I think I’d rather die than take any mind-altering chemicals.
Though I’m OK if something just makes me sleepy. I like sleep. (Must control urge to keel over at workstation…)
I would assume that includes coffee then, since caffeine is considered a mind altering substance.
gatopescado, I know several family friends who smoked marijuana to alleviate the side-effects of chemo. These were older, law-abiding people in their 50s and 60s. They weren’t stoners. They didn’t want to break the law. But marijuana helped their symptoms in a way that legal drugs did not.
I don’t smoke up. I have never smoked up, and I doubt I would even if it was legal. But I’m all for legalization, for the medical reasons I just mentioned and because I honestly can’t see pot as a major societal threat. The argument that only stoners want marijuana legalized just isn’t true.
What does Dr. Bronner dying have to do with anything? It says that on every bottle of Bronner’s. Quote:
“Dr. Bronner passed away peacefully on March 7th of 1997. The business continues to be run by the Bronner family with no break in continuity.”
So what? Also, I’d like a cite on how recent and cynical the addition of hemp is to Bronner’s soap.
Again, I’m not using the multiple uses of hemp as a smokescreen. I readily admit to loving the effects of smoking marijuana, but that does not take away from the fact that the plant has very real and important uses besides the smoking of it for casual purposes.
colin
Are there any countries in the world today that have legalized it? Unless memory fails (which it often does) the stuff has been legal in Amsterdam for several years. That looks like a great place to go farming for viable real-world statistics.
On a side note, I’ve actually been to Amsterdam, although it was 11 years ago. The people were very friendly and open (no crazy addicts running through the streets).
I visited Amsterdam as late as 2 weeks ago. The atmosphere in a coffee shop is just so much different than in a normal bar, people generally are extremely friendly.
Think about it - who wants to be rude or start a fight or something like that when you can just relax, laugh a little and eat till you’re near bursting limit 
I’ve never yet met an unfriendly cannabis smoker, they are usually very easy going and very social - nothing is better than lighting up with a few good friends and just enjoy life.
I’m sure like every other substance there are abusers, but we’re also alot of people who just wanna have a good time without hurting anybody.
Btw. I live in Denmark, where cannabis isn’t legal - however posession of it for personal usage is usually ignored and in Christiania (http://www.christiania.org) it is sold openly from little shops - the police raid it once in a while and some of the older politicians bitch about it when they feel the need, but I doubt it’ll ever be stopped.
Well…sort of–but not really. Technically cannabis is still illegal in the Netherlands. They signed the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, which forces them to keep marijuana illegal. However, in practice they have a policy of “toleration” towards cannabis, so small amounts for personal use are generally not arrestable offenses.
This Dutch experiment does provide an interesting real world example of the effects of legalization. It’s by no means an Eden–they still have crime and addiction. But their attitude towards human nature seems much more healthy. They’ve realized that illegal or not, people are going to use drugs. So instead of criminalizing human nature–causing many more problems than it solves, they accept it, and try to minimize the risks associated with this behavior. A much more sane policy in my opinion.
In Canada, it’s legal for medical use, if you get a license from the federal government.
gatopescado, the linked page lists some conditions for which it is deemed to help:
As I read these arguements, the AYES have it…SMOKE UP EVERYBODY! The NAY responses seem forced to me. They haven’t made a case for not allowing people to feel better. And if some one who isn’t sick feels better after doing it…so what? There are many reasons that it is “against the law”, none of them concern peoples’ health. To have the nerve to call it a Health & Safety issue is ludicrous at best. It is and always was an economic issue from day 1! Don’t feel better buy puffing a natural plant substance…buy some Prozac or a myriad of other proccesed drugs that they advertise on T.V. all day long. UNBELIEVABLE! They say “ask your doctor about our drug and if it’s good for you”…I like to think that if there’s a drug that will help me with a problrm, my doctor won’t have to be asked about it! Not to mention the long list of side effects they gloss over at the end of the commercial. Oh, by the way, the U.S. study from 1975 on Jamaican smokers proved no increase in lung or any other cancers. And remember, they smoke it by the pound down there…and back then they often would use newspaper to roll it in, with ink and all! Rest assured that if there was even a hint that it was harmful, Nixon’s investigators would have been all over that fact.
There is one point that I wonder about. When I used to partake of the wicked weed, I used a pipe, unfiltered and frequently had to clean goop out of the stem where resin clogged it up. A real stoner that I knew at the time had developed a smokers cough, though I don’t think he smoked tobacco.
Pot, I concluded, leaves behind more resin than tobacco, but no one has done the research to determine if this resin would be or is as harmful or close to being as harmful as tobacco resin.
If they ever do legalize pot, I would think that a newer version would have to be developed to leave less resin behind or filters put on the pot cigarettes. All of that goop going into the smokers lungs cannot be good. No doubt that shortly after being made legal, they would discover that it causes cancer and stuff also, then TRUTH would start making moronic commercials about smoking it, and the fanatics would arise like they have over tobacco. Soon there would be pot free zones and the growers would be prevented, like the tobacco companies, from developing a safer smoke and they would try to stamp it out, starting in the USA, of course.
Solutions to this problem already exist, and can be found at your local “tobacco supply” store, or constructed with a few bucks’ worth of hardware store parts:
-
Water pipes (aka “bongs”) filter the smoke through one or more chambers of water before it enters the smoker’s lungs. The idea is that harmful chemicals and burnt plant matter are soluble in water, but THC is not.
-
Vaporizers (aka “tilt pipes”?) use a heating element which gets hot enough to release THC from the marijuana, but not hot enough to actually burn it and release smoke.
-
There are also a few methods of extracting THC from marijuana before smoking it in a regular pipe (or eating it), based on the idea that THC is soluble in oils and alcohols but not water.
[hijack] You can make better cloth out of nettles than you can out of hemp. Nettlecloth is comparable to linen in texture and quality. One can also make pineapple-fibre “silk”, although it’s not cost-effective. [end hijack]
From the Health Canada website.
Nettles to replace hemp? Hemp grows to 15 feet or more in 6 months. How many dozen acres of nettles would it take to equal the same production? A study at Washington State University claims that not only would it be cheaper to build houses, but also that hemp is STRONGER THAN WOOD PRODUCTS! It takes 80 years to grow trees that are viable for lumber compared to 6 months for hemp, which would be stronger anyway!
As for 1 joint being worse for you than 1 cigarette, let me point out that an average daily user (not everyone uses it daily) might smoke 3 joints in a day, where an average cigarette smoker might smoke 30…or more! Every day!
Besides, if we’re to ban everything that is not 100% healthy we must really be more concerned with stopping the prolification of fast food drive-thru cholesterol time bomb burgers. Are THEY considered acceptable for pregnant women? Do you want fries with that?
Quantity does not equal quality, furthermore, Hemp is a bitch to harvest.
As noted before, hemp is not versatile as a cloth product. Strong, yes, but not versatile.
Some claim that with effort and extra added produciton costs, hemp can make a good fiber/particle board. Trouble is, the world is not lacking in the materials used in such materials. Solid hardwoods are not replaceable by fiber material.
Or, as Cecil says: “trust me, there’s no subsitution for a good 2x4”.
The 80 years figure is quite bogus for the majority of wood materials.
Dr Bronner was a crazy old man who made a product and rarely changed it. It was a good product and he rarely tampered with it. He had his beleiefs and didn’t care if you didn’t beleive in them. Ergo, you liked his soap, or you didn’t. His soap, however, was carried mostly by tow retailers: Beauty/Cosmetic stores, or herbal/naturopath stores (note, sometimes these two mix).
The point is, the product hardly changed for years.
Then the good Dr. dies.
Hemp is then added to the “Pure Castille soap” . A formula unchanged for many, many years.
Why?
It was added in 1999 or 2000. You may confirm the exact date if you wish. The point is: why was it added at all? The good doctor ran his company for years and the new owner is simply cashing in by adding stuff that does liitle good, but looks good on the bottle for people who go gaga over anything with the word “hemp” in it.
Do the bottles still say “No impurities! None!”
I do not consider the uses of hemp to be that important. Ergo, the vast overpromotion of its qualities is a smokescreen to me. If you want to extoll the very real vitues of MJ as a medicine, be my guest, you have every right.
I was going to make what I felt was a most excellent a point on the harmful effects of weed on short term memory…but I forgot what it was!
Oh well, best go light another one.
Drugs are baaad, h’mmmkay?
Here you’ve got the pro-legalization arguments:
[ul][li]Medicinal effects: painkiller, anti-nausea, muscle relaxer, anti inflamatory, appetite increaser, sleep aid.[/li][li]Use of the entire Hemp plant for: specialty papers, hempseed oil, rope, ingredient in health care products, possibly building materials.[/li][li]Recreational Use: Non-aggressive users, no overdoses, no vomiting or nausea, no hangovers, knowing your limit when you come to it, as opposed to discovering ‘you’ve had too much to drink’.[/li][li]Burden on the taxpayer: Otherwise law-abiding people rotting in jails and learning how to become true criminals from the experts. The cost of paying the court appointed attorneys to represent them in the first place. Enforcement taking attention away from other areas.[/ul] [/li]And the arguments for keeping it illegal:
[ul][li]DUI[/li][li]Short term memory loss and possibility of addiction or lung cancer[/li][li]Don’t need another thing for people to be under the influence of.[/li][li]Making it easier for the adults to get their hands on also makes it easier for the kids to get their hands on.[/li][li]Possible gateway drug[/li][li]Anyone who wants to legalize must have smoked it at sometime and is therefore less credible.[/ul] [/li]Personally, I have used it medicinally for very bad menstrual cramps, as a sleep aid, and for when I had a particularly awful stomach virus when I couldn’t even keep water down. I have also used it recreationally and prefer it to using alcohol. You smoke as much as you are comfortable with, and that’s it. It’s so much easier to control than alcohol. No throwing up, no hangover, no nausea. If you want me to get personal, I don’t like alcohol that much at all because I’ve seen the effect it has had on members of my family, namely years and years of picking non-fist fights, arguments, stress etc.
I can’t believe with all the things I’ve learned, I am finally am knowledgeable enough about something to argue in a Great Debates thread and its about weed of all things. :rolleyes:
The crappy paper you get from hemp is considered “Specialty”?
First of all, it should be stated that I’m a recreational user, but absolutely not an abuser. At most I smoke a bowl a week - but it’s been two months since my last bowl.
Back to the point. No one’s addressed Marijuana as a gateway drug. If there is any evidence to back up that point, I can give an easy explanation: when you start smoking pot, you have to become affiliated with a drug dealer. Now, I had NEVER done anything illegal till within this past year - and that includes underage drinking (as I’m only 19). I never imagined I’d try pot, but my ex-bf got me to and I’m eternally grateful. After we broke up I had to get my supply on my own, and that’s when DRUG DEALERS come into the picture - and they’re bad news.
As for driving: I was in the car many times with my ex when he was driving stoned and I was sober. He drives much better stoned. I, personally, haven’t had the guts to drive under any sort of influence, but it’s a fact that SOME people DO drive better stoned - though I will attest that some aren’t so lucky.
I also want to bring up the environmental idea. Recently, Bush passed another billion dollar subsidies plan for farmers. Now, even if hemp is difficult to harvest - at least farmers won’t grow food just so we can pay them to burn it! Farmers don’t make money growing trees!
I’ll conclude with a quote from the late-great Bill Hicks: “Pot is a better drug [than alcohol] and a better drug for you, and I’ll tell you why: If you’re at a ballgame and there are a couple fans getting rowdy, are they drunk or are they smoking pot? [pause as the audience screams “DRUNK”] …We all know the truth!”