Debate:is cannabis dangerous?

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Debate:is cannabis dangerous?

Ithink it's fairly dangerous, but I can't be sure

It is dangerous. Even news' reports say that it is dangerous. It is not clever to use it. There have been several cases of people dying as a result of overdosing and it should be phased out.

 

Does that mean that yours is safe?

 

The strange thing about people is their ability to totally ignore anything and everything they don’t want to believe and yet still be convinced that they have a fair and balanced opinion. You hear a hacking cough in the morning and you know it’s someone lighting their first cigarette of the day, sucking the poison from it deep into their lungs, as though it was going to cure their cough, only to trigger another bout of hacking. They will always deny that their cough has anything to do with smoking and, as with the thick, yellow-green, congealed pond slime like, catarrh they spit, it is caused by a lingering cold that will soon be gone. Smoking might be bad for some people but it isn’t for them - in fact they are a living testament, an undeniable proof, that for most people cigarettes are completely harmless and all the nonsense about smoke being harmful is from lily-livered, hypochondriacs, who are always looking for something to blame their latest imaginary illness on! Of course cannabis is completely different; okay it might make you cough, but like TV it is completely non-addictive and so it is much safer than that nasty alcohol that instantly turns everyone who touches it into a vicious, staggering, moron. The super skunk might make some people paranoid but then it is a smoke for men not for wimps… and let’s face it - you’ve got to have something to give your life that extra buzz!
It might be better to make such posts as this which are meant to encourage discussion to the General discussion forum... yes, I know that the system defaults to the Noticeboard forum ;O)
Cannabis is a pain killer and may take an abuser off his/her abuse. It is a sort of miracle cure for many things and a moderate consumption won't harm anyone.
IS CANNABIS DANGEROUS? is a Forum topic which attracts my attention. As an older fellow who has seen much of life, especially during my earlier 22 years of Social Services in many places in Ontario. First off, I am not speaking from personal experience on this topic, thus my information is seeing with my eyes the afflictions of all ages, those who were addicted to drugs of every description. One fellow who collected welfare payments could not work due to being unable to wear any socks or shoes due to swollen feet, as a side effect to the many injections he had to put between his toes. His body was ravaged with needle scars, and eventually he disappeared; some say for not paying his drug debts. It's sad to see and hear those who claim marijuana is such a non-drug compared to hard drugs. However, every single drug-addicted person I met said they began with that so called innocent toking. How to help them? Pray for them, because sadly it is a personal fight and when they win the major rounds, then encourage them greatly. Until then these pathetic folks will do as they rationally please. Another sad tale is about a young grandson, the favourite of his grandma, stabbed her to death several years ago in this area because she would not give him money to get a fix. Now he's in jail for 20 years. What a waste of two human beings. My wife, Esther and I, invite you to visit our Website: www.wsprog.com/rp/ and our Blog: Provencher Paths. (7 FREE DOWNLOADS)
Richard L. Provencher
Hmmm... I've long been a believer in the positive uses of marijuana. It's effective as a pain-killer and for other medicinal purposes. Also, it often allows a writer or artist to get a different perspective to create quality art. But, yes, as a recent study showing it can cause psychosis shows, it is dangerous. A lot of good things are in some way.
"If I send you post-cards from the side of the road: photographs of movies, and hearts about to implode"  -  Elliott Smith
There are two sides to the story: positives and negatives. Things are rarely black and white. But I sure don't see a lot of comments here(from both sides) as being constructive or rational.
"If I send you post-cards from the side of the road: photographs of movies, and hearts about to implode"  -  Elliott Smith
I’m not taking the subject too seriously as you might have gathered - but heroin and cocaine have medicinal uses as well as cannabis but that doesn’t mean they are not dangerous or people should have unrestricted access to them. Surely cannabis is even more carcinogenic than tobacco and don’t most people mix tobacco with the cannabis anyway? Peaceful, I don’t get your point ... I don’t know about Jefferson and Washington but surely Huxley and Leary were interested in the more potent psychedelics but perhaps you’re arguing that cannabis leads to them… If you are suggesting that reading these people can educate those who wish to better understand the effects then you have to take into account that drugs have varying different effects depending on who takes them and under what circumstances… Even imbibing alcohol has various different effects which depend a lot on what the drinker expects and the circumstances and social setting in which it is imbibed - it can be used both as a stimulant and a sedative. The old, ’in my experience’, statistic that is quoted to suggest that most people who use ‘hard’ drugs started out on Cannabis is misleading as all drug users started out on milk but no-one is suggesting that milk leads to drug abuse ;O)
Most abuse is an illness but may also be socially determined. I believe that if you suffer abuse as an illness or are socially determined it doesn't make any difference whether or not you start out with cannabis, you'll be in it anyway. No we are not poor pathetic folks but it does take an excrugiating amount of will power to get out of your abuse. I believe that of all stimulants, including alcohol, Cannabis is the least harmful and actually can enrich ones life in a harmless sense. It is NOT addictive as many may believe. I don't touch it myself anymore as I have a tendecy to develop psychoses so it is quite natural not to smoke it. A lesson I have learned over the years. I belive that drug dealers influence the demand and supply and the fact that alcohol is a legal stimulant and I suppose cigarettes as well is something governments ought to take more seriously. In Norway a pack of cigarettes cost £10 and alcohol is very expensive but then daily essentials are pretty expensive there as well. Like Blighters points out there are a few other things that count as abuse as well. So where are we going? Or what kind of society are we aiming at? As perfect as possible and what is happening then? People are being counted out of the perfect society and chances of being a member are pretty slim.
Hi blighters, I’m not taking the topic too seriously because it is “Is Cannabis Dangerous?” If the question being asked was “Should people take drugs?” then I might be tempted to approach the subject more seriously. I know pretty much where you're coming from and I know you mean to help but logic rarely helps tip the scales of the heart and drugs are about feelings not facts. A friend of mine asked a famous guru if it was okay to use Cannabis and the reply was “If it does you good.” Now I think that is a great answer because there is no point in trying to tell people who smoke that smoking ‘pot’ is bad for them if they don’t want to hear that. If you push too hard people invariably respond by moving in the opposite direction or simply get angry with you. In the end it is their life and their choice and they have as much right to make mistakes as you did - did you listen? :O) At least with the “If it does you good” approach it might leave a lingering doubt that eventually forces the user to sincerely question whether it does actually do them good or if it is simply that they can no longer be happy without it. To quit any bad habit the first step is to admit to yourself that it is a bad habit. I wasn’t equating milk with cannabis merely pointing out how misleading unsupported statistics can be since of course everyone starts out on milk… so it applies to all and every classification of people. As for alcohol, I’m sure that it has several redeeming points but I can only think of ones which don’t include drinking it ;O) I remember a spoof sign I saw in a pub advertising an alcoholic beverage that claimed the drink had been helping ugly people have sex for over a century - many a true word written in jest ;O) http://www.snopes.com/horrors/drugs/deadbaby.asp
Interesting topic, didnt ha\/e time to read all the posts, I'll keep mine short, “Herb is the healing of a nation, alcohol is the destruction.” -Bob Marley Yes, I smoke cannabis, I really lo\/e Amsterdam, I disagree with the sex trade but think being open about smoking Ganja is the best way forward. The only reason it creates psychosis is because of its intro\/erting effects, when people look inside they see the horrors of the world, when its to much to handle, we call it a psychosis. Alcohol is the mask o\/er the face of society. Get drunk and forget your problems, or get high and analyse them. Each to their own.

Until we feel our thoughts our thinking remains unfelt

I like your comment WillSimpson. I agree with you totally. I get psychoses so I don't smoke anymore but it wasn't because of the smoke that they started . It was way before I ever started smoking.
They only thing I can say from my own experiences living in different countries is that when I was a secondary school student in Holland (I'm Dutch) lots of kids bunked school to smoke up, which is stupid and unfortunate, but when I lived in a more strict, anti cannabis setting in both Spain and Qatar in the Middle East I saw peers starting to be sexually active at the age of 10, snort cocaine in the common room loos and spend their afternoons getting high from lighter fluid (a classmate died due to a collapsed lung). I was a bit of a nerd growing up but I felt a lot safer and a lot less pressure living in Holland where the rules are more relaxed than I did anywhere else.

 

You're spot on FTSE! 'A History Of 60's Drug Culture' says : 'In the late sixties the taking of illegal drugs really ‘took off’ as the youth of the time began to realise that you couldn’t always believe what experts and government spin doctors told you and began to experiment to find out for themselves.' At that time the best cannabis was Pakki Black (obviously because it came from Pakistan) and Nepalese ’temple balls’ both of which ’nailed you to the floor’ for several hours. I suspect they had an opium component. People who smoked this were called ’shit heads’ :O) LSD was very popular once it made the transition from blotting paper to tablet form and since it was a form of lysergic acid users were called ‘acid heads’ Probably the most dangerous drug users were those on beef sausages (occasionally pork) who were called ‘banger heads’ and later ‘head bangers’ and they would frequent pop concerts dancing wildly and nutting each other while the shit heads were either nailed to the floor or saying “Wow man, those guys are really heavy!” and the acid heads were freaking out screaming “Pass the vallium… I‘m having a bad trip man!” :O) N.B. The above is not meant to be taken too seriousy and readers should not worry if they only eat the occasional sausage.
I'd agree that cannabis is usually the first rung, on the ladder, but I’d argue that it is similar to drinking alcohol in that people usually start on beer because it the widely accepted starting point (although Alco-pops has possibly challenged that recently). I'd argue that banning beer would not significantly effect spirit sales, in fact, I suspect it would have the opposite effect, that in the absence of beer more people would drink spirits or spirit based drinks like Alco-pops. There are a great many people for whom drinking alcohol is not something they would choose to do but who need a little something to brighten their lives and I would argue that, sooner or later, if cannabis was not available they would simply move up the ladder and you would have more people on hard drugs not less! :O)
and I speak from experience, I was once a hurting drug addicted carnivore with a particular taste for processed meat products...now I am a still hurting, recovering drug addict enjoying a diet of lentil and chickpea stews. Life has never been better! :) :) :)

 

The only genuinely clear, in my awareness, link between a chemical and its human consequences is that of leaded petrol and its clear relationship to high levels of criminality. Ban the lead and, twenty years later, kids experience a radical decrease in their capacity to commit crime. It's statistically proven - read 'Freakonomics'. The link, with a twenty-year gap, is awesone. Now, where is the relationship statistically between smoking and death, passive smoking and death? I'm still searching for it. How many smokers kill others when driving? Okay, alcohol does lead to death for others, generally, on the roads. But then, can't one just drink at home? In short, the govts ban lead and give a great alternative - unleaded petrol. They don't ban nicotine nor alcohol - why? - because the evidence is mixed -I stand to be corrected - and because the tax revenues are brilliant. Where they are really sure they just push an alternative - figure. Nudge politics is about maximising revenues from a sad and captured population. Politics is about beliefs based on some form of real evidence. Don't know anything about cannabis.

 

He also serves who only sits and waits. Shorry, I'm pished.

 

well ii read about medicine a lot and soldiers from wars who got post traumatic stress are allowed cannabis in a lot of countries- that makes me think ther is the mental detatchment part, it affects brain of people who have loads at once by being stoned and they are no help all day like asleep and silly, if people had a bit for medicine I think they would be ok. If it was legal only for prescription it could be just cannabis no drugs mixed in and no violent crimes for the money. I dont know how is there a way people can use it as mdicine without smoking tobacco?

"I will make sense with a few reads \^^/ "

Prettypolly-people die of nictonine poisoning as well- they actually get cancer from nicotine and the other additives there are in cigarettes. You can die of an overdosis of fat as well- you can die of an overdosis of anything I'm sure. B ut if you're going for the overdose then you have nicked yourself haven't you?
Cannabis DOES cause psychosis. As a middle-aged Chartered Accountant (I establish my credentials as a boring person) I tried cannabis on a stag weekend in Amsterdam. When I got back I had to call the doctor in the middle of the night due to morbid thoughts of stabbing the kids. It was truly awful. You do what you want but I'll never touch it again. Shy

 

Yes it IS a very common drug and not as harmful as all the white stuff and pills you are offered. Medical marihjuana is legal. But you have to be a bit careful with Cannabis- not too much methinks.
hmm... I'm in terrible pain from arsenic poisoning(which I got in Thailand because of how "safe" gold is extracted there for the wealthy of the world.) I smoke pot every single day and it's not because I really like being stoned usually... it's because the only other choice would be to commit suicide to end the agony, or to go even deeper into using opioid pain medicine. I don't think anybody on this thread has mentioned that cannabis is one of the most effective medicines for horrible diseases like cancer and h.i.v.... not only for pain relief, but to get the body out of shock and taking in nutrition. Before I was ill, I smoked a lot of pot anyway, but only tried hard drugs say a few times. I also drank abusively... though not to the point of insanity. Meanwhile, I was generally a decent human being with a rich intellectual and artistic life(still am.) Drug and alcohol abuse don't invariably drag people into a nihilistic gutter... and I'd describe the lives of many sober, affluent people as the true nihilistic gutters. as for carcinogens, marijuana can easily be vaporized(as I do,) and few people smoke so much marijuana that the smoke is the threat(the risk of psychosis, jail, or persecution is more considerable.) Like I implied earlier, of course marijuana is dangerous: so is fire, religion, propaganda, deceit, gold, greed, anger, and plastic bags. Even if I hadn't gotten ill, I MIGHT have fallen into hard drug addiction and marijuana certainly would have been the "gateway." But that would have been largely the cause of mistakes by myself and society... demonizing even "hard drugs," let alone this most moderate plant, ignores the ugly, ugly societal problems and resulting profound emptiness that causes some people to abuse drugs. That said, the most important use of marijuana is as a medicine and there are people suffering terribly from cancer, etc., who need that medicine(there isn't any safe, legal equivalent.) There never is. That's reality: fire, danger, complex difficult decisions.
"If I send you post-cards from the side of the road: photographs of movies, and hearts about to implode"  -  Elliott Smith
not every pain medicine works well for every person's condition... so your experience in that regard doesn't somehow invalidate marijuana as a pain medicine(there are hard-fought studies validating it.)
"If I send you post-cards from the side of the road: photographs of movies, and hearts about to implode"  -  Elliott Smith
I don’t think that cannabis users should need to argue that it is beneficial, whether it is or not. Nobody argues that alcohol is legal because it is good for you, or even that it doesn’t have horrific side effects like turning perfectly reasonable people into mindless thugs or amoral hedonists. Mind you, I don’t know what the ratio of chronic paranoia to delirium tremens is but I suspect that Skunk has dramatically increased the occurrence of the former. Is cannabis dangerous? Of course it is - but is that really the important question? Is cannabis any more dangerous than alcohol? I’d say it was probably a lot less dangerous… but as Sean points out, a lot depends on the person and what’s ‘good’ for one can be very bad for another! Perhaps the days of 'name your poison' are just around the corner but if so its worth remembering that however you might delude yourself drugs like cigarettes, alcohol and cannabis are not good for you but if you can’t live without one drug or another you should at least try to find the one that is least harmful to YOU.
I always thought Pot made one stupid. It sure seems that way to me. they think they're bright, especially because they have long complicated thoughts about various subjects, but it still makes them dumb. but hey, if you like that, then keep smoking. that leaves more of a good life for me.

Nicholas Schoonbeck

Personally I get a bit uptight and factually psychotic if I get stoned due to a sensitive mind. I had to give it up but then I mixed it with alcholol and that is not good cocktail. I used to love getting stoned and as I remember it was a better high than booze and no side effects like hangovers or withdrawal symptoms. The best thing is that you don't get dependant on cannabis but I would say that anything that isn't the raw weed is dangerous and too strong a hallucogenic- like skunk-I don't even like hash although some say it is the same as cannabis- I don't think so- nothing like a nice, freshly rolled cannabis joint, preferably home-grown. I have been considering using marihjuana medication as a pain killer but I doubt whether my doctor will prescribe it, knowing how I have been psychotic in the past. Some people can't use it due to sensitive mental state, caused by childhood traumas. I guess I am one.
Any plant -even vegetables could be harmful in the same way, apparantly eating bananas affects the good mood in your brain and ofcourse chocolate does and we know how that can be bad for some people and dark chocolate can be vital medicine for others. So if you avoid drugs maybe you should avoid all plants!

"I will make sense with a few reads \^^/ "

it068 Hey, this forum is still alive and well! I suppose this just goes to show how important this question is.

it068

I haven't changed my mind as to whether I think cannabis is dangerous which I don't think it is but if you have a tendency to psychosis it may spark this condition- a hash psychosis is commonly known but I am wondering whether it isn't a good thing to get the illness into the open. Then you stop smoking it of course so as not to bring on other psychoses but it just means you have something that needs attention. But you don't know whether you get a psychosis before you have tried. Most people don't get hash psychoses so I'd still say it's not dangerous. A moderate intake!It is still a mind expanding drug. It is a lot less dangerous than alchohol, ecstasy,speed etc just a humble, fumbling opinion. ;)
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