Had enough propaganda? Marijuana: no heart disease or lung cancer risk.

[DrBloodmoney]

Ah I love the smell of propaganda exploding in the morning. Doesn't it feel great to be lied to by the government.

American Journal of Cardiology

Marijuana use has been associated with increased appetite, high caloric diet, acute increase in blood pressure, and decreases in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglycerides. Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States, but its long-term effects on body mass index (BMI) and cardiovascular risk factors are unknown. Using 15 years of longitudinal data from 3,617 black and white young adults participating in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study, we assessed whether marijuana use was associated with caloric intake, BMI, and cardiovascular risk factors. Of the 3,617 participants, 1,365 (38%) reported ever using marijuana. Marijuana use was associated with male gender, tobacco smoking, and other illicit drug use. More extensive marijuana use was associated with a higher caloric intake (2,746 kcal/day in never users to 3,365 kcal/day in those who used marijuana for >/=1,800 days over 15 years) and alcohol intake (3.6 to 10.8 drinks/week), systolic blood pressure (112.7 to 116.5 mm Hg), and triglyceride levels (84 to 100 mg/dl or 0.95 to 1.13 mmol/L, all p values for trend <0.001), but not with higher BMI and lipid and glucose levels. In multivariate analysis, the associations between marijuana use and systolic blood pressure and triglycerides disappeared, having been mainly confounded by greater alcohol use in marijuana users. In conclusion, although marijuana use was not independently associated with cardiovascular risk factors, it was associated with other unhealthy behaviors, such as high caloric diet, tobacco smoking, and other illicit drug use, which all have long-term detrimental effects on health.

WebMD

May 23, 2006 -- People who smoke marijuana do not appear to be at increased risk for developing lung cancer, new research suggests.

While a clear increase in cancer risk was seen among cigarette smokers in the study, no such association was seen for regular cannabis users.

Even very heavy, long-term marijuana users who had smoked more than 22,000 joints over a lifetime seemed to have no greater risk than infrequent marijuana users or nonusers.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

1. Marijuana Is One Of The Most Amazing Displays Of Nature That Exists.

Long Live Marijuana!!!!!!!!

[nuxvomica]

2. So pot is a gateway drug for tobacco?

That's terrible.

[CountAllVotes]

3. I just found this site accidentally today!

check it out - really great info. here! :D

http://www.harmonikireland.com/index.php?topic=hemp

:kick:

[sgxnk]

4. decriminalization

i am (which is not as rare for a cop as one might think) 100% for decrim of pot

the medical evidence certainly doesn't support criminalization, and its dumb from a policyangle.

also, it suits my libertarian tendencies to be for decriminalization

don't get me wrong

i think it's lame

but lots of lame stuff shouldn't be prohibited by govt.

[CountAllVotes]

5. they should criminalize alcohol

a far more dangerous drug.

[DrBloodmoney]

6. Have to disagree with you

Since the 18th amendment was a total and complete failure like the War on Drugs.

People should be able to put whatever they want into their own bodies.

[CountAllVotes]

8. it is very dangerous

I cannot tell you of how many people I know that have died from alcoholism.

Like dozens ...

[sgxnk]

17. alcohol

alcohol if abused is dangerous

i never denied that for a second

doesn't mean the danger justifies banning it, nor would that be practical

the former (dangerousness) does not automatically justify the latter (banning it)

[sgxnk]

9. i am almost with you

i think mj should be decrim

alcohol should be legal

as for "hard drugs", i think that generally a harm reduction approach is best with stuff like heroin, etc. iow, throwing people in the clink for shooting up is wrong

otoh, i don't think it should be OTC and completely without legal consequence

i think imprisoning people who are addicts and harm nobody else is moronic

otoh, i think if somebody is gonna use heroin (or meth or whatever), they should NOT be allowed to have children (yea, call me authoritarian but that's where i draw the line. when addicts start plopping out kids it gets ugly)

but generally speaking, people should not be thrown in jail for using drugs, and if they want to sit in their living room, and smoke mj or whatEver i could not care less

and if they deal drugs to minors, they should be frigging locked up. period

[sgxnk]

7. i am way too libertarian to go for that

but i readily agree that alcohol is more dangerous than pot

that;'s a frigging given

anybody with ANY knowledge of medicine knows this

not to mention, marijuana rarely contributes to violent behavior

at worse it causes people to eat cheezy poofs and laff at cheech and chong movies, or talk really philoshophically about really dumb stuff

alcohol, otoh is much more likely to be associated with violence, and other sociopathological behavior

rarely am i wrestling belligerent stoners

alcoholics otoh...

and don't even get me started on spracked out meth-heads

[wildbilln864]

10. Corporations got rid of marijuana/hemp/canabis...

in order to profit from petroleum products. Of course the drug companies also support the ban on canabis as it would greatly cut into their profits too.
I don't think we'd be so dependant on foreign oil had we not made marijuana illegal.

http://www.rexresearch.com/hhist/hhist4~1.htm#vicitory

Legalizing canabis would re-invigorate our textile industries, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, improve our enviroment, and help to end the stranglehold of oil, gas, and drug companies on the American consumer.



www.jackherer.com

[mcscajun]

11. Protection of corporate profits was only one of the factors.

Organized religion, racism, greed, self-promotion, political corruption, the usual guilty parties, all had a hand in it. Harry J. Anslinger and William Randolph Heart have a lot to answer for in this case. (In Hearst's case, he's got his own private box in hell to atone for all the things he has to answer for, the sorry bastard.) There was also one big lie that sealed marijuana's fate.

Member from upstate New York: "Mr. Speaker, what is this bill about?"

Speaker Rayburn: "I don't know. It has something to do with a thing called marihuana. I think it's a narcotic of some kind."

"Mr. Speaker, does the American Medical Association support this bill?"

Member on the committee jumps up and says: "Their Doctor Wentworth came down here. They support this bill 100 percent."

It was Doctor Woodworth, not Wentworth, and he opposed the bill. On the basis of that lie, on August 2, 1937, marijuana became illegal at the federal level.

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html

[wildbilln864]

12. here is an interesting article if...

you have a Globe & Mail subscription.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v4/sub/MarketingPage?user_URL=http://www.theglobeandmail.com%2Fservlet%2Fstory%2FRTGAM.20051014.wxcanna1014%2FBNStory%2FspecialScienceandHealth%2F&ord=1155416328004&brand=theglobeandmail&force_login=true

Makes me wonder what other benefits there might be if proper research were allowed.

[wildbilln864]

13. and this...

also>

http://mojo.calyx.net/~olsen/HEMP/IHA/iha03101.html

[MADem]

14. You can see the article here without a subscription

http://safeaccessnow.org/article.php?id=2745

Study Turns Pot Wisdom on Head

by Dawn Walton, The Globe and Mail
October 14th, 2005




Forget the stereotype about dopey potheads. It seems marijuana could be good for your brain.

While other studies have shown that periodic use of marijuana can cause memory loss and impair learning and a host of other health problems down the road, new research suggests the drug could have some benefits when administered regularly in a highly potent form.

Most "drugs of abuse" such as alcohol, heroin, cocaine and nicotine suppress growth of new brain cells. However, researchers found that cannabinoids promoted generation of new neurons in rats' hippocampuses.

Hippocampuses are the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory, and the study held true for either plant-derived or the synthetic version of cannabinoids.

"This is quite a surprise," said Xia Zhang, an associate professor with the Neuropsychiatry Research Unit at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.

"Chronic use of marijuana may actually improve learning memory when the new neurons in the hippocampus can mature in two or three months," he added.

The research by Dr. Zhang and a team of international researchers is to be published in the November issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, but their findings are on-line now....

[sgxnk]

16. i think

marijuana should be decriminalized and hemp production perfectly legal

with that in mind, the marijuana/cannabis/hemp is the key to improving all these problems and is the key to reinvigorating our textile industries blah blah blah cheerleading is NORML inspired rubbish

it's politics, masquerading as economics

just cause i;m against the war and drugs, and for decrim'ing pot doesn't mean i buy the pot is the wonder herb rhetoric of those guys.

they are about as credible as PETA/PCRM are when they go into one of their anti-milk/anti-meat tirades

politics makes bad science

[Raydawg1234]

20. yeah, prohibition has worked well in the past

:sarcasm:

[annabanana]

15. I hope it's at least decriminalized before I die....

I'd like to get high once more for old times sake...

[personman]

22. Why let that stop you?

Practice some civil disobedience. You could even consider it your patriotic duty to disobey these unjust laws. (Or it's a reasonably good excuse anyhow. :P )

Edit: Or the fascists win!

[leesa]

18. They keep running the same studies over and over again and they

keep coming up with marijuana being a nearly harmless substance. THAT makes it a damned dangerous drug.

[Gregorian]

19. Don't forget the cannibis receptors.

I had this old old argument again with someone yesterday. It's like they aren't happy about something, and they want US to live by THEIR rules. Well, that sounds like a republican if I've ever seen one. But this person is quite liberal. Just older.


And then our argument escallated to, well nicotine kills half a million each year, and cannibis has never killed yet. So... what gives?



I had my share. I stopped. But I may start again some day. Right now I'm being athletic, and want to clear out my system. But I smoked a lot for 35 years. So explain how a 45 year old man could come in third place in a mountain biking race after all of those years of smoking buds. Bla, bla, bla. It's all an argument I don't pay much attention to now days. However, it's not an insignificant one, since a society that uses cannibis is much more likely to be healthy in many ways. Much unlike the one we live in today.

[DrBloodmoney]

21. Well said...

I think there'd be a lot less violence and a lot less alcohol-related crime.