Should cannabis be legal

[Andy78]

hmm, well, To be honest, I hate the fact that people believe that, if a doctor can prescribe you something, then it's fine. ffs! I seem to remember going to a doctor a few years ago, when i was very depressed, and was prescribed anti-depressants, which i took, because i had faith that my GP knew what she was doing. Spent a year being out of my mind, and quite frankly the worst year of my life on these legal drugs. I brought myself off them (against my GPs will), and have since had a much happier existence.

I have in the past taken illegal drugs, not to any great extent, but from time to time. And have never suffered any negative drawbacks. i haven't killed anyone, haven't lost any friends, haven't been addmitted to hospital, etc...

Please don't waffle on about filling our boddies with poisons, when we all do it. Ie. coffee, asprin, painkillers, anti-depressants, beer, hay fever remedies. Every drug has it's side effects. from experience, i've had a GP put me in a really bad state, and that lost my faith in professional medical knowledge.

Even if drugs were legalised (as metioned before) it doesn't mean that everyone in the country will be battered 24/7. most people know their limits, those that don't will find ways to harm themselves with drugs, whether they're legal or not. ie. the fact that certain drugs are illegal, doesn't make less people take them. If people want to take them, they will find them. fact!

 

sorry, but i'm currently intoxicated with beer, hence the above waffle. also apologise for any really bad spelling

anyway, just an opinion.

[max]

Anybody get tonight's Star (22/01/04)? On the front page in the article about police using sniffer dogs on school buses it read:

 

The swoops are part of a campaign to warn young people that the reclassification of cannabis does make it legal to smoke the drug.

 

Go to their website and it reads:

 

The swoops are part of a campaign to warn young people that the reclassification of cannabis does not make it legal to smoke the drug.

 

I know which version I prefer.

[tango2]

I wonder how many people rushed out to get hammered after reading it ?,,,lol

[Tony]

I prefer the version that doesn't lead to paranoid schizophrenia.

[Chris_Sleeps]

I agree, alcohol is a much better drug. Anti-social behaviour, violence, increased cases of domestic violence, not to mention liver damage. Isn't the law a wonderful thing?

 

Chris.

[t020]

Originally posted by Chris_Sleeps

I agree, alcohol is a much better drug. Anti-social behaviour, violence, increased cases of domestic violence, not to mention liver damage. Isn't the law a wonderful thing?

 

Chris.

 

What about the case of the first man that died directly by cannabis abuse? He smoked an average of 6 spliffs a day over 11 years - a lot less than heavier smokers smoke. Cannabis abuse is dangerous and can cause the same health problems as cigarettes do, only it may also cause other effects such as paranoid schizophrenia. On the one hand though, cigarettes are being banned from public places and there is even talk of making them illegal from some medical journals, yet on the other, cannabis is being virtually decriminalised. YES, cigarettes and alcohol cause problems, but they are currently legal and making them illegal would cause outcry. However, cannabis is currently illegal, so why add to the problems caused by cigarettes and alcohol? Leave it illegal and let only law breakers take it (they'll probably learn their lesson in 11 years time anyway....).

[fnkysknky]

To be honest t020 it's highly unlikely that was the cause of death. It's virtually impossible to take enough to kill you:

 

The low toxicity of THECA is best indicated by its widespread use with very few reports of anything even approaching an overdose. Occasionally, people may get too "high" for their psychic comfort, but their bodies continue to function fairly normally. The dosage sufficient to kill half of the organisms tested (LD50) for orally ingested THECA is approximately 1 g/kg of body weight. Simply interpreted, this means an average sized human would have to consume 50-100 g of pure THECA to reach the LD50 level. Since high-potency Cannabis contains approximately 10% THECA, a person would have to eat at least 500-1,000 g of this marijuana before having a 50% chance of death. A 1 g marijuana cigarette of 10% THECA Cannabis contains 100 mg of THECA and is usually shared among several smokers. Clinically effective oral doses for the relief of nausea start at 5-10 mg. This means that, even accounting for pyrolytic decomposition and smoke loss, there is a several-thousandfold difference between an effective dose of THECA and a potentially lethal one! For alcohol, this difference is only about twenty fold. Other common non-prescription drugs, such as aspirin, have similar relatively narrow margins of safe use. Research into the actions of the natural cannabinoids led to the creation of many artificial ones based on variations of their basic molecular structure. However, none of these artificial compounds are currently approved for medical use in the US

 

Taken from http://www.artistictreasure.com/medicalmary.html

 

Even if it did kill him, it would be the first ever recorded death...

[t020]

Still doesn't change the fact that, already having health and social problems caused by legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco, why there is such an urge to add to the problems by legalising cannabis. More people would use cannabis if it were legalised, so as a result, the same kind of health problems associated with tobacco would become even more prevalent. This contradicts drectly with the government policy on tobacco smoking. It is fair to say that there are definitely mixed messages from many directions. Smokers are often portrayed as the scum of the earth and the cause of all of the problems in life (well, not forgetting the other big criminal - the motorist), yet they don't even break a single law. On the other hand, cannabis smokers seem to be portrayed as liberal, fun loving, 'trendy' and sophisticated youngsters. It just seems one big contradiction to me.

 

PS. by the way, I'm not having a go but of all thread titles to rename surely this is the prime candidate?! It is very misleading indeed.

[Siân]

Why do you assume that cannabis has to be smoked ?

[mojoworking]

I find it quite childish that some people still like to brag about the fact that they use drugs. I have no moral objection to what they do, but drug users seem to think that we should somehow be impressed by what they get up to. It's all a bit nudge, nudge, wink, wink, hey look at us, we're using illegal substances. It's no different to boozers banging on about how drunk they got over the weekend. It's not big and it's not clever. It's just boring.