Americans Are Smoking More Pot
The World Drug Report has found that as laws in the U.S.A. have relaxed toward marijuana, prices have fallen, far more people have begun to smoke it, and more people have wound up in hospital in “cannabis-related treatment admissions”.
Oh, what a surprise. The consequences couldn’t have been more obvious. It’s not as though we don’t have cigarettes to go by. As soon as something becomes legal, it becomes cheaper, more easily available, and people begin to think that it’s OK to try it. And then health care and support systems have to scramble to cope, while those at home have to deal with the fall-out.
But when I said that myself – it’s just common sense – before the World Drug Report, I got pounced on by the Marijuana Nazis who are almost as bad as the Breast-Milk SS Guards.
Time reports below.
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http://time.com/2929263/marijuana-pot-americans/
http://time.com/2904299/pope-francis-condemns-legalization-of-marijuana/
I’m so happy that you brought this up. I am all for personal liberty and freedom of choice so I have no objection to people taking drugs as long as it won’t affect me.
But I can’t stand those who say that smoking marijuana is harmless. Smoking anything is bound to harm the lungs because particulates in the smoke are always harmful. I don’t know about eating marijuana but smoking it is harmful.
People taking drugs are bound to need medical treatment at some point, and guess who pays for it. People taking drugs affect all taxpayers.
Bishop Charles Scicluna earned the ire of the Malta Humanist Association earlier when he too condemned this nasty piece of legislation. Apparently, the enlightened folks at the MHA would have us a believe that drug barons are fighting tooth and nail against (you heard that right) the legalisation of drugs.
Even on topics as sensitive and delicate as this, people continue to pursue their personal agendas. It’s sad really.
Here’s another good article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ruth-marcus-national-institute-on-drug-abuse-chief-attacks-myths-of-pot-smoking/2014/06/24/12010d84-fbd9-11e3-8176-f2c941cf35f1_story.html
Labour is trying to make drugs acceptable in order to increase consumption and therefore increase business for drug barons. If Labour wanted to monitor drug consumption and hash quality (to detect added impurities), and tax drugs, they would issue licences for drug retail outlets.
The MLP wants ‘Poppy Day’ all year round.
Please remove the stick from where-the-sun-doesn’t-shine. In Malta we are discussing decriminilisation and not legalisation. It will still be against the law to buy or smoke it.
However to be correct the PM had said drugs would be legalised, not decriminalised. Now the stance has changed to decriminalisation…
That drug causes more harm than people give it credit for. Its impact on your psychological well-being is noticeable even when you only smoke once in a while.
However the truth is that many people of my generation (Gen Y) have this idea that smoking weed makes you more creative.
Why would that matter? Well, for a long time now people think that being creative is some sort of super power that is going to make you “successful” and consequently “rich”.
They think that they need to work on their creativity for their job and not being creative is like receiving the mark of the beast: you can’t go anywhere or do anything.
Therefore they think that they need to smoke weed to save themselves from that horrible label “Not creative”.
It is seen as their key to success and wealth, and most of all respect. The type of respect people like Steve Jobs had, and many other businessmen.
Telling them they cannot smoke weed is like a death sentence for them. They will think that you don’t want them to be creative and therefore don’t want them to be successful. They take it very personally.
The truth, however, is somewhat different. Weed kills ambition like nothing else on this planet. You will end up with many problems because you just smoke weed.
The song “Because I got high” may sound funny to teenagers who don’t know how serious it is to forget to pay your child support (one of the lyrics) but actually that song is proof of how dangerous weed is to you and to those around you. It’s just not funny in real life.
Creativity comes from the brain. If you care about your creativity then take omega 3 tablets or eat a lot of fish. Don’t take something that will crush your brain cells. Isn’t that obvious?
Cannabis has never killed my ambition, I work harder then ever and I would be in a pensionable age in most places.
Getting wealthy or “well off” comes from hard work and filling a niche when you find the opportunity and using that opportunity to full advantage with planning and dedication, this takes time and mental agility .
This is where creativity can be a asset and it has nothing to do with smoking a joint or not or drinking fine single malt Scotch whisky or being a teetotaler. You are born with creativity or you are not, no chemical is going to give it to you if you don’t have it or the drive to get up and go when you fall flat on your posterior.
Focused hard work for long periods of time is never talked about it seems, everyone wants instant riches and no problems and they never see the sleepless nights or constant 20 hour days of hard work with no breaks, including weekends away from your home and family.
It always looks effortless and easy to the outsider looking in.
So why do you take cannabis?
Tell that to my generation!
But the truth is many people think that it is the one way to remain creative.
I have seen what weed does to a person. People say that some can handle it and some can’t. That may be true, and you may be the type that can, but the truth is you have to do it to find out and once you find out it s too late.
Weed makes you lazy, boring, unmotivated and dumber most of the time. I have seen this with my own eyes.
“So why do you take cannabis?”
It relieves the pain from my arthritis and I can get through a busy day.
For myself I found it to work better than opiate based doctor prescribed pain killers that my body cannot tolerate.
Without half a gram of ingested cannabis each morning, I will have to be confined to my bed as pretty much an invalid.
Yes, why do you take cannabis? Is money not enough to give you fulfilment?
“Yes, why do you take cannabis? Is money not enough to give you fulfilment?”
Money is not fulfillment, it never was in my life and it never is now. The money did not appear out of thin air, I had to work hard for it like anyone else in this world. A lot of people still depend on me for their livelihood including my two adult sons.
Tell you what HP, I’ll gladly give you a chunk of that money if I can get relief from my arthritis pain sans cannabis, without putting me six feet under.
Walk a mile in my shoes
Oh do fuck off, will you? You financially secure people are all the same. Same standard defensive response about having worked hard for your money. I know you did. My point was that someone like you doesn’t need cannabis, either for pleasure or as a painkiller. You can get specifically designed medication instead of cannabis.
My other point is that using yourself as the anecdote that proves the general truth is nonsense. What’s more, the entire argument doesn’t make sense. What you’re saying there is that cannabis does not affect mental abilities. That’s just scientific claptrap. It does, and there’s a plethora of parameters you need to take into account (dosage, age, frequency of use, the test you use to determine mental ability). But go down to the biochemical level and you’ll find that just like any other psychoactive drug, cannabis does affect the brain.
Which is not to say it should be banned in the US. That’s your own country and the decision is yours.
I don’t think it is fair to support the legalisation of cannabis, only to them bring up a medical condition that you need it for. That’s like supporting the legalisation of heroin and then saying its because you needed morphine.
When it comes to medicinal purposes I agree it should be used. There is nothing wrong with that. However, we are talking about teenagers, who have limited judgement, smoking it and adults who hold down jobs. Not to mention parents who have to look after children.
Smoking weed messes with your memory a lot. I once had to live with someone who smoked weed and one night she burnt her pasta because she let it boil for hours. Imagine that happening with children around but instead of pasta it’s chips in the chip pan and a pot of oil.
HP, why do you get upset if wealthy people tell you that they worked hard?
Maybe it is the truth in their case.
You mentioned money and fulfillment, and I said to you that money is not fulfillment to me and neither is half a gram of ingested cannabis each morning so I can be relatively pain free. Being pain free is a hope that transcends having money or not having money, in other words it has nothing to do with money at all .
You responded to my statement and my reply statement only reflects my life conditions and my life experiences, yours could be very different than mine or “your mileage may vary” as the popular saying is these days.
Everything can affect mental ability including constant pain. Cannabis works to alleviate my pain caused by arthritis, it may not agree with you or work for you, but it works for me, so am I suppose to lie about that?
Would you be making a fuss if I was taking doctor prescribed morphine instead?
I will not repeat my self, but I just did write about the negative effects that prescribed pain management medication has caused me.
I have seen three specialists in two states and they have no solution to my medical condition other than to mask the pain with far worse medicine than cannabis.
I had to find that out through trial and error unfortunately.
People take cannabis for more than just kicks you know.
Ken, you are in the minority.
Out of the 147 million people in the world who smoke cannabis, I m pretty sure that only a handful do it for medicinal purposes.
I went to university in the UK, and I spent the first 22 years of my life in Malta. Trust me, out of all the people who smoked cannabis, none of them did it for medicinal purposes.
Edward, there are probably more people who use cannabis for medical reasons then you imagine.
In places like Canada there are 38,000 registered medical cannabis users, and getting that
government permit in that country is not an easy task, as you are made to jump through many hurdles.
I had no time for booze or pot when I was younger, as I was too busy with school, then with work and raising a family.
Even to this day I could not care less for beer or anything alcoholic. I first tried cannabis in my late fifties and thought it was OK but nothing to get too excited about.
It has been only recently that I tried it again in an effort to see if it would help with relieving my arthritis pain and it has been very effective for this purpose in my case.
I m sorry Ken, but I think that is not entirely correct. Most users don’t use it for any illness whatsoever. They use it at the weekends or even every day for “fun”.
It is true that cannabis has medicinal uses and these should be explored and made available to the public, but that is where it ends. Legalising pot will only mean more youngsters ruining their brains.
People who smoke pot only think they are being creative. To those of us who have to sit by and hear them ramble on it’s just a series of associations which take on shining significance only because they’re hopped up to the eyeballs.
@ ken il malti.
There are many non-addictive, more effective pain relievers for arthritis that you could use but which are not addictive. The unique attractive property of cannabis is that it hallucinates and it makes one “see” things as they are not really. It make you believe that cannabis is a stronger pain killer than opiates even if (and I very much doubt it) you found a doctor who treats a chronic condition like “arthritis” with “opiates” that are still more addictive than marijuana.
Yes, I tried most of them Doc and I ended up in the hospital emergency after taking one of your pharmaceuticals so beloved by your profession.
I never claimed that cannabis is a stronger pain reliever than opiates and yes my doctor prescribed oxycodone, as Tylenol 4 would not work to relive my joint pain and cox-2 inhibitors were totally useless at my stage of arthritis .
Go read your pharmacopeia books and you might learn that opiates are very addictive and you might learn that one does not hallucinate with half a gram of ingested cannabis per day, but I certainly hallucinated under the influence of doctor prescribed oxycodone !
I would not take that oxycodone poison if it was the last painkiller on earth.
Cannabis also has the added benefit of being an anti-inflammatory for my joints and it is non-toxic, unlike the poppy derived junk prescribed by a doctor.
What is it with you and your anti-cannabis crusade?
Cannabis has been used for centuries to treat many ailments.
If you don’t like cannabis then don’t take it.
If cannabis works for me and others to alleviate their medical condition, then so be it.
Cannabis works for me and helps my medical condition and I can do a day’s work, where as before that was impossible, that is all I care about.
Your senseless and out-dated prejudices should be kept to yourself and please stop interfering in what others find suitable to treat their ailments, you are not a know-it-all grand wizard of all medicines suitable for all human bodies.
You will next tell me that the NSAIDs (Non-Steroidal, Anti-Inflammatory group of drugs) don’t work in your special case just as you expect me to believe that in your particular case cannabis acts as an “anti-inflammatory”.
THAT is the hallucinatory character of cannabis in operation.
I can’t use NSAIDs because I have been saddled with peptic ulcers since 2009.
Tell you what Doc, you stick to your anti-cannabis bias and scaring the bejeezus out of people, who do not know any better, with your Reefer Madness movie script and I will stick to my half a gram of ground dried cannabis flower bud each morning that has done wonders for my arthritis.
Capisce ?
Oh, and you should up date your research on the herb you love to hate, it has anti- inflammatory properties like I said it does and as proven by science.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080720222549.htm
The campaign by the drug lobby to decriminalize drugs is based on misinformation, outright lies and vilification of anybody who objects starting from H.H the Pope down to the civic minded law abiding citizen and health professionals. They seem to write when actually under the influence of mind-rotting drugs.
Why is a doctor fawning over what the Pope is saying for health policy?
I hope you don’t believe that we should campaign against contraception and safe sex because the Pope said so….unbelievable!
Also, please refrain from labeling your opinion as a “health professional’s opinion”. Your opinion is not a health professional’s opinion because you are a health professional. Your opinion become a health professional’s opinion if you quote facts and arguments in relation to the health profession. If you quote religious arguments for your opinion, even if you are a health professional, your opinion is religious.
And I may add, you claim that the drug lobby uses misinformation and lies but you fail to point them out. Accusing someone of lying doesn’t make it so, you need to show how they are lying. As for vilifying those who are against drugs, well, what can I say? If a doctor quotes the Pope on a health issue, then he should be vilified…
I didn’t know the Pope has an official position on cannabis. I’d like to know what the Dalai Lama thinks.
I am not fawning over the Pope but you are deprecating his stance which is in absolute agreement with the foremost world health and police authorities
The opinion against the abuse of potent mind-distorting drugs of addiction for recreation is not mine as a doctor, or the Pope’s, in isolation. It is shared by the mentioned competent World Health Organisation, Interpol etc.
I never quote religious arguments about drugs to the irreligious. I quoted responsible lay opinion that you denounce after H.H. the Pope repeated the same warning.
I have been regularly pointing out the lies on which the drug lobby depends for its propaganda. If you hadn’t seen it it is not my fault I won’t be repeating myself to those who have eyes but do not want to see.
Your assertion that a doctor should be vilified because he includes the Pope (among other world authorities) on a health issue is most revealing and most disgusting. IT devalues your comment completely.
http://time.com/2933349/marijuana-pot-danger-health-effects-science/
By the same reasoning alcohol should be made illegal. It has been the cause of so many deaths and problems world over.
Truth is you cannot stop people hurting themselves and others be it pot or alcohol or anything else. If you read the last paragraph carefully it actually says consumption is actually down.
I firmly believe if pot is legalised consumption will shoot up because people will want to try but it will naturally stabilise in the long run. If I had to choose between alcohol or pot in terms of possible damage to my body I would certainly prefer pot.
By your “same reasoning” gun possession should not be controlled because you cannot stop murderers from hurting others by shooting them.
Wait a minute if you’re going to compare what’s being suggested to another country, try Portugal. They have decriminalised pot but haven’t actually legalised it. It was done 12 years ago and has been an undeniable success.
http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html
Comparing the proposals suggest by AD to what is being done in America, like legalising it for recreational use, is unfair and misleading. The Portugal scenario is far more likely.
Can you explain why the Portugal scenario is more likely? Or is just a guess?
What the Time Magazine is writing about now is the short-term effect of making it legal. People are going to try it, because its novelty. The Americans will soon get bored of it and go back to their normal routine of drinking copious amounts of alcohol.
TV and movies coming out of the US popularized and romanticised consumption of cannabis and this is why its usage in the US is astronomical compared with the Netherlands.
Some Interesting facts
http://www.beckleyfoundation.org/pdf/dutch%20coffee%20shops.pdf
Can’t stand the darn Cannabis Nazi/Addiction apologists. I am so glad I am moving out of Denver. I got over my addiction. It was not a harmless addiction and most of the people I know who are addicted, can’t even give the stuff a break.
And most of the people I know who use are addicted. I rarely meet a cannabis user who is an occasional user. These people are mostly functional, but other areas of their personalities, lives, and sense of connecting genuinely with others in a healthy spirit has been greatly impaired.
I really think people need to learn to see through the big cannabis hype and realize it is more potent than what it used to be and had side affects like every other medicine.
I am not upset that it’s legal at all, just upset that I got caught up in it for so long and that are others are ruining parts of their lives over it as far as I’ve seen for over 30 years of use.