I’m going from memory here, my source being Eric Schlosser’s “Reefer Madness”… the long-term (HEALTH) effects of heavy pot users over a long period of time was…
…being slightly more likely to have chronic bronchitis.
Please note, again, I’m talking about HEALTH effects.
Now, being that marijauna is illegal, there is also the likelyhood of being damaged by something that it may be laced with. If the crap were legal, this wouldn’t be an issue.
Is playing football harmless? How about video games? Riding a bike? Eating steak?
Nothing is absolutely “harmless”. No matter what you do, there’s a risk you’ll be worse off for it, because you got injured or because you should have spent your time doing something else. Marijuana, however, is far less likely overall to cause harm than nearly any other drug (including alcohol and tobacco).
More to the point of this thread, there isn’t a single shred of evidence to suggest that marijuana users are more likely than average people to abandon a toddler near a swimming pool - let alone more likely than users of legal, addictive drugs like alcohol and tobacco, or people who talk on the phone a lot, or people with indigestion.
The intended message of the commercial isn’t just “pot has risks”, it’s “pot will make a babysitter abandon your child.” And that’s bullshit, no question about it.
The depression comes after the high. Like HeartofGold said it burns out the serotonin levels in the brain and actually causes clinical depression with repeated use.
Sorry, I guess when she said “people on esctasy” I thought she meant, well, people on esctasy. As in, under the influence of.
Emacularius: Truthfully, I don’t think it will affect addicted (I’m talking about drugs in general, not marijuana) persons. But, it could affect someone close to that person who has some influence over him/her. Such as a girl/boy friend, parent, uncle, aunt, whatever. If one person is concerned, it may go a long way to convince the user that the habit is not risk free.
I see what you are saying about increasing paranoia. But, I also see a similar affect on the news every day about a range of topics: murder, theft, rape, “terrorism,” etc. Don’t like it, change the channel. George Carlin at his finest. I find it easier to just endure it.
The economic reasons seem fine examples of why pot should be legal. Still won’t happen, though.
Miller: You want me to cite that drugs can be harmful? Fine.
on cocaine:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/htdocs/prod/PTOInfo/pto_term_cocaine.asp
on heroin:
http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofax/heroin.html
on ecstasy:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/health/HealthRepublish_355025.htm
on pcp:
http://www.rhodium.ws/chemistry/pcp/effects.html
miscellaneous:
http://www.heartcenteronline.com/myheartdr/common/articles.cfm?ARTID=352
http://www.parliament.uk/post/9604.htm
http://www.chw.org/display/PPF/DocID/2457/router.asp
I didn’t look for pot, because I buy that it really isn’t that harmful. You want a low sperm count, that’s fine by me. You want to drive 30 in a 65, ok, this kind of annoys me. Not saying that I think it is smart in the least.
This is only opinion and interpretation, so I’m just going to disagree. Ultra-reactionaries might make the pot=dead baby connection, but I don’t think the general public will/does.
They could have pictured 3 friends sitting under a rail road bridge watching the train pass overhead and one falling six feet to the shallow water below because he fell asleep (true story) and carried the same message (albeit, without the fervor): be careful.
And I forgot to mention, public campaign funds are voluntary, HeartofGold, your tax money does not fund them unless you choose to do so on your tax returns.
from the FEC website:
bolding mine.
I was using “people on esctasy” to mean “people on esctasy,” lezlers.
Now to the HeartOfThisPost:
HeartOfGold is not a she. I realize it is kind of a girly thing to use at a handle. Reference to Douglas Adams. I assure you, though, I am quite male.
That’s nice.
For the record though, esctasy isn’t really a drug that people use on a daily basis, so people aren’t really on it, like they’d be on crack or herion, or even the evil weed.
Saying “people on esctasy” the way you meant it, is as silly as saying “people on acid.”
It’s just not that kind of drug.
This goes back to what I said previously… responsible people are already doing this (influence)…and only the folks that are responsible are going to respond. Hence, no need for shitty commercials.
Here’s a question for you… as a 17 year old. Judging from your posts you seem like a decent enough person. From this I’m going to deduce that your parents are decent & responsible. Do you think your folks need those commercials telling them to “talk to your kids about smoking, drugs, etc”?
I’m sure you run into people who don’t have decent responsible parents every day you go to school. Do you think their parents are responding to these ads? Because if you do, you’ve got a thing or two to learn about human nature.
Uhm… hello… I don’t want to just change the channel. I want this crap stopped. It’s unnecessary.
Oh boy. Ok by “people on esctasy” i meant an esctasy user. After the high had worn off. I was unaware of how esctasy is commonly used. The depression effect is still the same, even if not used in the Evil Weed fashion.
I didn’t know about the voluntary funds thing. Good to know. I still hate those posters. I was trying (unsuccessfully, as it turns out) to make the point that tax monies are largely out of our control: voting (combined with interest groups and lobbying) being the only leash citizens have on governmental spending.
I’m done for the night. Maybe in the morning I’ll have some flames or something to look forward to.
Thinking about this, I don’t know if I answered Miller’s uninformed comment. If you weren’t talking about drugs being possibly harmful, then it just went by me. I’ll be happy to explain further if you wish.
My best friend Binky (obviously not her real name) used to have a pretty regular pot habit. I didn’t have a problem with it, though I didn’t partake of it myself (or alcohol either). One night she had some pot brownies and a couple of beers. She ended up in the emergency room, spewing like a fire hose. Since then, she’s sworn off pot, if not alcohol.
Take from that story what you will, but I have to tell you, that night scared me. And I can’t fully believe that pot is less harmful than cigarettes or alcohol.
I’m still in shock that the government payola scandal passed under the public radar. Essentially, the government and Tv networks were caught smuggling in heavyhanded anti-drug messages into sitcom and drama plots… without, as required by broadcast law, noting that this was going on in the credits or public information on the broadcasts. Using your tax dollars to pay the networks to script in their message, and threatening to take the money away if the message wasn’t what they wanted. Shameless stuff, yet few people ever got to hear about it.
I hope every thinking citizen at the very least is willing to consider the idea that there’s something very fucked up about a government who’s job is to react to what we think about issues, that then turns around and uses our own money to tell us what to think about those issues! In several of the states voting on the issue of medicinal usage, people’s own tax dollars were being used to campaign, exclusively, for one side of an issue being put up for a vote by the populace. That’s really no different than the government giving tax money to fund one candidate in an election and not the other. Fucked up in the extreme.
This just in: pot protects you AGAINST brain damage.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,61239,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4
(exaggeration of course, but sort of funny)
What makes her think that it was pot, not booze, that was the primary problem? When you drink too much booze, you obviously puke very easily and at times violently, and being high makes you far more prone to upchuck because of the wooziness. Or it could have been food poisoning. The strange thing in many of these sorts of cases I hear about, not that it’s true in this case for all I know, is that when there’sa mix of factors for illness, people immediately gravitate to the most “exotic” or illegal component, instead of the most obvious.
She thinks it was the pot because she’d only had two beers. She’s had more than that on many an occasion, with vastly different results. Two beers was not enough to make her vomit, especially that much. I asked her when it happened if it was food poisoning, as that thought had crossed my mind as well. She told me the ER doctor had ruled that out. Admittedly, this is second-hand information, but I have no reason to doubt her.
My parents aren’t the kind of people I’d call “decent and responsible.” Quite the opposite actually. But, the one thing that I have appreciated in my up bringing is the extreme amounts of freedom I have been given. The values that I have, I, myself, have cultivated. My parents are the kind that expect their kids to go out and drink and smoke. They have been right about that, except for me. I’ve never had any kind of sex/drug talk with my parents. If I don’t come home smelling like smoke (the smell is what they’d frown on), I’d have no problems doing just about anything.
This is the part I find so ironic. Many of the better off families are the ones that seem to have the drug/alcohol/sex issues with their kids. I chalk it up to teen rebellion and suppression. By suppression I mean—I don’t mean this to be harsh—typically very religious families choosing what experiences their children will have.
As far as parents go, for the most part, these commercials will either preach to the choir or to the deaf. This isn’t the case 100% of the time, but it won’t provide too much of a significant affect. From my own dysfunctional family and from my sphere of friends, I draw the conclusion that parents are sometimes least effectual in the parenting efforts: friends, distant relatives, and casual adult acquaintances often play a more monumental role in forming social values than the parents.
The reason for this, I suppose, is this: friends don’t worry about offending other friends, they are candid with one another; aunts and uncles are still the worrying type, but are distant enough to often take a risk; teachers, youth leaders, social workers, and the like often witness to the pressures that kids endure and can use charisma effectively to persuade an adolescent.
Parents, however, have a much more complex relationship than mere acquaintances. I suspect that parents avoid confronting kids because a) they really don’t care, or b) because they don’t want to make the parent-teen relationship any more awkward than it already is.
The first example of this that I can think of is a guy I ran cross country with last year. He’s two years older than myself, has a similar family situation, smokes/drinks regularly. We’re at a friends house, friend hands my running mate a beer. This was the night before a big meet. I just look at him, don’t say a word. He immediately puts the beer back in the fridge, doesn’t touch anything more that night. All it took was a look, not even a condescending look, a straight face. Peers (and siblings) have tremendous amounts of leverage with one another. I did my part to stop underage drinking without saying a word. Later that night we did, however, get in a roman candle fight. Not smart, I know. They don’t hurt though. And no one was drunk.
I mention siblings because of emacularius’s age. I have two brothers: 25 and 30. Both right around your age. I idolize them in most respects. I don’t think it is solely based on relation: people of your age group have a large amount of influence on my age group. Mainly, I think this is because we don’t see you as old, but you are more mature than us (unlike, say, the average frat boy college student). This ageless experience can allow you to have an impact in a life if you take advantage of it.
This was long and I didn’t intend it to be.
Trust me, it’s not half as disturbing as explaining to someone that they need to bring their dog to the emergency clinic right now and hearing, “But I’m too stoned to drive.”
Marijuana ingestions not nearly so common as antifreeze, or chocolate, or rat poison, but we do see a few cases a year, especially during the winter.
Then what message, MAY I ask, was the commercial trying to send?
Um HoG I think you’re missing a very big point here, these commercials were aimed at marijuana, not the harder drugs.
Then you’re part of the problem, pal. Fearmongering is bad and not something to encourage. Yes, there’s fearmongering on the news all the time - that doesn’t mean a little more is OK, it means the problem is bad enough already that we don’t need anymore!
Marijuana’s effect on fertility is minor and temporary. Studies have shown that marijuana smokers are often more careful drivers than sober people; the effect of pot on driving is certainly nothing like the effect of alcohol.
Then why is the commercial about pot and a dead baby? Why does it say “just tell her parents you weren’t watching her because you were getting stoned”? Why would they juxtapose dead babies and pot if they weren’t trying to make that connection?
Yes, they could have shown that, but they didn’t. That leads me to think the pot and the drowning child were vital to the message they wanted to convey.
Maybe you should become aware of these things before you start preaching about them. People don’t take ecstasy every day because the drug doesn’t work that way. You can’t get high on it every day, precisely because of the “depression effect” (serotonin depletion).
Wow, what an upstanding citizen you are. You stopped your friend from having a beer (which would’ve been perfectly legal in most of the world, BTW), and instead you shot fireworks at each other. Your priorities are way off.
I tried. Probably spent 3 months straight on acid. The tolerance issue is accurate…you simply cannot trip as well the day after.
But damn if I didn’t try.