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War on Drugs

Started by Intercourseman72, September 23, 2010, 03:50:33 AM

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Thumpalumpacus

Quote from: "Tank"Why does tobacco smoke cause cancer and Marijuana smoke not cause cancer? This thought has always intrigued me. One can't buy filter tip splifs AFAIK so is Marijuana smoke inherently less dangerous than tobacco? Or is it that smoking 40 splifs a day is pretty much an impossibility? Is there a sort of dope feedback loop that stops the consumer smoking more dope?

I think the problem with tobacco is all the additives that make it burn long, and evenly, that make it more dangerous but Puddinghead is right.  One of the carcinogens from smoking is simple heat, which makes mistakes in DNA transcription more likely during mitosis.
Illegitimi non carborundum.

pinkocommie

I remember a recent study that came out that found that there was little proof that smoking marijuana can lead to lung cancer, even with heavy use.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729.html

QuoteThe largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer.

The new findings "were against our expectations," said Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years.

"We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect."

Federal health and drug enforcement officials have widely used Tashkin's previous work on marijuana to make the case that the drug is dangerous. Tashkin said that while he still believes marijuana is potentially harmful, its cancer-causing effects appear to be of less concern than previously thought.

Earlier work established that marijuana does contain cancer-causing chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco, he said. However, marijuana also contains the chemical THC, which he said may kill aging cells and keep them from becoming cancerous.

Tashkin's study, funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse, involved 1,200 people in Los Angeles who had lung, neck or head cancer and an additional 1,040 people without cancer matched by age, sex and neighborhood.

They were all asked about their lifetime use of marijuana, tobacco and alcohol. The heaviest marijuana smokers had lighted up more than 22,000 times, while moderately heavy usage was defined as smoking 11,000 to 22,000 marijuana cigarettes. Tashkin found that even the very heavy marijuana smokers showed no increased incidence of the three cancers studied.

I have no idea if this study has since been discredited or anything, but it would seem from this that cannabis contains a chemical, THC, which may help in disposing of aging cells which could be cancerous.  This would explain why smoking something - which we can all pretty safely assume is a bad thing to do - does not result in the usual negative side effects in this case.  Though smoking marijuana does still kill the cilia in your throat, which isn't optimal.
Ubi dubium ibi libertas: Where there is doubt, there is freedom.
http://alliedatheistalliance.blogspot.com/

Asmodean

If you're healthy, smoking stuff, no matter what that is, is probably bad for you. If not though, the benefits may outweigh the risks.

Just as long as it does not suport a bloody and cynical illegal industry and finance at least a dozen guerilla wars  :P
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

pinkocommie

Quote from: "Asmodean"Just as long as it does not suport a bloody and cynical illegal industry and finance at least a dozen guerilla wars  :P

Which is precisely why I feel that prohibition is generally a bad idea.  It's not the substances that support these things, it's the fact that the substances are illegal but are still in high demand.
Ubi dubium ibi libertas: Where there is doubt, there is freedom.
http://alliedatheistalliance.blogspot.com/

Tank

@ pinko well I'll be darned! How counter intuitive and interesting.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Intercourseman72

On the cannabis cancer thing, I really don't know much about it. In the documentary "Super High Me", they guy's lung capacity was down something like 7-8% after smoking, inhaling, etc for 30 days straight. Not sure if it was just the joints that caused it or if simply inhaling with a bong could have contributed, but nonetheless there was damage. For the sake of it, we'll just say smoking cannabis can cause cancer by default. That's still not strong enough reason to consider it even close to as dangerous as tobacco.

Smoking out of paper or pipes is not the only way to do get high off of. You can use a vaporizer and get rid of almost all the allegedly harmful stuff, eat it, etc and it won't be nearly as harmful as smoking it if smoking it actually does cause significant harm. Whereas with tobacco the cancer just moves where the tobacco is. If you go from cigarettes to skoal, you basically trade lung cancer for mouth cancer. I have never heard of anyone baking tobacco or vaporizing or anything like that, so...

Also, most of the products sold in california to patients are made so they can be used without smoking... because most of the patients are physically unable to smoke. The cancer thing even if true is not a strong argument to me at all. The vaporizers are sold for WAY less than the weed, likely because it's not illegal to make and sell them, and you can either accept the risks and keep smoking joints or you can get high some other way.

DropLogic

I've always found it ironic that caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco are legal drugs.  I agree that cannabis would be self-regulating since no human can smoke near as much of it as they do tobacco.  I also agree that the negatives are far outweighed by the positives.  The man can tax it, the man can save tax money on running jails for people who aren't criminals, less addiction among painkiller abusers and by proxy less tax money going into addiction recovery programs...etc etc.  The list goes on and on.

Ã¥scertain

Weed is God.
The war on drugs was implemented only beacuse govts feel like drugs are something they should control.
ou know its bad when bob the drug dealer has more money than his state gov.

Jats

this one goes here then...

"...I have read the arguments for and against, on many a thread, the antis and the pros falling into the same traps, the debate remaining in sea of confliction, experts on the subject appear without ever having succumbed to, and others who have succumbed too much, too often, then the google genius's appear, copy and pasting opposing propaganda, and the only cry that seems to make sense, is education, education, education. Yet that is flawed as our teenagers now play Russian roulette with their health, regardless of the new super strengths, for the education they really need, what they should see, before pulling the trigger, is mum and dads mental health reports then..."


Thumpalumpacus

Quote from: "Jats"this one goes here then...

"...I have read the arguments for and against, on many a thread, the antis and the pros falling into the same traps, the debate remaining in sea of confliction, experts on the subject appear without ever having succumbed to, and others who have succumbed too much, too often, then the google genius's appear, copy and pasting opposing propaganda, and the only cry that seems to make sense, is education, education, education. Yet that is flawed as our teenagers now play Russian roulette with their health, regardless of the new super strengths, for the education they really need, what they should see, before pulling the trigger, is mum and dads mental health reports then..."

tl/dr: "I'm the expert, the rest of you are trapped."
Illegitimi non carborundum.

Jats

"...ahh the old too long didn't read response, another little dig from thumper who's trying them all, one by one..." and then Jats waits for the next predictable "...nope not yet, but for sure he will be along shortly, if not this time but the next then, and as we go along then all you do is reveal your self to all here, tho not to me for I have seen it all before, as you are most recognisable by your fear, that shines with every word, so, keep not reading then for there will be many a post about you in Random Stuff for sure for those that do, which they always do..." and Jats goes back to watching the Pats then


karadan

Quote from: "The Magic Pudding"It would be nice to have the issues discussed reasonably.

You absolutely hit the nail on the head there. The knee-jerk reaction of the UK media about drugs makes it almost impossible to talk about reasonably without some salivating, daily mail reading blowhard trying to ruin the proceedings. It is strange how hysterical points of view take hold of ordinary people. Take my work colleague for instance. She's a nice person. She's intelligent and kind but through conversation once, i let on that i smoke weed on a regular basis. Her face dropped the same way a fundie would when finding out i'm atheist. After quizzing her for a while, all her objections were based upon the bullshit the media taught her to regurgitate which had no root in reality whatsoever. She wouldn't budge though.  :upset:

It has always puzzled me how contrary to reality these people's views are and how stoically they seem to hold onto them. Hmm, there's something familiar about that...
QuoteI find it mistifying that in this age of information, some people still deny the scientific history of our existence.

Tanker

Quote from: "Jats"Yet that is flawed as our teenagers now play Russian roulette with their health,

You seem to have made a great many asumptions through out your post but I would like clarification on this. Which teenagers are allowed to drink in America? Which teenagers under 18, leagaly adult age, are allowed to use nicotene products? Califonia is putting forth a bill to make weed legal for adults over 21. I have never heard of anyone ever saying we should make marijuana leagal for anyone other then adults, on this forum or anywhere else for that matter. So amoung the many assumptions you made in you statement how did you come to the conclusion that weed would be somehow legal or more available to teenagers then cigerettes or alcohol? Seems like irational fear mongering to me.
"I'd rather die the go to heaven" - William Murderface Murderface  Murderface-

I've been in fox holes, I'm still an atheist -Me-

God is a cake, and we all know what the cake is.

(my spelling, grammer, and punctuation suck, I know, but regardless of how much I read they haven't improved much since grade school. It's actually a bit of a family joke.

hismikeness

Quote from: "karadan"It has always puzzled me how contrary to reality these people's views are and how stoically they seem to hold onto them. Hmm, there's something familiar about that...

I believe I have written this on this board somewhere before (and if I haven't then ihateyoumike has, because he was there) but my grandfather is a Catholic priest. He returned to the seminary after my grandmother passed away in the late 80's. He was at my parent's house one holiday evening a while back and we were eating mom's pizza (sooooo good, wish I would have been stoned... it would have been a veritable orgy in my mouth) and I asked him a couple of "what does the Church think about x" type questions.

Generally, I consider him one of the most intelligent people I've ever encountered, but as he gets older, and as I get older, the perceived gap between he and I has narrowed significantly. And they say weed kills brain cells...

Anyway, I asked him what the Church's stance on weed was. He said that obviously it is frowned upon because of the mind altering capacity. What about alcohol, I asked? He had no response, he just took a hefty swig of his Guinness. What really got me was he started to halfway defend weed saying "I personally have nothing wrong with it" but said he never took it and would persuade anyone else to never take it because... get this... the chemicals can store in your spinal fluid and be released at random points. Oh Jesus, imagine if you were driving when that happened. Oh wait, it doesn't happen. No one has ever had a weed flashback. Add that to the list of things that have never happened, along with a weed OD.

I couldn't believe it... I wanted a weed flashback so bad at that point.
No churches have free wifi because they don't want to compete with an invisible force that works.

When the alien invasion does indeed happen, if everyone would just go out into the streets & inexpertly play the flute, they'll just go. -@UncleDynamite

Jats

Quote from: "Tanker"
Quote from: "Jats"Yet that is flawed as our teenagers now play Russian roulette with their health,

You seem to have made a great many asumptions through out your post but I would like clarification on this. Which teenagers are allowed to drink in America? Which teenagers under 18, leagaly adult age, are allowed to use nicotene products? Califonia is putting forth a bill to make weed legal for adults over 21. I have never heard of anyone ever saying we should make marijuana leagal for anyone other then adults, on this forum or anywhere else for that matter. So amoung the many assumptions you made in you statement how did you come to the conclusion that weed would be somehow legal or more available to teenagers then cigerettes or alcohol? Seems like irational fear mongering to me.

Jats scratches is head puzzled "...I made no such assumptions in my post, yet it seems you presume from it that I am anti drugs..." Jats has is first belly laugh of the day "...and legality has a different age around the nations, all of us knowing too that some are more adult than others and some never quite make it, there can also be no argument that whatever age is set that is the target to do it before then, whatever taboo you speak of, as I did, as many of you did, and many of ours will, for that is part of the thrill, so for someone to attack a post that screams 'education, education, education' with a retort of 'irrational fear mongering' is just proof of the only assumption I make on forum-land and that is people will read what they want to read then, despite what's actually written..." and Jats chuckles at Karadans post knowing exactly where he is coming from and scrunching up several pages of reclaimed said paper ready to start his fire later, where he will smile with immense satisfaction at his chosen use for them