It does no such thing–why on earth do you keep insisting that it does? If, in order to prove that a phrase is misleading, you have to interpret it in a fashion differently from how most folks interpret it, then the problem is with you, not with the phrase.
Daniel
There’s a fine line between “stoners with permanent psychosis” and “people who got permanent psychosis by smoking doobies”, and that line is causality. It’s long been known that there are very strong correlations between drug use and many mental disorders from schizophrenia to ADD to depression. It’s easy to make “lots of drug users are insane” sound like “if you take drugs, you’ll go insane”, and that is in fact the line of BS we’re often fed by our society–but as far as any study I’ve read can show, the link is not a causal one. That is to say, lots of crazy people smoke drugs, and lots of drug-smokers are crazy, but neither necessarily causes the other (although I would make an unscientific guess that mental illness is probably one of several root causes of the desire to take drugs in many, many cases).
It’s haunting to see prepubescent stoners with permanent psychoses, yes, but what matters is the causality, and that’s pretty tough to pinpoint.
In my senior year in high school I did a random survey of a hundred students at my school (1/4 of the entire school, so a pretty decent sampling size if you ask me) and IIRC 73 of them had used marijuana. Current use was very high, at least 35 percent IIRC (I’m a lot clearer on the 73% figure). This was an above-average high school, where of the three classes that have so far graduated only a small handful of students weren’t immediately accepted into at least one two- or four-year college. Almost every one went to college, and (this is the unscientific part) I’ve kept in touch with a good number of them–many of whom were my research subjects–and they’re almost universally doing well regardless of drug use. Yeah, a couple are lifeless losers, but in the examples I can call to mind that’s pretty clearly caused by their personality and exacerbated by (or unrelated to) their drug abuse, not the other way around.
Please interpret the word “drugs” and its various forms in my previous post to mean “cannabis”. Whoops!
Because that’s what inherently a.k.a. inseparably means. When Cecil claims that cannabis is not inherently carcinogenic, he means that other variables related to its consumption can be tweaked, like method, so that there’s no increased risk of cancer, whereas the same doesn’t seemingly apply to tobacco. Except that it does.
That’s not at all what it means. You’re creating a problem where none exists.
Daniel
You should elaborate on what the two statements below, mean
1)tobacco is inherently carcinogenic
2)cannabis is not inherently carcinogenic
Inherent is not inseparable. The two words have different meanings; that’s why we have two different words. Duh.
You are arguing against a straw man. You can continue it if you wish; the others have all seen it for what it is. Continuing to debate the point with you would simply be feeding a …
When my brother was in the Air Force (68-73) I was aware that he was smoking pot constantly. After 4 years in the Air Force on a beach in Florida, he never seemed to function normally. He was listless, apathetic etc. Out of desperation, he went back into the military in 1975. He got out in 1980. He couldn’t seem to function normally. He is dead now. He had lived with my mother for years and stopped working. I talked to a doctor who treats drug addicts and he says he believed my brother was brain damaged after several years of smoking marijuana. He said that it is a dangerous drug!
My daddy George also told me it was bad to drink because his brother, an alcoholic, went braindead.
And his other brother, a chocolate addict, weighed 500 pounds and died of obesity.
His other brother, a sex addict, died of syphilis.
His other brother, a cocaine addict, died of a heart attack.
His other brother, a musician, went deaf and died because he couldn’t hear a car coming at him driven by a drunk driver.
Etc. etc. Everything can kill anyone, and everything’s dangerous. I’m sorry to hear about your brother, but millions of Americans have smoked metric buttloads of pot throughout their lives–millions still do, in fact–and lead productive lives as everything from engineers to CEOs to artists. I’m willing to bet at least one of your favorite musicians is or was a pothead. Are there A LOT of slow-brained potheads out there? Yup. But I’ll wager there are as many dangerously obese people and alcoholics–that doesn’t mean that food and alcohol are dangerous, it means overdoing things is dangerous.
My daddy George also told me it was bad to drink because his brother, an alcoholic, went braindead.
And his other brother, a chocolate addict, weighed 500 pounds and died of obesity related causes.
His other brother, a sex addict, died of syphilis.
His other brother, a cocaine addict, died of a heart attack.
His other brother, a musician, went deaf and died because he couldn’t hear a car coming at him driven by a drunk driver.
Etc. etc. Everything can kill anyone, and everything’s dangerous. I’m sorry to hear about your brother, but millions of Americans have smoked metric buttloads of pot throughout their lives–millions still do, in fact–and lead productive lives as everything from engineers to CEOs to artists. I’m willing to bet at least one of your favorite musicians is or was a pothead. Are there A LOT of slow-brained potheads out there? Yup. But I’ll wager there are as many dangerously obese people and alcoholics–that doesn’t mean that food and alcohol are dangerous, it means overdoing things is dangerous.
Spoken like a true Pot lover! I myself being a child of the sixties admits that I smoked it maybe 3 or 4 times (the first time my brother gave it to me)! I never liked it. I would almost hallucinate when I tried it. This drug is not harmless. And I didn’t say that if you smoked it a few times a year, that it would damage your brain. And I don’t believe that college professors and doctors were pot heads and they are TOTALLY NORMAL! Don’t buy it! Sorry!
Spoken like a true Pot lover! I myself being a child of the sixties admits that I smoked it maybe 3 or 4 times (the first time my brother gave it to me)! I never liked it. I would almost hallucinate when I tried it. This drug is not harmless. And I didn’t say that if you smoked it a few times a year, that it would damage your brain. And I don’t believe that college professors and doctors were pot heads and they are TOTALLY NORMAL! Don’t buy it! Sorry!
I don’t smoke (pot or anything else), and I think you’re exaggerating the harm of it. Have you looked at the actual citations given? I’m also sorry for your brother, but I don’t believe his case is anything close to normal. The potsmokers i’ve known have ranged from do-nothings who “wake and bake” to workaholics who smoke occasionally after work to unwind. There’s a whole range of usage.
Daniel
How scientific of you. Based on one observation of a single individual, you’ve eschewed logical debate in favor of the fear- and value-laden (and safe) traditional majority position. Why don’t you “buy” that college professors and doctors who have been potheads in the past can’t be “TOTALLY NORMAL” now? Because of one man who supposedly died of weed? I feel a great deal of sorrow for you and what you’ve gone through seeing your brother pass on, but his case has no bearing on the undeniable fact that the Baby Boomer generation:
(1) Smoked more pot than any other American generation before them in recorded history when they were young
(2) Still smoke tons of pot, evidenced by the growing average age of marijuana users
(3) Nonetheless produced a generation of hard-working, “TOTALLY NORMAL” people, not only professors and doctors but also engineers, police officers, artists, writers, musicians, politicians, soldiers, firefighters, nurses, etc. etc.