Drugs vs Alcohol: What's Better for You?

[JaredJames]

First of all, marijuana and Cannibus are the same. Second, don't disassociate alcohol from the "drug" category, because alcohol IS a drug, it just so happens to be legal.

Marijuana isn't PHYSICALLY addictive at all. The only addiction that comes from marijuana is psychologically. You come to BELIEVE that you have a dependence on it. Your body never becomes addicted to it, it has no properties for it.

Well, I'm at work at the moment, so I don't have time to finish this, but I'll continue with it when I get the time, but for the most part your roomates are right, to answer your question, they just don't have the evidence to back it, which I'll provide at a later point in time.

Right just a quick note, like I said I don't know anything about the illegal drugs, so didn't know they were the same (far too many names in my opinion). Secondly, my part 2) of the OP was meant to include alcohol under drugs:
"2. Do you think they should be classified as illegal? What are your views on the drugs (perhaps even a few more than just those three)?"
The question was meant to read as - should cannabis remain illegal and should alcohol be illegal, and what are your views on alcohol and cannabis. But I simply put them all under the heading drugs (did not disassociate it, at least not intentionally).

 

[moe darklight]

I haven't used any drug in years, but I believe they should be legal (though highly regulated), for many reasons:

A) The problems that revolve around drugs merely because they are illegal (i.e: crime. where do gangs get their money?).

B) Health reasons. Dealers don't care what they cut their drugs with and its effects on the consumer. There is no way to know what is in an E pill, what chemicals were added, or the potency (I've seen kids take 8 pills of a certain kind in a single night and be fine; I've also seen a girl overdose on half a pill [by the way, an E overdose is about the scariest thing to watch]-- E pills especially, sometimes contain a whole variety of other drugs (coke, heroin) that the person taking them is unaware of). A few kids were hospitalized in my city when I was in high school (I believe one of them died) because they smoked pot that had been sprayed with toxic chemicals.
If drugs were regulated, kids who choose to try drugs will at least not be in danger of accidentally overdosing because they got a bad batch.

C) THE WAR ON DRUGS ISN'T WORKING.

D) THE WAR ON DRUGS ISN'T WORKING.

C) Not all drugs are equally bad. Acting like all drugs are bad because some happen to be highly addictive and toxic is like telling people not to eat vegetables because some plants are poisonous. I'm yet to find any research that indicates that the casual (to me this means no more than, say, 4 times a year) use of pot or mushrooms or LSD is in any way detrimental to a person's health. Yes, there are reports of death involving all these drugs (despite what your stoner friends tell you), but:
-- in the case of mushrooms, ALL overdose reports that I've found involve kids mistaking poisonous mushrooms for pscilobes, or involve Amanitas, which are poisonous, or some other foreign factor that is not related to the mushrooms themselves.
-- Overdosing on LSD is essentially impossible unless the person takes an inordinate amount of it. There are a few reports of people with predisposed mental illnesses or people who have experienced a "bad trip" suffering from long-term mental issues, i.e "flashbacks." These problems seem to arise from the experience itself (a form of PTSD), but nobody knows for sure; it's still not clear what causes this. Still, these cases are statistically insignificant.

E) THE WAR ON DRUGS IS A WASTE OF MONEY AND RESOURCES THAT COULD BE SPENT ON SOMETHING WORTHWHILE.

F) I believe that people have the right to choose their fun; and that if they are educated on the subject, instead of scared off with misleading information, they will have the power to intelligently weigh the risks involved in whatever activity they choose to experiment with. Many extreme sports are very dangerous, should we outlaw those?

 

[OmCheeto]

So far, (hic), I haven't seen anything remotely resembling truth(oh man, give me another toke) in this thread.

Except of course for Moe's observation: C) THE WAR ON DRUGS ISN'T WORKING.

 

[Pengwuino]

So far, (hic), I haven't seen anything remotely resembling truth(oh man, give me another toke) in this thread.

Except of course for Moe's observation: C) THE WAR ON DRUGS ISN'T WORKING.

Well if you're in the know, provide some evidence and arguments about what the truth is.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Ok for one, jesus christ, change your avatar! that scared the hell out of me, and I'm not even stoned!

Why did it scare you?

As for the topic, I meant physiological. I think everyone agrees there's at least a bit of violence created by marijuana.

In regards to the violence, people don't die because of pot. They die because of the money. The Mexican drug cartels are responsible for more than just a little violence. Beyond that, drug money is what finances gangs like MS13, which has grown from an LA neighborhood gang to an international organization. It is for all practical purposes a domestic terrorist group funded by the drug laws.

Mind you, violence because of marijuana. I don't do any drugs and thus have very very weak anecdote evidence but the people I've known have all gotten their marijuana from home growers which aren't typically part of the whole drug-violence culture. The violence is probably with larger distributors who are probably distributing more then just marijuana.

No doubt. The cartels are involved in all sort of drugs. But, for example, it is known that they are also growing pot in national forests and leaving a mess of chemicals and trash behind that the forest service has to clean up. Back in the old days, local growers were more the hippie types. But now the hardened criminal element has taken over.

If you have a truckload of drugs worth millions of dollars, it doesn't really matter what drug it is. It is dangerous [in the sense discussed] because it is worth millions of dollars.

Oh and one separate question I swear I've never received an answer to by anyone is this. Why exactly does making marijuana legal and highly taxed result in people using less of it? I always hear this but I immediately think "wait, it can be home grown... how well can you REALLY control the price of something you can grow at home?"

How many people do you know that grow their own tobacco? Although I will say that if people are really paying $10 a pack for cigarettes in New York, due to taxes, then I would expect cigarettes to join the ranks of black-market products. Then we can expand our war on drugs to include illegal cigarettes and illegal tobacco growing operations.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Have you seen this documentary? Kevin Booth's American Drug War It's excellent.

- Warren

No, but I will be sure to take a look.

 

[Pengwuino]

Why did it scare you?

The dog's just creepy for some reason...

In regards to the violence, people don't die because of pot. They die because of the money. The Mexican drug cartels are responsible for more than just a little violence. Beyond that, drug money is what finances gangs like MS13, which has grown from an LA neighborhood gang to an international organization. It is for all practical purposes a domestic terrorist group funded by the drug laws.

No doubt. The cartels are involved in all sort of drugs. But, for example, it is known that they are also growing pot in national forests and leaving a mess of chemicals and trash behind that the forest service has to clean up. Back in the old days, local growers were more the hippie types. But now the hardened criminal element has taken over.

That's the point though! Legalize marijuana and they'll still be around, violence will still exist, they'll still kill people.

How many people do you know that grow their own tobacco?

The people I hear argue for taxation that actually raises the price beyond what you can get it for now. With tobacco, it's so cheap that who bothers...

 

[Ivan Seeking]

That's the point though! Legalize marijuana and they'll still be around, violence will still exist, they'll still kill people.

You are still missing the point. If you make it legal, you take the excessive profit out, and there is no incentive for the cartels and other criminal organizations to get involved. It is the same lesson that we learned about alcohol. It becomes a far greater danger to society BECAUSE it is illegal.

The people I hear argue for taxation that actually raises the price beyond what you can get it for now. With tobacco, it's so cheap that who bothers...

The only reason pot is expensive is because it is illegal. I would bet that it is even cheaper to grow than tobacco. In fact it is cited as the most profitable drug of all based on the cost of production and the sales price. Look at it this way: Would criminals be engaged in activities where they actually earn their money? They make big money because they take big risks, not because they put in an honest day's work.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The dog's just creepy for some reason...

He was just a big bouncing baby boy - our dearly departed Dr. Who.

 

[Pengwuino]

You are still missing the point. If you make it legal, you take the excessive profit out, and there is no incentive for the cartels and other criminal organizations to get involved. It is the same lesson that we learned about alcohol. It becomes a far greater danger to society BECAUSE it is illegal.

That only makes sense if marijuana sales account for a large majority of the profits drug dealers make. When you're talking about organized crime, they aren't just selling marijuana. They'd still be in business if marijuana were made legal unless marijuana doesn't account for all their profits. Organized crime didn't just disappear because alcohol became legal again.

The only reason pot is expensive is because it is illegal. I would bet that it is even cheaper to grow than tobacco. In fact it is cited as the most profitable drug of all based on the cost of production and the sales price. Look at it this way: Would criminals be engaged in activities where they actually earn their money? They make big money because they take big risks, not because they put in an honest day's work.

That's the point, that's why the arguments I hear makes no sense. Home growers could undercut the government. Mind you, this is a totally separate argument than what is presented in this thread. It's an argument I hear from other people outside this forum that I've always questioned. If you say that the price would drop, I COMPLETELY agree. My only goal with that aside was to figure out if I'm not the only one who doesn't understand the logic of legalization = higher prices

 

[Pengwuino]

He was just a big bouncing baby boy - our dearly departed Dr. Who.

It looks like he's dressed up in a jogging outfit. I looked closer and saw what it actually was... maybe i'll be use to it now aha.

 

[russ_watters]

The only reason pot is expensive is because it is illegal.

Right, so when Penguino asked about how legalizing it would make people use less of it...that would seem to provide a good argument for why people would use more of it if it were legal.

 

[JaredJames]

Surely legalising marijuana would initially cause a price increase, and this is just a hypothesis, but for this reason:

Drug made legal, only people mass producing (initially) would remain to be the big gangs/cartels. Taxing it (providing they paid the tax) would cause them to increase the price to cover the tax. Otherwise the price would remain the same until there was some form of competition from a commercial company.

Again, just a hypothesis on my part, anyone have any similar ideas?

 

[Monocles]

Look at Portugal - they legalized possession of all drugs in the early 2000s and all of their drug related problems have plummeted since then.

 

[Civilized]

Most of you have seen Dr Andrew Weil M.D. on TV or in Time magazine (he was named one of Time's 100 most influential people). Here is an article he wrote about cannabis:

http://deoxy.org/pdfa/marijuana.htm"

A few excerpts:

What pharmacologists cannot make sense of is that people who are high on marijuana cannot be shown, in objective terms, to be different from people who are not high. That is, if a marijuana user is allowed to smoke his usual doses and then to do things he has had a chance to practice while high, he does not appear to perform any differently from someone who is not high. Now, this pattern of users performing better than nonusers is a general phenomenon associated with all psychoactive drugs. For example, an alcoholic will vastly outperform a nondrinker on any test if the two are equally intoxicated; he has learned to compensate for the effects of the drug on his nervous system. But compensation can proceed only so far until it runs up against a ceiling imposed by the pharmacological action of the drug on lower brain centers. Again, since marijuana has no clinically significant action on lower brain centers, compensation can reach 100 percent with practice.

In other words, people who use cannabis regularly can function at 100% capacity when under the influence of their normal dose (which can be easily ten times smaller than Russ' "smoke a whole joint").

These considerations mean that there are no answers to questions like, What does marijuana do to driving ability? The only possible answer is, It depends. It depends on the person - whether he is a marijuana user, whether he has practiced driving while under the influence of marijuana. In speaking to legislative and medical groups, I have stated a personal reaction to this question in the form of the decision I would make if I were given the choice of riding with one of the following four drivers:

(1) a person who had never smoked marijuana before and just had;

(2) a marijuana smoker who had never driven while high and was just about to;

(3) a high marijuana smoker who had practiced driving while high; and

(4) a person with any amount of alcohol in him.

I would unhesitatingly take driver number three as the best possible risk

In other words, a person with any amount of alcohol (even the one or two drinks that Russ keeps mentioning) is more dangerous behind the wheel than a marijuana smoker who is puffed up to his heart's content at his normal dose, in the opinion of Dr Weil.

Like most drugs, cannabis users will over time develop the ability to better tolerate the negative effects of the drug. The bottomline is that unlike alcohol, and more similar to tobacco, a regular cannabis user can learn to tolerate any and all of the negative effects of the drug so that it is reduced to merely harmless enjoyment. Anyone who "despises" harmless enjoyment does not understand the US constitution in the sense that it was intended by its authors, and in my opinion the country would be better off without them.

 

[JaredJames]

...

Does marijuana not slow reactions then? People I know who smoked it said it makes them feel like everything is going really fast.

 

[Civilized]

Does marijuana not slow reactions then? People I know who smoked it said it makes them feel like everything is going really fast.

The exact opposite subjective effect is sometimes reported e.g. "whoa dude, it felt like we were hanging out for hours but I looked at the clock and only 5 minutes went by." There is no doubt that in a relaxed setting mj can effect the subjective perception of time, in terms of objective performance (e.g. reaction times) there is no impairment for a regular user.

 

[Civilized]

Surely legalising marijuana would initially cause a price increase, and this is just a hypothesis, but for this reason:

Drug made legal, only people mass producing (initially) would remain to be the big gangs/cartels. Taxing it (providing they paid the tax) would cause them to increase the price to cover the tax. Otherwise the price would remain the same until there was some form of competition from a commercial company.

Again, just a hypothesis on my part, anyone have any similar ideas?

The price would plummet because cannabis is so easy to grow, it has the nickname weed for a reason, because it grows like one. Unlike tobacco, for which someone would need to do a lot of work to grow their own (each big floppy tobacco leaf dries out to give a small amount of smokable material), a single properly cultivated cannabis plant can provide months worth of smokable/edible material.

Someone said that growing the plant stinks, but for people who like it is one of the best smells they could have around (I think it smells a lot like ground expresso beans, which are one of my favorite smells).

Growing can be as easy as putting down seeds in the backyard, and three months later with ~4 hours / week of enjoyable gardening labor there will be small bushes to harvest.

Perhaps the government outlaws cannabis because if they legalized it and taxed it heavily people would just grow their own.

Look at Portugal - they legalized possession of all drugs in the early 2000s and all of their drug related problems have plummeted since then.

I hadn't heard of that, but it's good info:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-drug-decriminalization

 

[JaredJames]

Do you not need specialist heating (infra red lamps) to grow it? (that is in the UK of course), making it more difficult to grow. Whenever you see drugs raids on the houses they are totally blacked out and have a massive thermal signature (actually how they catch them). Does no one factor in the cost of electric when it comes to growing it?

 

[Civilized]

Do you not need specialist heating (infra red lamps) to grow it? (that is in the UK of course), making it more difficult to grow. Whenever you see drugs raids on the houses they are totally blacked out and have a massive thermal signature (actually how they catch them). Does no one factor in the cost of electric when it comes to growing it?

Yes, the highest-grade canabis is grown using blueish lamps for vegetative growth of the plant and reddish lamps for the reproductive growth (budding) of the plant. This also works for growing most types of flowering plants, these colors of lamps. Here is an example of an indoor super plant:

But all of this is done mostly because having the plant outside would lead to an obvious bust by the cops. I don't know how the sunlight is for growing plants in general in the UK, but in california or western Canada the following can be grown outside:

http://www.vancouverseedbank.ca/catalog/images/MP%20BUD%20resized.JPG

(P.S. I'm super sorry to the mods if linking these photos is not allowed, please disable the links and forgive me)

 

[Pupil]

That only makes sense if marijuana sales account for a large majority of the profits drug dealers make. When you're talking about organized crime, they aren't just selling marijuana. They'd still be in business if marijuana were made legal unless marijuana doesn't account for all their profits. Organized crime didn't just disappear because alcohol became legal again.

Even if marijuana accounts for only 1% of the cartel business profits, it's too much and we can end it (and I'm sure Cannabis accounts for much more of the profits). We shouldn't be fueling their business with ignorant laws. How much safer would the trade of this product be if it were regulated instead of left to the whim of massive cartels?

 

[Pengwuino]

I hadn't heard of that, but it's good info:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=portugal-drug-decriminalization

The article states nothing of the claim being made. Nowhere does it say "All drug related problems have plummeted". It says HIV infections due to used needles and fatal overdoses dropped, hardly "all drug related problems".

 

[Monocles]

Yeah it had been awhile since I read anything about it, my mind must have exaggerated the details :)

 

[moe darklight]

Does marijuana not slow reactions then? People I know who smoked it said it makes them feel like everything is going really fast.

There is a difference between a casual smoker and a heavy user (a heavy pot smoker smokes more than once a day. my stoner friends [and I used to be one] smoke pot many times a day-- pretty much as soon as the high from the last time they smoked wore off).

After you do this for a while, the whole "whoa man" effect wears off. You're still high-- you don't build resistance in the same way as other drugs like heroin, which essentially stop working, so the user must keep increasing his dosage-- but you don't "act" high, because your brain has become accustomed to being in that state. You become so used to the way your brain processes information while high, how your body responds, etc. that being high is now when you feel normal; and when you're not high you feel... sluggish? I don't know what word to use. Less than normal.

The irony here being that real stoners don't act like stoners. Some of you might have stoner coworkers and not even know it. One of my high school teachers (shop teacher. yes, his job was to operate heavy machinery) was a stoner, and only some of us knew it. I've known my friends since high school, and I still can't tell for the life of me when they're high and when they're sober.

This is not to say that there aren't side effects to such heavy usage: short term memory problems, depression, feeling unmotivated. But I don't think there's any question over which is more detrimental to the health of a heavy user. Talk to a heavy pot smoker who's been smoking it every day for 10 years, then talk to someone who's been drinking every day for just one year, and you tell me.

 

[Kronos5253]

After you do this for a while, the whole "whoa man" effect wears off. You're still high-- you don't build resistance in the same way as other drugs like heroin, which essentially stop working, so the user must keep increasing his dosage-- but you don't "act" high, because your brain has become accustomed to being in that state. You become so used to the way your brain processes information while high, how your body responds, etc. that being high is now when you feel normal; and when you're not high you feel... sluggish? I don't know what word to use. Less than normal.

Correct! You're one of the very few people I've come across who actually knows that. It's called a reverse tolerance.

The reason for this is that the human body has natural delta-9 tetrahydrocannibanol (THC, the psycho-active ingredient in marijuana that gets you "high") receptors in the brain (that's right, you're BORN with them). We also only have a set number of these, which is why it's impossible to overdose. Anything over what those receptors can absorb goes into the fat cells in your body.

 

[Moonbear]

After you do this for a while, the whole "whoa man" effect wears off. You're still high-- you don't build resistance in the same way as other drugs like heroin, which essentially stop working, so the user must keep increasing his dosage-- but you don't "act" high, because your brain has become accustomed to being in that state. You become so used to the way your brain processes information while high, how your body responds, etc. that being high is now when you feel normal; and when you're not high you feel... sluggish? I don't know what word to use. Less than normal.

The irony here being that real stoners don't act like stoners. Some of you might have stoner coworkers and not even know it.

The flaw here seems to be your experience with those addicted to other drugs. What you've described is similar to the "functional" alcoholic, or other addicts who are still managing to hide their addiction. What you describe is, in fact, the definition of addiction. The user no longer gets the pleasurable effect from the same amount of "drug" and instead, experience more negative effects when they are not taking it...they take more to counteract the negative effects just to feel "normal", and need more to feel the positive effects.

Now, one of the arguments FOR marijuana use are the medicinal effects of THC, the active compound in marijuana. I would argue that it should be as legal as morphine, which is to say that it is legal but highly regulated by prescription, and only in purified form, not cigarette form.

Frankly, if someone is dying of cancer, I don't care if they want to live out their final days stoned and oblivious to what's happening around them, be it on marijuana or morphine. But, I do not want them putting others at risk of developing cancer or being exposed to the drug just by walking into a room filled with smoke. The glaucoma arguments are far less convincing. There are perfectly good medications available to treat glaucoma without the mind-altering side effects of marijuana.

 

[Moonbear]

Correct! You're one of the very few people I've come across who actually knows that. It's called a reverse tolerance.

The reason for this is that the human body has natural delta-9 tetrahydrocannibanol (THC, the psycho-active ingredient in marijuana that gets you "high") receptors in the brain (that's right, you're BORN with them). We also only have a set number of these, which is why it's impossible to overdose. Anything over what those receptors can absorb goes into the fat cells in your body.

NONSENSE! There is no such thing as reverse tolerance. What was described IS tolerance. You're born with receptors for the other narcotics too...mu, delta and kappa opioid receptors. If you didn't have receptors for them, you would have no effects at all of any of them. Your post only demonstrates the level of ignorance of the general public regarding the physiological interactions of drugs in the brain.

 

[cristo]

Look at Portugal - they legalized possession of all drugs in the early 2000s and all of their drug related problems have plummeted since then.

Let's remember the PF rules, shall we (and this goes for all; not just this post): any and all claims must be backed up by a reputable source. Any statement not backed up with such a reference will be presumed to be speculation, and treated as such. Just because Evo's busy doesn't mean you can get away with murder in GD! (*Stamps down foot*).

 

[Kronos5253]

NONSENSE! There is no such thing as reverse tolerance. What was described IS tolerance. You're born with receptors for the other narcotics too...mu, delta and kappa opioid receptors. If you didn't have receptors for them, you would have no effects at all of any of them. Your post only demonstrates the level of ignorance of the general public regarding the physiological interactions of drugs in the brain.

Prove it. :)

I don't take people's claims without supported evidence. If you can prove me wrong with legitimate cites and examples, I'll accept that. But until then everything you just said is only opinion. I've learned to not feed into peoples "claims", I listen to supported evidence, which is why I do my own research, and LOTS of it, from trustworthy sources. Not just any site I find on the internet.

P.S. - If there's no such thing as reverse tolerance, why do I have a college psychology book that states the opposite?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_tolerance

cited sources at bottom

 

[binzing]

No - at least I've never heard of anyone ever smoking pot without the intention of getting high. AFAIK, there is no other reason to do it.

To medicate, for pain relief, help in relaxation and removal of anxiety, increase of appetite (to help with cachexia, anorexia, etc). There are many uses for it other then just getting "high".

 

[moe darklight]

1) The flaw here seems to be your experience with those addicted to other drugs. What you've described is similar to the "functional" alcoholic, or other addicts who are still managing to hide their addiction.

2) What you describe is, in fact, the definition of addiction.

3) The user no longer gets the pleasurable effect from the same amount of "drug" and instead, experience more negative effects when they are not taking it...they take more to counteract the negative effects just to feel "normal", and need more to feel the positive effects.

4) Your post only demonstrates the level of ignorance of the general public regarding the physiological interactions of drugs in the brain.

1) No: The alcoholic or cocaine addict eventually deteriorates and there comes a point when it is no longer possible for him to be functional and "hide" his addiction. As I've pointed out, someone who has been drinking every day for even just one year already starts exhibiting erratic behavior. Stoners remain "functional" throughout their lives. There are side effects such as depression and short term memory problems, but they never become erratic and irrational like other addicts.

2) No argument there. Potheads are addicts.

3) This is wrong. The stoner still gets the pleasurable effect; what goes away is the novelty, the giggling, the stumbling, etc.. After a certain point he reaches a plateau and there is no upping the dosage like with other drugs, there is no spiral downwards and viscous cycle or chasing that feeling the drug no longer provides like there is with heroin. There are no withdrawal symptoms at the level you see with other drugs. I felt stronger functional withdrawals when I stopped drinking coffee than I did when I quit pot: trouble concentrating, headache, etc. This doesn't happen with pot.

4) The public is highly misinformed about a lot of things. This is why the key is education, not scare tactics. If kids aren't objectively educated on drugs, both positive and negative, they will make their decisions on such faulty assumptions. The truth is that drugs are not as bad for you as the anti-drug people think, and not as good for you as pro-drug people think.

I still haven't heard a convincing argument as to why they should be illegal, and why informed people who enjoy them responsibly should go to jail for doing so.

 

[binzing]

He was just a big bouncing baby boy - our dearly departed Dr. Who.

I for one, love the picture. Having lost two dogs this year, I feel your pain.

 

[binzing]

I have plenty more to say on this subject, but I value my PF membership too much...

 

[Pupil]

Frankly, if someone is dying of cancer, I don't care if they want to live out their final days stoned and oblivious to what's happening around them, be it on marijuana or morphine. But, I do not want them putting others at risk of developing cancer or being exposed to the drug just by walking into a room filled with smoke. The glaucoma arguments are far less convincing. There are perfectly good medications available to treat glaucoma without the mind-altering side effects of marijuana.

This is at best an argument that the patient should use a vaporizer or consume marijuana orally.

 

[binzing]

This is at best an argument that the patient should use a vaporizer or consume marijuana orally.

Exactly, many people don't know of, or worse, refuse to recognize, the other methods of use of marijuana.

 

[Kronos5253]

This is at best an argument that the patient should use a vaporizer or consume marijuana orally.

Agreed.

Smoking it is the most popular form, but it's also the least effective in terms of the psycho-active properties and benefits of the drug. Digesting it is the most effective by far, in which case she should have no problems with it in that case.

Bet that cuts down on the whole cancer part of it too eh? lol

 

[JaredJames]

Prove it. :)

I don't take people's claims without supported evidence. If you can prove me wrong with legitimate cites and examples, I'll accept that. But until then everything you just said is only opinion. I've learned to not feed into peoples "claims", I listen to supported evidence, which is why I do my own research, and LOTS of it, from trustworthy sources. Not just any site I find on the internet.

P.S. - If there's no such thing as reverse tolerance, why do I have a college psychology book that states the opposite?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_tolerance

cited sources at bottom

Just a quick one here, it is not up to someone to prove something doesn't exist, you must prove it does (I don't like wikipedia so it means nothing to me although I will look at the sources at the bottom you claim). It is IMPOSSIBLE to prove something doesn't exist.

 

[moe darklight]

I think what he misunderstood is that just because there are receptors in the brain that respond to THC, it doesn't mean that that's what they're for.

 

[JaredJames]

Well I've just read about the reverse toleration. It does sound very much like another word for addiction. Where a person takes the drug to feel normal, or they feel worse without it. I think that saying 'I'm reverse tolerant to [whatever]' is just a polite way of saying I'm addicted or reliant on.

This link here: http://www.steadyhealth.com/encyclopedia/Reverse_tolerance
Shows four facts, one being Reverse Tolerance is a late stage of alcoholism.

Everything else I've read on reverse tolerance says quite simply, it is when your body is SO DAMAGED by a substance you get more effect from a small dose. So the substance clearly damages the body?
http://hamsnetwork.org/reverse/

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

1) No: The alcoholic or cocaine addict eventually deteriorates and there comes a point when it is no longer possible for him to be functional and "hide" his addiction. As I've pointed out, someone who has been drinking every day for even just one year already starts exhibiting erratic behavior. Stoners remain "functional" throughout their lives. There are side effects such as depression and short term memory problems, but they never become erratic and irrational like other addicts.

...

3) This is wrong. The stoner still gets the pleasurable effect; what goes away is the novelty, the giggling, the stumbling, etc.. After a certain point he reaches a plateau and there is no upping the dosage like with other drugs, there is no spiral downwards and viscous cycle or chasing that feeling the drug no longer provides like there is with heroin. There are no withdrawal symptoms at the level you see with other drugs. I felt stronger functional withdrawals when I stopped drinking coffee than I did when I quit pot: trouble concentrating, headache, etc. This doesn't happen with pot.

...

I've known several stoners, some tweekers, and have gone through alcohol education where I have met people who did other drugs.
In my experience the alcoholic is the one most likely to stay under the radar. I personally am a fairly heavy drinker and most alcoholics would consider me to be one. One of my old bar tenders used to say she worried about me because she could never tell how intoxicated I was and whether or not she should cut me off. Most of the alcoholics I have met have also been able to function normally even while legally over the limit. One of the guys in my AE class said he used to both drink and do coke, he apparently didn't even like the coke he just did it to be able to drink more. He apparently used to go into work both drunk and spun and apparently no one ever really noticed. If you talk to many alcoholics and their families you will find that they had a really hard time primarily because they were so damn good at hiding their problem.

Stoners are a different story. I've known a few stoners that you would never have known smoked primarily because they only did so occasionally and in private. By my standard they weren't really stoners. I have known green panthers, hippies, beatniks, and just plain hardcore stoners. They smoked all the time everyday. Someone in the thread said that they had a hard time telling the difference between their stoner friends stoned or sober and the biggest reason I can think of for that is that they always act like stoners. Every person I knew who was a stoner I could tell nearly at a glance if they were stoned no matter how much of a tolerance they had acheived. They generally acted very much the same either way but it was worse when they were stoned. They were also very definitely impaired. They may have been able to do most things that they did normally without much trouble but their critical thinking skills, their ability to pay attention, and their ability to react appropriately in unexpected circumstances were incredibly deminished. This often seemed to carry over into their time while sober as well depending on how much and how often they had been smoking.

The only guy I knew who reacted differently had ADD or ADHD and the primary effect of smoking marijuana was that he was able to slow down and think more clearly.

 

[Civilized]

The flaw here seems to be your experience with those addicted to other drugs. What you've described is similar to the "functional" alcoholic, or other addicts who are still managing to hide their addiction.

If you read the article by Dr Andrew Weil in my post above, you'll see the difference between a chronic cannabis user and an alcoholic is that the alcoholic can only compensate their motor skills etc up to a limit that is below their sober ability, while chronic users of cannabis are able to compensate 100% as far as objective lab tests are concerned, according to Dr Weil's article above.

What you describe is, in fact, the definition of addiction. The user no longer gets the pleasurable effect from the same amount of "drug"

No, that's not what Moe said. He specifically said:

After you do this for a while, the whole "whoa man" effect wears off. You're still high-- you don't build resistance in the same way as other drugs like heroin, which essentially stop working, so the user must keep increasing his dosage

and instead, experience more negative effects when they are not taking it...they take more to counteract the negative effects just to feel "normal", and need more to feel the positive effects.

Ok, but this effect is arguably much more pronounced in the chemical dependence saga of caffeine, alcohol, and processed foods.

But, I do not want them putting others at risk of developing cancer or being exposed to the drug just by walking into a room filled with smoke.

Do you know of any studies that have been done to show that second hand mj smoke can cause cancer? Although it may seem "logical" to you, remember that mj is a particularly effective expectorant (this is one of the oldest medical uses, along with treating pain and loss of appetite) and there're arguments that THC itself inhibits the development of lung cancer:

http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/4946.html"

Harvard University researchers have found that, in both laboratory and mouse studies, delta-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) cuts tumor growth in half in common lung cancer while impeding the cancer's ability to spread. The compound "seems to have a suppressive effect on certain lines of cancer cells," explained Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

Also the eating and vaporizing the cannabis can reduce the carcinogens, and the reason these methods are not as common as smoking are arguably due to the artificial rarity of cannabis i.e. smoking drugs is often the most potent way to ingest small amounts.

The glaucoma arguments are far less convincing. There are perfectly good medications available to treat glaucoma without the mind-altering side effects of marijuana.

But if some people find all the side effects of mj to be positive, and they are more functional than an alcoholic who has even 1 drink / night (according to Dr Weil in the article above), then clearly mj is the ideal medicine for whatever ails them, from glaucoma, to over-active brain and epilepsy, chronic pain and loss of appetite, depression, boredom, lack of creativity, certain types of sexual dysfunction, too much ambition for the life that is accessible to them (seriously, this is a big driver of cannabis use in the developing world, put in a positive way cannabis can make a person more comfortable with the life that they have been dealt), and anything other reason they want to use it, as long as their doctor has talked with them and granted them a license.

 

[Kronos5253]

Just a quick one here, it is not up to someone to prove something doesn't exist, you must prove it does (I don't like wikipedia so it means nothing to me although I will look at the sources at the bottom you claim). It is IMPOSSIBLE to prove something doesn't exist.

I'm doing no more than asking her to provide sufficient evidence to support her claims, because as it stands right now they are nothing more than opinions.

If I told you the big bang wasn't true, you would expect me to produce sufficient legitimate information that appropriately supports my claim to prove that what I'm saying is correct. That is nothing more than what I'm asking of her.

 

[moe darklight]

...

If the stoners you know always act like stoners and really are heavy smokers, then it's a cultural thing, or they're just immature people. Some of my friends are into the whole hippy thing so they act a certain way.

And anyone who smokes pot less than once a day will still act goofy when they are high. The kind of heavy pot smoker that I'm talking about smokes pot more than once a day.

The people I know don't act goofy stoned or sober (and there are a lot of them: my high school, even by Hamilton standards, is considered a stoner high school. We would smoke pot [or worse] during breaks outside in open daylight). And anyone who smokes more than once a day and acts like that is essentially acting, or it's a pot-culture thing.

I'm not dismissing the fact that alcoholics learn to hide their addiction. (And I do know alcoholics and addicts of all sorts; heck, my best friend just went to rehab last summer.) But the damage that is done once the drug catches up with them is much more significant than that of pot. You can see it happening, right before your eyes as an alcohol or coke addict slowly loses grip with who they are, they start acting erratically, they have fits of anger or depression, until there is a point when they just fall apart. This just doesn't happen with pot. Stoners plateau at their level of consumption and addiction and don't get any worse. Maybe they won't win the next award for exemplary achievement, but they don't become a complete wreck.

This is the public image of the stoner: that he is lazy. And that's pretty much the truth. A stoner has less motivation to do things. But they don't become the wreck that the alcoholic is. A stoner can be a parent and an employee and go about his business the rest of his life, whereas an alcoholic or coke addict's problem eventually catches up and it all comes crumbling down.

Of course, there are varying levels of alcoholism, and some are able to remain relatively functional for a longer time. We could start classifying, but for the sake of argument I'm using the extremes of both cases, the people who drink / smoke pot every day at least once, to showcase the difference between one and the other.

 

[russ_watters]

To medicate, for pain relief, help in relaxation and removal of anxiety, increase of appetite (to help with cachexia, anorexia, etc). There are many uses for it other then just getting "high".

All of those involve getting high.

 

[russ_watters]

This is the public image of the stoner: that he is lazy. And that's pretty much the truth. A stoner has less motivation to do things. But they don't become the wreck that the alcoholic is. A stoner can be a parent and an employee and go about his business the rest of his life...

I'd say an employer and a social worker would object to the idea that a lazy, unmotivated person would make a good employee and parent.

 

[russ_watters]

In other words, people who use cannabis regularly can function at 100% capacity when under the influence of their normal dose (which can be easily ten times smaller than Russ' "smoke a whole joint").

That doesn't make any sense - if "the influence" has no influence, why would people do it?

All I really see there is that the more you smoke, the higher your tolerance gets so the more you need to smoke to ge the same high. That shouldn't be much of a revalation.

In any case, that article isn't all that compelling - he doesn't cite any actual evidence for those claims you quoted, so it isn't any better than a post on a random internet forum.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

If the stoners you know always act like stoners and really are heavy smokers, then it's a cultural thing, or they're just immature people. Some of my friends are into the whole hippy thing so they act a certain way.

And anyone who smokes pot less than once a day will still act goofy when they are high. The kind of heavy pot smoker that I'm talking about smokes pot more than once a day.

The people I know don't act goofy stoned or sober (and there are a lot of them: my high school, even by Hamilton standards, is considered a stoner high school. We would smoke pot [or worse] during breaks outside in open daylight). And anyone who smokes more than once a day and acts like that is essentially acting, or it's a pot-culture thing.

I'm not dismissing the fact that alcoholics learn to hide their addiction. (And I do know alcoholics and addicts of all sorts; heck, my best friend just went to rehab last summer.) But the damage that is done once the drug catches up with them is much more significant than that of pot. You can see it happening, right before your eyes as an alcohol or coke addict slowly loses grip with who they are, they start acting erratically, they have fits of anger or depression, until there is a point when they just fall apart. This just doesn't happen with pot. Stoners plateau at their level of consumption and addiction and don't get any worse. Maybe they won't win the next award for exemplary achievement, but they don't become a complete wreck.

This is the public image of the stoner: that he is lazy. And that's pretty much the truth. A stoner has less motivation to do things. But they don't become the wreck that the alcoholic is. A stoner can be a parent and an employee and go about his business the rest of his life, whereas an alcoholic or coke addict's problem eventually catches up and it all comes crumbling down.

Of course, there are varying levels of alcoholism, and some are able to remain relatively functional for a longer time. We could start classifying, but for the sake of argument I'm using the extremes of both cases, the people who drink / smoke pot every day at least once, to showcase the difference between one and the other.

Yes, honestly, I have known people that smoked at least once a day unless they couldn't get their hands on any. My cousin claimed to not be able to sleep unless she smoked a bowl before bed. And all of the people I have known (with the one exception I mentioned) who smoked at least once a day had the hallmarks of a stoner. It wasn't an act, or a matter of stoner culture, they were just unable to not act this way unless they really tried. Have you heard of the hallmark 'stoner laugh'? The only people I could not determine were stoners were the ones who did not smoke all the time.

Alcoholics don't always become complete wrecks. It has more or less been determined that there is a genetic component to aloholism and that not all people are subject to the same extremes of alcoholism. A person can drink every day of their life and not suffer any greater side effects than the standard physical errosion that comes along with heavy drinking.

Cocaine, I agree, is certainly a different story.

 

[moe darklight]

All of those involve getting high.

Just like you can have one or two drinks to relax, you can have a few tokes and not get very stoned. Very low amounts of alcohol do significantly decrease mental functions and reflexes, yet few would argue that there's anything wrong with having a couple of drinks over the weekend if done responsibly. Why are drugs any different?

So the person smokes pot to get high. What I'm asking for is what makes "being high" intrinsically bad enough so as to prohibit people from doing so. Mountain climbing is much more dangerous than doing a hit of LSD if the necessary precautions are taken (having a sitter, etc.)-- so why should it be illegal? it's an activity like any other, and there are risks, but it's also possible to do it responsibly.

The question of addiction and drug use are related but not the same issue. Not all drug users are addicts. Nobody here would argue that addiction isn't bad, but that's not an issue that is resolved by putting people in jail and saying "drugs are bad" and that's that; it's an issue that is resolved through education, research, and honest discussions.

I'd say an employer and a social worker would object to the idea that a lazy, unmotivated person would make a good employee and parent.

I know many people who smoke pot and are wonderful parents and employees. As far as heavy smokers (again, there is a difference between an addict and a user), they may not aspire to much in life, but they still can make good responsible parents.

As far as alcoholics, however... from personal experience, at least, I can't think of any alcoholic who's problem hasn't seeped into his personal life in a way that hinders his ability to take care of his kids.

I wouldn't wish an alcoholic parent on anyone. My dad had one, and I've met others. My friend was telling me a couple of months ago about how she remembers pretending with her brother when they were kids that her mom was "acting funny" as a joke, so they could cope with her mom's alcoholic behavior, about how the dishes were on the sink for weeks and nothing was taken care of, or her fits of rage and depression. A stoner parent may not be optimal, but they will do what they have to do as a parent (unless, of course, they're just sh**ty parents).

... My cousin claimed to not be able to sleep unless she smoked a bowl before bed. ...

Insomnia is one of the withdrawals from pot. You start relying on the burnout to fall asleep.

As to the rest, of course there is no black or white, there are varying degrees of use and different people react differently to any drug.

 

[Civilized]

That doesn't make any sense - if "the influence" has no influence, why would people do it?

For them it is just harmless fun, it puts them in a good mood and it doesn't impair them. They do it because it's fun, relaxing, or whatever other things people say about recreation in general. The thing that Dr Andrew Weil is trying to educate us about in the article, is that these people are not being objectively impaired by cannabis, therefore they are having fun without getting "messed up."

All I really see there is that the more you smoke, the higher your tolerance gets so the more you need to smoke to ge the same high. That shouldn't be much of a revalation.

No, you haven't understood the point. As Dr Andrew Weil states, "Even while high they are not objectively impaired." Calling them "high" means that they are at their full desired dosage of the drug, and the 'revelation' is that even when they have ingested their desired and regular dosage, and achieved their desired effect of being stoned, that they are not objectively impaired. Therefore stoned does not imply impaired for a regular user, according to Dr Weil.

In any case, that article isn't all that compelling - he doesn't cite any actual evidence for those claims you quoted, so it isn't any better than a post on a random internet forum.

Dr Weil is this guy, from TV:

He has appeared on Oprah, Larry King live, etc, so say what you want about these TV doctor-personalities but he is one of the most famous so I think his statements carry a little more weight than a 'random internet post.' Also, the article is an excerpt from one of his published books about health, and so the reference is the strength of his reputation.

 

[binzing]

All of those involve getting high.

And your point is what exactly?

One hit vs. ten hits DOES result in a different level of high, with a different level of impairment.

If it works, use it! If its not for you, you don't have to.