Declassing Cannabis from a drug ?

Discussion in 'Chemistry' started by Mark Turner, Jul 19, 2019.

  1. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    I said: impaired abilty to drive, etc.
     
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  3. Mark Turner Banned Banned

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    P
    The effect of alcohol is more severe than Cannabis will ever be , mentally and physically . I understand your concerns about Cannabis but in reality there is as many Cannabis users as alcohol users this day and age. Cannabis is a neurological stimulant that users in general , retain their awareness while using , a preferred relaxant for many people with no hangover .
    Additionally whilst using Cannabis , users generally can't be bothered to argue or fight .
    It is becoming worldly accepted now and it is also an economy boost .
     
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  5. Mark Turner Banned Banned

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    I'd agree it may impair the ability to drive or operate dangerous machinery but as for physical health danger , I'd struggle to find a complaint .
     
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  7. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Like I said, Alcohol has been with us for eons, and is a social necessity in this day and age. Cannaibis or any other illicit drug should never be added to any legit list. Worldly accepted? I don't think so.
     
  8. Mark Turner Banned Banned

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    You mean a fake legit list don't you that keeps the fat cats , fat ?
     
  9. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    Well, it took me several seconds to find https://www.canada.ca/en/health-can...dication/cannabis/health-effects/effects.html
     
  10. Mark Turner Banned Banned

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    I would not disagree with the smoking side as often it is smoked with tobacco . However , most of the other points are most certainly arguable . We'd have to evaluate each complaint in detail .

    Starting with

    1.Confusion

    People smoke Cannabis to become a bit confused , its called being stoned . The confusion is mild of most users although it may not agree with everyone's chemistry and they become slightly more stoned .
    However the opposite is also true , if one concentrates why using , they can have a deep focus and be smarter because of their attention to detail .

    Every action has an opposite and equal reaction .
     
  11. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    You said you'd struggle to find a complaint. I didn't have to struggle. I found complaints quite easily.

    And I didn't even mention the long-term effects:

    or the effects during pregnancy or breastfeeding:

    No shortage of health problems that I can see.

    To be clear, I don't think the use of cannabis should be a criminal offense. But it is a drug and it does have potentially harmful effects.
     
  12. Mark Turner Banned Banned

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    Like any product there is risk factors to consider , always in an objective unbiased manner .
    Cannabis most certainly shouldn't be associated with a criminal offense because in real truthful law an act of crime has to have a victim . Statute law is based on personal whim although there is some lawful statutes .
    A pregnant women should know not to use anything and in general we have legal products that are far more destructive than cannabis .
    As a society it is good to deem some things bad such as the sort of lethal poisons like Heroine .
    There is lots of myths about Cannabis such as your list that are untrue in some respects .

    Most of your list can occur naturally in people who don't use which makes the list biased and selective..
     
  13. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    http://marijuana-uses.com/mr-x/

    " Mr. X
    This account was written in 1969 for publication in Marihuana Reconsidered (1971).

    It all began about ten years ago. I had reached a considerably more relaxed period in my life – a time when I had come to feel that there was more to living than science, a time of awakening of my social consciousness and amiability, a time when I was open to new experiences. I had become friendly with a group of people who occasionally smoked cannabis, irregularly, but with evident pleasure. Initially I was unwilling to partake, but the apparent euphoria that cannabis produced and the fact that there was no physiological addiction to the plant eventually persuaded me to try. My initial experiences were entirely disappointing; there was no effect at all, and I began to entertain a variety of hypotheses about cannabis being a placebo which worked by expectation and hyperventilation rather than by chemistry. After about five or six unsuccessful attempts, however, it happened. I was lying on my back in a friend’s living room idly examining the pattern of shadows on the ceiling cast by a potted plant (not cannabis!). I suddenly realized that I was examining an intricately detailed miniature Volkswagen, distinctly outlined by the shadows. I was very skeptical at this perception, and tried to find inconsistencies between Volkswagens and what I viewed on the ceiling. But it was all there, down to hubcaps, license plate, chrome, and even the small handle used for opening the trunk. When I closed my eyes, I was stunned to find that there was a movie going on the inside of my eyelids. Flash . . . a simple country scene with red farmhouse, a blue sky, white clouds, yellow path meandering over green hills to the horizon. . . Flash . . . same scene, orange house, brown sky, red clouds, yellow path, violet fields . . . Flash . . . Flash . . . Flash. The flashes came about once a heartbeat. Each flash brought the same simple scene into view, but each time with a different set of colors . . . exquisitely deep hues, and astonishingly harmonious in their juxtaposition. Since then I have smoked occasionally and enjoyed it thoroughly. It amplifies torpid sensibilities and produces what to me are even more interesting effects, as I will explain shortly.

    I can remember another early visual experience with cannabis, in which I viewed a candle flame and discovered in the heart of the flame, standing with magnificent indifference, the black-hatted and -cloaked Spanish gentleman who appears on the label of the Sandeman sherry bottle. Looking at fires when high, by the way, especially through one of those prism kaleidoscopes which image their surroundings, is an extraordinarily moving and beautiful experience.

    I want to explain that at no time did I think these things ‘really’ were out there. I knew there was no Volkswagen on the ceiling and there was no Sandeman salamander man in the flame. I don’t feel any contradiction in these experiences. There’s a part of me making, creating the perceptions which in everyday life would be bizarre; there’s another part of me which is a kind of observer. About half of the pleasure comes from the observer-part appreciating the work of the creator-part. I smile, or sometimes even laugh out loud at the pictures on the insides of my eyelids. In this sense, I suppose cannabis is psychotomimetic, but I find none of the panic or terror that accompanies some psychoses. Possibly this is because I know it’s my own trip, and that I can come down rapidly any time I want to. "
    http://marijuana-uses.com/mr-x/

    NOTE : There is much more at the Link : http://marijuana-uses.com/mr-x/ , and anyone reading this really should 'click through' to the Link.
    Some may be surprised(or not!!) by what is disclosed at the Link...
     
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  14. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Between 1957 and 1962, thalidomide was sold in 46 countries under 65 different brand names, aggressively marketed by Chemie Gruenethal, the German pharmaceutical company who developed it.
     
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  15. Mark Turner Banned Banned

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    It is quite a strange world at times , one has to wonder what is going on inside some peoples minds sometimes.

    Cannabis is a semi placebo , what this means is that if you worry about it while using , you'd cause yourself anxiety which a person mistakes as being ill , from off the Cannabis , when it is their own worry causing them to feel ill.
    Cannabis does have a mild effect so it is definitely not just a placebo .
     
  16. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    No, there is evidence that all of those effects are adversely affected by cannabis use.

    All I'm saying is that your claim of cannabis being harmless is nonsense.
     
  17. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    a possible rebuttal to " The long-term effects of cannabis on your brain " from the Link you provided, I found this :

    https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320895.php?iacp
    " Alcohol 'more damaging to brain health than marijuana'
    Published Monday 12 February 2018
    By Honor Whiteman
    Fact checked by Jasmin Collier
    With marijuana legalization on the rise, an increasing number of studies are exploring the drug's potential harms and benefits. However, a new study suggests that when it comes to brain health, alcohol is more damaging.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    Researchers say that alcohol causes more damage to the brain than marijuana does.
    Scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder conducted a review of existing imaging data that looked at the effects of alcohol and marijuana, or cannabis, on the brain.

    Their findings linked alcohol consumption with long-term changes to the structure of white matter and gray matter in the brain.

    The use of marijuana, however, seemed to have no significant long-term effects on brain structure.

    Study leader Rachel Thayer, of the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder, and colleagues recently reported their results* in the journal Addiction. *

    Marijuana vs. alcohol: Which is worse?
    For this latest study, Thayer and colleagues sought to learn more about how marijuana use affects the brain.

    Study co-author Kent Hutchison, also of the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, notes that to date, studies that have investigated this association have produced mixed results.

    "When you look at these studies going back years," he explains, "you see that one study will report that marijuana use is related to a reduction in the volume of the hippocampus. The next study then comes around, and they say that marijuana use is related to changes in the cerebellum [...]."

    "The point is that there's no consistency across all of these studies in terms of the actual brain structures."

    With the aim of closing the gap on this inconsistency, the researchers conducted a new analysis on existing brain imaging data. They looked at how marijuana use affects white matter and gray matter in the brain, and how its effects compare with another "drug" that we have become so accustomed to: alcohol.

    Gray matter is the tissue on the brain's surface that primarily consists of nerve cell bodies. White matter is the deeper brain tissue that contains myelinated nerve fibers, which are branches protruding from nerve cells that transmit electrical impulses to other cells and tissues.

    The team notes that any reduction in the size of white or gray matter or a loss in their integrity can lead to impairments in brain functioning.

    "With alcohol, we've known it's bad for the brain for decades," notes Hutchison. "But for cannabis, we know so little."

    Marijuana use had no impact
    The study included the brain images of 853 adults who were aged between 18 and 55 years and 439 teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18. All participants varied in their use of alcohol and marijuana.

    The researchers found that alcohol use — particularly in adults who had been drinking for many years — was associated with a reduction in gray matter volume, as well as a reduction in the integrity of white matter.

    Marijuana use, however, appeared to have no impact on the structure of gray or white matter in either teenagers or adults.

    Based on these findings, the researchers believe that drinking alcohol is likely to be much more harmful to brain health than using marijuana.

    "[...] while marijuana may also have some negative consequences, it definitely is nowhere near the negative consequences of alcohol." - Kent Hutchison

    When it comes to the possible benefits of marijuana use, however, Thayer and her team note that the jury is still out, and further research is needed to reach some conclusions. "
    https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320895.php?iacp

    results* in the journal Addiction. * : https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/add.13923
    " Abstract
    Background and Aims
    Chronic alcohol use is associated with lower gray matter volume, and we reported recently that alcohol use showed negative associations with widespread gray matter (GM) volume even among young adults. The current study aimed to test the strength of association between (1) alcohol use and GM volume; (2) alcohol use and white matter (WM) integrity; (3) cannabis use and GM volume; and (4) cannabis use and WM integrity among adults and adolescents.

    Design and Setting
    General linear models within large pooled cross‐sectional samples of adolescents and adults who had participated in studies collecting substance use and neuroimaging data in the southwestern United States.

    Participants
    The current analysis included adults aged 18–55 years (n = 853) and adolescents aged 14–18 years (n = 439) with a range of alcohol and cannabis use.

    Measurements
    The dependent variable was GM volume or WM integrity, with key predictors of alcohol use [Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) score] and cannabis use (past 30‐day use).

    Findings
    Alcohol use showed large clusters of negative associations (ηp2 = 0.028–0.145, P < 0.001) with GM volume among adults and to a lesser extent (one cluster; ηp2 = 0.070, P < 0.05) among adolescents. Large clusters showed significant associations (ηp2 = 0.050–0.124, P < 0.001) of higher alcohol use with poorer WM integrity, whereas adolescents showed no significant associations between alcohol use and WM. No associations were observed between structural measures and past 30‐day cannabis use in adults or adolescents.

    Conclusions
    Alcohol use severity is associated with widespread lower gray matter volume and white matter integrity in adults, and with lower gray matter volume in adolescents. " https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/add.13923
     
    Last edited: Jul 22, 2019
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  18. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    There's no question that there are "worse" drugs than cannabis. That doesn't change the fact that cannabis is a drug and it does have bad effects.
     
  19. Mark Turner Banned Banned

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    What do you call evidence ?

    Your entire provided list is selective to interpretation . All of those complaints can happen to anybody at any time regardless whether they do drugs or not .
    You say adversely effects , this is also not true as once users sober up there is no after effect . I think your list is confused as most of your list is also why people get stoned , the list describing a stoned experience .

    The main harms of street grade Cannabis are the nutrients when un-flushed and people lacing their feeds . This of course being harmful .
     
    Last edited: Jul 22, 2019
  20. Mark Turner Banned Banned

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    Effects are not harms , the effect is also mild for the majority of users .
     
  21. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    You can't disagree. Pot is a drug. It's just that not all drugs are harmful. A neurological stimulant is also a drug. Alcohol is a drug. I agree with law reform.
     
  22. Mark Turner Banned Banned

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    In what way do you agree with law reform ?
     
  23. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    The link I gave links to several studies.
    I think you're confused.
     
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