of any organic materials produces a plethora of carcinogens and hot enough atmosphere that would out-do any preventative qualities cannabis has. A true activist cannot be in all fields supportive of something that does in fact cause damage to the lungs (in this case). Even vaporization, though considerably more healthy, does cause slightly more than marginal health issues. Use of marijuana even with a flawless vaporizer will (not can, will) lower lung capacity, as the user is introducing a foreign compound that is more dense than atmospheric gases generally inhaled will cause at least a small amount of damage, and this damage does build up. It is preposterous to think that inhaling a gas that is heated to over 300 degrees will not have some negative repercussions. Now onto the lighter notes. If you really do believe in legalization, don't blindly support it. Don't say it doesn't cause cancer, don't say that it has no negative effects, etc. The benefits I have noticed through my experience are substantial enough that I support its legalization for personal and medicinal use. I love being high, what can I say: -Pain relief -Stress relief -Insomnia relief -Antidepressive tendencies It's even been proven in studies that some cannabinoids even act as sort of a neuro-defragmentation. The point: -SMOKING marijuana does produce a lot of harm to the lungs. -VAPORIZING is much safer, but still not harm-free. -Marijuana DOES have some negative effects that go away with ceasing use: ...-Short-term memory loss. ...-Lack of motivation. ...-Getting fat from all those damn funions. To sum it up, I'm very supportive in the whole legalization movement, but people, if you want to be taken seriously, don't make comments like "smoking weed doesn't cause cancer", or at least learn to spell and present real benefits rather than just the absence of harm. ~Tilex Edit: I'd like to add, before people jump on it: Yes, some cannabinoids are preventative of some varieties of cancer, but just because they're preventative of it doesn't mean it cannot happen. Think of it this way, one cannabinoid in your gram of marijuana that accounts for roughly 2% of the active ingredients in your bud is fighting against the gram of tar you just put in your lungs, as well as the benzene and hundreds of other combustion-related carcinogens. It's ridiculous to say smoking anything cannot result in cancer. ~Tilex Edit2: Another thing I'd like to add: Obama and other political officials decline to talk about legalization because "it's like talking to teenagers" (from the CHANGE.GOV sticky). This is just a rant saying we need to become more educated and more mature. It's easier for a leader (in this case leader(s) e.g. Congress) to take someone seriously when they present facts, rather than opinions or blind ambitions. To put it simply, who would you rather listen to, someone who won't even hear an anti-legalization agenda and would argue to the death (see stubborn donkey from Family Guy), or someone who would listen to the other side, and present clear and informed facts that wouldn't dissuade the other party? I'd go with the latter. ~Tilex TL;DR
Although I'm too tired and fucked up-ish I didn't read it all, just bits and pieces. But I do agree fully, we are being just as biased as they are..we have to accept some facts that Cannabis isn't COMPLETELY harmless, but still very much less harmful than alcohol and tobbacco. It's not a miracle plant that causes no damage, just little damage.
That is exactly the point I was trying to get across, thank you. I also believe that with further refinement the vaporization process could become nigh 100% efficient and safe, I've been designing a system that reduces the particulate matter and temperature without causing the vapor to condense back into a liquid/solid. ~Tilex
You're not reading the entire study. The studies show no chemicals present in marijuana cause cancer. What you and the studies aren't considering is that combustion of plant matter produces chemicals that cause cancer, in high enough amounts that whatever preventative properties marijuana has is nigh completely moot.
This is true, and vaporization/edibles are the only way to guarantee this, as smoking produces enough carcinogenic chemicals that its preventative qualities aren't redeeming. Edit: I'm not trying to say that by smoking you WILL get cancer, I'm just trying to dispel the ignorance behind the "you can't get cancer from smoking pot" statement, because smoking anything can be associated with cancer, whether carcinogens are present in the smoked or not. You can smoke empty rolling papers, and I guarantee if you smoke enough of them, you'll come back with a positive test for cancer. Yes, marijuana is preventative of the spread of cancer, but it is not some sort of a miracle drug with no repercussions. That is ignorant, and immature to think, and it is a factor in why it isn't legal.
If that were true then as the use of marijuana has gone up and down over the years the rate of cancer in society would also have gone up and down. What we find however is NO correlation between marijuana use and cancer rates in society. Marijuana does not cause cancer even though it does contain know carcinogens. It was the correlation between tobacco use and cancer rates that alerted scientists to the fact that tobacco causes cancer. With marijuana no such correlation exists.
NORML begs to differ. Again, from NORML, stating that the current epidemiological studies on cannabis have been inconclusive: So, if you're an activist, you must trust NORML? The majority of the epidemiological studies on cannabis that have stated cannabis consumption is generally cancer-free have used vaporization, not smoking. Edit: Sauce: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6891 Again, I'm not against cannabis at all. Just trying to get things straight. There's no sense in vehemently using something as an argument topic without any true research being done, so the whole cannabis and cancer argument is (or should be) completely moot in the legalization discussion as of this moment. ~Tilex Edit2: To clarify my stance: I'm not saying it does cause cancer, but I'm telling you to not be too quick to say it doesn't or can't cause cancer, because there are no facts backing this as of yet. ~Tilex
This is funny shit. First Webmd had an article saying weed has not been linked to cancer, and now, they are saying it is Marijuana Smoke Linked to Cancer Im sorry but something is fucked up here
Thank you for the feedback. I'd like to add a 2005 nih.gov (PubMed) epidemiological study/review of cannabis use (I will bold that parts I'm trying to get across): Edit: Forgot my sauce. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16054989?dopt=Abstract ~Tilex
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that snippet from NORML say cannabis combined WITH tobacco...? I don't see anything about cannabis only smokers? That said, burning anything can have adverse effects on the lungs, but there have been people who smoke cigarettes for their whole life and never get cancer, and then there's people who never smoke a cigarette and they do get cancer. I think the positive effects GREATLY outweigh the negative effects, being only slight lung damage, slight memory loss, and loss of motivation (in some people) I agree with you on some parts, not so much on others..
The study was done with the majority of users combining cannabis and tobacco, but not all. The result was an increase particularly with tobacco and cannabis, though cannabis only proved inconclusive as only 11% of the subjects fell into this category. My stance on the subject is that smoking anything can result in cancer, but I'm not trying to shoot folk down here. All I want to get across is that we are presenting the wrong points in our legalization argument, because the cancer study is inconclusive. Perhaps presenting studies to our government, or even just actual facts (which I suppose would draw back to studies) would be a better way of going about things. Check out my pros and cons disambiguation thread. I want to catalog the real, proven, accepted benefits of marijuana so that people that consider themselves activists really have facts to present, rather than blindly arguing with people about why/how it should be legalized. Edit: I agree, the pros do outweigh the cons, but as I said, we are presenting the wrong pros (the ones that aren't fully proven yet) to the anti-weed activists. We need to present facts that actually have backing. ~Tilex
Cannabis is now one of the most researched substances on the planet, if its link to cancer is "inconclusive" it's because it doesn't exist. I respect the point you're making but after tons of research there still is no evidence that cannabis causes any form of cancer at all. However, I rarely mention the safety aspects of cannabis anyway. My point is that after seventy years of prohibition it's blatantly obvious by now that the prohibition does not prevent cannabis use. Cannabis has been widely used through the entire seventy years of the prohibition and it always will be. Our country has to accept this and implement policies that'll take as much of the harms out of the production, sale and use of cannabis as possible. According to NIDA 6,000 people use cannabis for the first time every single day! We will ALWAYS have cannabis users in our society and because of this the presence of the prohibition serves not to protect us from some theoretical harm that might be contained in cannabis but instead to divert $8 - 10 BILLION a year to the Mexican drug cartels. According to the ONDCP two-thirds of the cartel's incomes come from selling cannabis in the U.S. Because of this massive and unrelenting cash flow the cartels have amassed more than half a million men and murder more than 6,000 people every year. Many of their victims are children, police officers and politicians. So it doesn't matter to me if cannabis were the most deadly substance on the planet, because we can't stop people from using it our ONLY option to end the needless deaths of so many innocent people is to legalize its production and sale to adults, thus allowing us to undercut cartel prices and eliminate two-thirds of their incomes. Legalize - Save Lives.
I'm sorry, although I agree with your intentions I think a bit of disillusionment has taken place. It's like asking "why daddy doesn't like me" and developing a deep psychological resentment for yourself when your dad left because he hated mommy. "Big brother" doesn't take "us" seriously because they're not suppose to and have no reason to when they can benefit from not taking "us" seriously. First, by defining "us" you're creating a group of people that may not like being grouped into "us." We don't all think alike (go to none-weed related subforums for evidence) and all have different views on why stuff is illegal and how people should behave. It is a travesty to smoke something like marijuana, which a lot of people use to be as subjective as possible, and objectify the users in one category. Second, what your argument seems to be is a diplomatic acting fest. Instead of fighting for legality because the government's arguments rests on racism, fear-mongering, and social indoctrination, your arguments rely on false assumptions to give the government the benefit of the doubt. It's like saying "Yes, the government messed up, but they didn't have the scientific advancement we have now. So all is forgiven." The illegality didn't rest on scientific findings in the first place! Look up commentary by Anslinger, Nixon, Reagan. All those fuckers were racist and anti-semitic as hell and I'm not bowing down to congress in order to pay respect to those assholes. I know plenty of smokers who are healthy and extremely motivated (personally, when I'm high I clean a lot and cook). Weed is illegal because the power that be can make it so. Not because "us" no longer bow down and say "yea masta" or "no masta."