Can we get a cite for that please?
And eating too many fatty foods damages your arteries. But we don’t lock people in prison for eating triple Whoppers (unless they do so while / after smoking pot).
Anyway, this is a hijack. The question is how addictive cannabis is. YMMV, but I’ve indulged in three drug related vices: nicotine, alcohol, and THC. Guess which is the only one I seem to not be able to kick?
(Hint: It’s legal and it damages your lungs as badly as marijuana ever will.)
Cite that pot smoke is incredibly bad for your lungs, for normal users? Any foreign matter in your lungs is not a good thing, but pot smoke has been proven to be far less damaging to your lungs than cigarette smoke- I don’t think there’s ever been a case of lung cancer in someone who smoked pot only, no tobacco. Granted pot smokers who smoke nothing else are farily rare- but there’s at least me and two other friends of mine who don’t. And granted if you smoke an ounce of pot a day that would be bad for your lungs no question, same as drinking 10 gallons of water a day is bad for you.
I long ago decided that the Drug Lords of the world must be behind the War on Drugs, must rub their hands with glee at every new, harsher drug law, every new campaign to eradicate drug use. If drugs were decriminalized there would be no profit in them and thus no impetus to create more addicts.
I also think that after so many decades of demonizing marijuana, of treating drug use as a criminal act, of viewing addiction to illegal drugs as proof of weakness and immorality, that nothing is likely to change for the better.
Which part are you requesting a cite for? The potential toxicity of acetaminophen?
People have died after consuming as little as 10 grams of acetaminophen (since they usually come in 500mg pills, that’s 20 pills). It’s especially bad if you drink alcohol regularly or with the pills. Even the recommended daily maximum of 4 grams can cause liver toxicity in some people, especially drinkers.
One of the bad things about acetaminophen poisoning is that the antidote is quite effective, but it must be administered within 8 hours or so. And symptoms of acute acetaminophen poisoning often don’t show up for 24 hours or more. Then there’s nothing to save you but a liver transplant.
Heck, I would say even opioid addiction is better for you than alcohol addiction, given certain caveats like not taking it via injection. I know a number of people who began methadone maintenance not to treat heroin/painkiller addiction, but to aid them in quitting drinking. They certainly ended up much healthier for it. … well, except the guy who killed himself, but that was unrelated.
Thanks for the help chorpler. Here’s a few more cites if you don’t trust wiki:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2001-03-26-acetaminophen.htm
http://chetday.com/tylenoldanger.htm
http://www.tylenoldanger.com/html/liver.html
This was one of the first things my doctor warned me about when putting me on Vicodin/Lortab/Norco, was that exceeding the dosage can result in liver failure, fairly quickly. It was also one of the reasons I was switched to oxycontin, so I’d get higher painkiller dosage with less APAP. remember, I didn’t say it’s ALWAYS fatal, but that it CAN be.
Probably the cite request was for the assertions that “opioid drugs are cut with acetaminophen” and that they can be “fatal with one extra does”. It’s true that commercial formulations of oxycodone and hydrocodone are sold with acetaminophen, ibuprofen and aspirin (cite) , ostensibly to help with fever and pain relief, but which also serves (intentionally or unintentionally) as a deterrent to abuse due to liver toxicity from overdose and in conjunction with alcohol (cite) . Street drugs could be cut with virtually anything, but there’s no reason to think acetaminophen is among those things due to its higher expense and toxicity. The latter statement about it being “fatal with even one extra dose” is arguably true of any medication depending on the individual’s health condition and body chemistry, but is not generally true of acetaminophen.
In general I agree with the statement that opioids themselves cause only minimal if any permanent damage. People could probably stay on maintenance with Vicodin or even heroin forever if not for the other adulterants and risks of needle use.
I used the word “cut” just because I didn’t know a better term. “mixed with” or whatever. People are rarely prescribed straight up hydrocodone. As for the fatality with one extra dose…it can happen. As little as 5 grams of APAP CAN BE fatal, particularly if taken in a short period of time. So, two 500 mg capsules of Tylenol taken 4 times a day is the absolute minimum. If you start popping tylenol every two hours, you can murder your liver.
After having my liver and heart checked, my doctor told me that because of my osteoarthritis and scoliosis, she really has no problem with me taking Norco (7.5 mgs Hydro, 325 mgs APAP) daily for the foreseeable future, provided I take less than 10 each day.
**Great Dave ** nailed it in another thread- to paraphrase- have you ever met a crack whore? Now, have you ever met a pot whore?
Essentially what you’re saying is taking one dose over the maximum dose is dangerous… which is kind of circular logic if you think about it. At any rate, this cite says 7-10 grams causes liver damage in a healthy adult (damage, not death). It also says that for certain individuals, particularly those who drink alcohol, the limit is as little as 4-6 grams per day. So as I said, it depends on that person’s health and body chemistry, but as a blanket statement it is inaccurate and sensationalist to say “one extra dose can be fatal”.
But that doesn’t mean that a person can’t be addicted to caffeine. It’s just that a caffiene addict can get their fix anywhere: Work, school, wherever. I work with a few guys who drink coffee all day long; they are surely addicted to caffeine, but it’s socially acceptable. Hence no need for rehab centers.
If they were alcoholics and drinking whiskey all day (or even once) they would lose their jobs.
I agree with most people in that marijuana is not THAT addictive because so very few users become addicts. On the flip side, there are a few smokers who can take cigarettes or leave them. That is also very rare. The usual person can take or leave pot, but will become addicted to nicotine. Saying that a person can NEVER be addicted to weed is part of the NORML nonsense that gets passed around…
Here’s the link to their library. Please cite where they say or write said “nonsense.”
Here’s betting you won’t be able to. You can, of course, retract your own false attribution.
That’s silly. Would they ever suck dick for a cup of coffee if the former were available while the latter were not? Of course not. It’s absurd to use addiction in that kind of casual sense; it completely dilutes the significance of the word.
As far as having ever met a pot whore? Ya, sure have, not common but, yeah i met a couple. Anyway anythings addictive, some things are more addictive than others, I used to have a friend in highschool who could not go one day without smoking and when he was broke he was the most strung out looking individual i have ever seen. Anyway as to the OP pot is probably on the low end of the addictive spectrum. On a side not i tried marijauna a grand total of 4 times, and seriously i don’t get whats so great about it. To me it SUCKED, there was nothing special about it and I felt about like I’d drank about 10 beers just less happy about it. But from what i’m told i’m the exception to the rule.
Just because you wouldn’t suck a dick for something doesn’t mean you aren’t addicted. It’s just a measure of the severity of your addiction, an an extremely absurd one.
If you would perform a homosexual act (that you wouldn’t otherwise perform) on a complete stranger for a score of X drug, then that signifies a very STRONG addiction to the particular substance.
Now, if you can scrounge up 78 cents, you can get your fix on caffeine. No need for dick sucking there, (unless anyone reading this will perform fellatio for 78 cents, then please use the PM function and note my username 
) so it has never been tested. Same way with booze; have a nice guy give you a 5 spot a you have a six pack which can make the afternoon tolerable. And weed is not that much more expensive than that because while illegal, it is still very widespread and mostly tolerated.
So if you really want or need these things, then it doesn’t reach the point of desperation where you need to do something totally out of character to get it. It doesn’t make it not an addiction because you don’t need to suck dick to get something sold in a convenience store (at least not the ones here)…