7 ms·

One of the biggest issues with marijuana in this country is the lack of research behind it. Here in Michigan where over 60% of the people voted for medical mari

One of the biggest issues with marijuana in this country is the lack of research behind it. Here in Michigan where over 60% of the people voted for medical marijuana, they just outlawed medibles. Meaning no pot brownies for patients. Which makes no sense when applying medical marijuana. Caregivers and patients are outraged because they feel like they know more than the judges or politician do, and I have to agree. On another more general note about marijuana, I think most peoples perception of the drug is that out of a hollywood movie. In my own experience you can use marijuana to lose weight, as opposed to inducing the munchies, but generally people don't know that or expect it. Medical marijuana is legal in more states than gay marriage and growing in all 50+ Canada and Mexico. I am so tired of the US lagging behind the rest of the world and not listening to the people. Marijuana is safer than alcohol, and its time we treated it that way -quote from pulled commercial that was going to play of Nascar event.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H8Cz9woC2A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H8Cz9woC2A Edit-- Additionally, here in Michigan we have real doctors that refuse to sign marijuana recommendation forms for fear of their contracts with hospitals and insurance agencies. Meanwhile we have doctors from states close and far recommending patients come to medical states to get marijuana. This leads to dingy doctors signing medical forms for patients they have little interaction with, which makes the law seem abused.

tptacek 13y ago
It seems clearly safer in some respects, and I agree with you on the policy implications, but I think the apples-oranges safety comparison that gets made between MJ and (alcohol, tobacco) is misleading and a little dangerous. MJ is not purely benign. There's some evidence that it reacts very badly with a small subset of the population. That's obviously true of alcohol too, and if you want to argue that it's "as safe as alcohol" I'll concede the point (while retaining my nerdy irkedness over the imprecision of the statement).
- ahoy 13y ago
  Food coloring also reacts very badly with a small subset of the population, but we aren't banning M&M's
  - tptacek 13y ago
    Who said we should ban M&Ms?
    - graymark 13y ago
      Why you of course! "...we should ban M&Ms" -tptacek
    - Hinrik 13y ago
      In the past it has been banned in quite a few countries (including my own) due to concerns over the food coloring agents used.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    The blue ones were banned for a while, but that was because they give you super-powers. edit: Sorry, it was the red ones that were "banned" for a short time. The public was frightened of red dye, even though according to Mars, they did not use the red dye that was suspect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M&M's#Color_changes_summarized_in_bar_graph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M&M's#Color_changes_summarized...
  - madaxe 13y ago
    HFCS reacts badly with the majority of the population, inducing adiposis. So does MSG. Don't forget about the pesticides you chow down on with every meal, or the chloride in your water, or the phthalates in your soda, or the BPA in your nalgene, or... The US is terrible for substance safety. Dire. Awful. Hell, on the note of colouring, you still use bloody anthracine red, which has been banned for decades in the rest of the planet, as its carcinogenic.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      MSG reacts badly with the majority of the population? Source?
      - tptacek 13y ago
- angersock 13y ago
  I'll go one further--it's clearly safer (in all respects) than either alcohol or tobacco. My only fear with legalization is that it will get pulled from the grassroots production into industrial methods, and that in turn will lower its safety (as was the case, for example, with cigarettes and the additives in the paper for them).
  - timtadh 13y ago
    The biggest safety problem with MJ is (as the original article hinted) the tendency in some people (especially teenagers) to increase the probability of them developing psychosis. This is why it is so apples to oranges. Yes, there are carcinogenic problems as well but the main problem is the increased risk of psychosis.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      I'd be more concerned about its interaction with anxiety disorders, which are very common and underdiagnosed.
      - sbirchall 13y ago
        I'd throw in a LOT of anecdata for this one. For agitating full blown psychosis, few things are better than the array of legal highs. Where MJ (alone) has negatively effected the people I've known, it's always been down to some anxiety disorder. If I were to start armchair theorising, I'd say it is because of cannabis' effect on the "linguistic center" of the brain. Couple this with nicotine - similar effect to cocaine in that it reduces the activity of neurotransmitter depletion enzymes - and you have serious potential for wild ideas that could interact with underlying issues to create disturbing problems. From the reclusive shut in, to the raging paranoiac, I've seen it all and I've often thought that the prevailing notion that the drug is benign is downright wrong. It is a drug. A very powerful drug. One to be respected and used wisely, and left the hell alone if it doesn't 'work' for you. But I agree wholeheartedly that it should not be criminalised.
      - ceol 13y ago
        Schizophrenia is another one that can become exacerbated by marijuana use.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  Shellfish, tree nuts, pumpkin, soy, and lots of other things very clearly react very badly -- indeed, fatally -- with a small subset of the population. To the extent that we let this affect policy at all, its not to ban the products, its to make sure that (1) they are clearly identified when present in a composite product, (2) we very narrowly (usually as a matter of policy of particular facilities, which may be public policy to the extent that those are public facilities) restrict their use in circumstances where there is particularly high risk that extremely sensitive people might be subject to dangerous passive exposure.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    Sure! I think I just wrote poorly in the previous comment. I definitely think we shouldn't have cannabis prohibition. I just don't think it necessarily follows that cannabis is safer in all situations than alcohol or tobacco. Legal or not, it's still not OK with me if my kids are using it.
    - duaneb 13y ago
      I just don't think it necessarily follows that XXXXX is safer in all situations than alcohol or tobacco. Legal or not, I don't want my kids using it. EDIT: Also, I presumably wouldn't want anyone under 18 to use it, same as alcohol and tobacco (basically, considering college, the drinking age is 18).
madaxe 13y ago
I lost 70lbs smoking pot. Health is better than it has been in years. Munchies go both ways, you just have to learn to "flip the switch". I'm a filthy criminal.
- jnbiche 13y ago
  Can you expand on that thought? How do you "flip the switch"?
  - madaxe 13y ago
    Well. Two things. I ate largely due to anxiety. Weed makes me not anxious. Therefore I ate less. Secondly, you can decide to morph that "hungry" feeling into a "full" feeling. Not quite sure how to put it, but you can convince yourself - a bit like when you're holding an ice cube, and convince yourself that it's heat you can feel.
    - fein 13y ago
      My fix was always just drinking lots of fizzy water. That and an electronic cigarette. I just don't seem to gain weight anymore, nor do I ever manage to finish takeout in one sitting. Seriously, our food portions here are insane.
      - angersock 13y ago
        Cigarettes and cigars are awesome appetite suppressants.
- whiddershins 13y ago
  For reasonable comparison: I know a guy who lost ~25 lbs when he QUIT smoking pot. So, this stuff is really complex. MJ is not a panacea.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    Actually, it may be the closest thing to a panacea yet in medicine considering its potential to impact: pain management, obesity, diabetes, cancer treatment, psychiatry. I'm not aware of any other drug with such potentially wide-ranging applications, especially considering its risk of patient harm.
mason240 13y ago
"I am so tired of the US lagging behind the rest of the world" Can you give a list of countries that are "ahead" of the US in regards to marijuana decriminalization? Lets see, there is North Korea, the Netherlands, and Uraguagy might decriminalize this year. I am so tired of the "the US lagging behind the rest of the world" trope. It's the same thing with same sex marriage. The US has been and is ahead of curve when it come to sex marriage rights. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-cannabis-laws.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-cannabis-laws.png
- hahainternet 13y ago
  The fact you leave off Portugal indicates you don't really know what you're talking about. The US is often behind the curve. I have no idea what 'sex marriage rights' are but DOMA is pretty much not going to prove your point.
  - mason240 13y ago
    DOMA was just ruled unconstitutional by Supreme Court. Even if we put Portugal in the "legalized" category (which the source I cited does not), that puts the list 3, possibly 4 when Uruguay passes their law.
- kin3tic 13y ago
  What!? >I am so tired of the "the US lagging behind the rest of the world" trope. It's the same thing with same sex marriage. The US has been and is ahead of curve when it come to sex marriage rights. That statement is true of almost everything except cannabis legalization. It's certainly true for decriminalization. And the "country", the US, is no better than it was 5 years ago. The only thing that's changed is individual states making more reasonable laws.
bjourne 13y ago
The US is not lagging behind. When it comes to marijuana liberalisation, it is definitely leading the way. With the exception of Netherlands, attitudes to marijuana is pretty strict in Europe. The US has the most pot smokers/capita by a long shot. Also, Hollywood movies seem to portray it as some cool party drug, that hippies and pseudo-intellectuals use. The drug is present in most American Pie-style movies, many sitcoms and animated series like Family Guy. Personally I believe marijuana going mainstream is an engineered phenomena. Hollywood is able to create perceptions and demands where none was before. Older generations weren't miserable all the time because they couldn't smoke pot. New generations found out about it by the marketing.
- Jazonk 13y ago
  Portugal is also ahead of us - they have decriminalized all drugs. Their attitude towards drug abuse is that it needs to be treated instead of punished. http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-d...
  - hanley 13y ago
    What an insightful idea - HELP people instead of just locking them up in timeout only to release them back into the public with the same (or worse) problems that they started with.
- toyg 13y ago
  Older generations could, in fact, smoke whatever the hell they wanted: large-scale criminalization of cannabis started in the 1960s in the US. In Europe, even heroin was legal during most of the XIX century!
- hanley 13y ago
  I don't necessarily disagree with your post but you should be careful with generalizations that aren't backed up with evidence. "The US has the most pot smokers/capita by a long shot" sounds a lot like some assumption you just made up based on your own personal experience. A study like marijuana users per capita is inherently difficult because people don't like admitting that they partake in illegal activity. The only statistic to go on for that study is how many people were arrested for marijuana crimes, which only shows how many people were caught breaking a law, not how many people use. Also I think your marijuana/drug law knowledge is a little behind. There are a number of countries in Europe and elsewhere who are changing to more relaxed drug policies similar to the progress in the US (including Portugal who effectively decriminalized all drugs in 2001).

tptacek 13y ago

It seems clearly safer in some respects, and I agree with you on the policy implications, but I think the apples-oranges safety comparison that gets made between MJ and (alcohol, tobacco) is misleading and a little dangerous. MJ is not purely benign. There's some evidence that it reacts very badly with a small subset of the population. That's obviously true of alcohol too, and if you want to argue that it's "as safe as alcohol" I'll concede the point (while retaining my nerdy irkedness over the imprecision of the statement).

ahoy 13y ago
Food coloring also reacts very badly with a small subset of the population, but we aren't banning M&M's
- tptacek 13y ago
  Who said we should ban M&Ms?
  - graymark 13y ago
    Why you of course! "...we should ban M&Ms" -tptacek
  - Hinrik 13y ago
    In the past it has been banned in quite a few countries (including my own) due to concerns over the food coloring agents used.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  The blue ones were banned for a while, but that was because they give you super-powers. edit: Sorry, it was the red ones that were "banned" for a short time. The public was frightened of red dye, even though according to Mars, they did not use the red dye that was suspect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M&M's#Color_changes_summarized_in_bar_graph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M&M's#Color_changes_summarized...
- madaxe 13y ago
  HFCS reacts badly with the majority of the population, inducing adiposis. So does MSG. Don't forget about the pesticides you chow down on with every meal, or the chloride in your water, or the phthalates in your soda, or the BPA in your nalgene, or... The US is terrible for substance safety. Dire. Awful. Hell, on the note of colouring, you still use bloody anthracine red, which has been banned for decades in the rest of the planet, as its carcinogenic.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    MSG reacts badly with the majority of the population? Source?
    - tptacek 13y ago
angersock 13y ago
I'll go one further--it's clearly safer (in all respects) than either alcohol or tobacco. My only fear with legalization is that it will get pulled from the grassroots production into industrial methods, and that in turn will lower its safety (as was the case, for example, with cigarettes and the additives in the paper for them).
- timtadh 13y ago
  The biggest safety problem with MJ is (as the original article hinted) the tendency in some people (especially teenagers) to increase the probability of them developing psychosis. This is why it is so apples to oranges. Yes, there are carcinogenic problems as well but the main problem is the increased risk of psychosis.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    I'd be more concerned about its interaction with anxiety disorders, which are very common and underdiagnosed.
    - sbirchall 13y ago
      I'd throw in a LOT of anecdata for this one. For agitating full blown psychosis, few things are better than the array of legal highs. Where MJ (alone) has negatively effected the people I've known, it's always been down to some anxiety disorder. If I were to start armchair theorising, I'd say it is because of cannabis' effect on the "linguistic center" of the brain. Couple this with nicotine - similar effect to cocaine in that it reduces the activity of neurotransmitter depletion enzymes - and you have serious potential for wild ideas that could interact with underlying issues to create disturbing problems. From the reclusive shut in, to the raging paranoiac, I've seen it all and I've often thought that the prevailing notion that the drug is benign is downright wrong. It is a drug. A very powerful drug. One to be respected and used wisely, and left the hell alone if it doesn't 'work' for you. But I agree wholeheartedly that it should not be criminalised.
    - ceol 13y ago
      Schizophrenia is another one that can become exacerbated by marijuana use.
dragonwriter 13y ago
Shellfish, tree nuts, pumpkin, soy, and lots of other things very clearly react very badly -- indeed, fatally -- with a small subset of the population. To the extent that we let this affect policy at all, its not to ban the products, its to make sure that (1) they are clearly identified when present in a composite product, (2) we very narrowly (usually as a matter of policy of particular facilities, which may be public policy to the extent that those are public facilities) restrict their use in circumstances where there is particularly high risk that extremely sensitive people might be subject to dangerous passive exposure.
- tptacek 13y ago
  Sure! I think I just wrote poorly in the previous comment. I definitely think we shouldn't have cannabis prohibition. I just don't think it necessarily follows that cannabis is safer in all situations than alcohol or tobacco. Legal or not, it's still not OK with me if my kids are using it.
  - duaneb 13y ago
    I just don't think it necessarily follows that XXXXX is safer in all situations than alcohol or tobacco. Legal or not, I don't want my kids using it. EDIT: Also, I presumably wouldn't want anyone under 18 to use it, same as alcohol and tobacco (basically, considering college, the drinking age is 18).

madaxe 13y ago

I lost 70lbs smoking pot. Health is better than it has been in years. Munchies go both ways, you just have to learn to "flip the switch". I'm a filthy criminal.

jnbiche 13y ago
Can you expand on that thought? How do you "flip the switch"?
- madaxe 13y ago
  Well. Two things. I ate largely due to anxiety. Weed makes me not anxious. Therefore I ate less. Secondly, you can decide to morph that "hungry" feeling into a "full" feeling. Not quite sure how to put it, but you can convince yourself - a bit like when you're holding an ice cube, and convince yourself that it's heat you can feel.
  - fein 13y ago
    My fix was always just drinking lots of fizzy water. That and an electronic cigarette. I just don't seem to gain weight anymore, nor do I ever manage to finish takeout in one sitting. Seriously, our food portions here are insane.
    - angersock 13y ago
      Cigarettes and cigars are awesome appetite suppressants.
whiddershins 13y ago
For reasonable comparison: I know a guy who lost ~25 lbs when he QUIT smoking pot. So, this stuff is really complex. MJ is not a panacea.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  Actually, it may be the closest thing to a panacea yet in medicine considering its potential to impact: pain management, obesity, diabetes, cancer treatment, psychiatry. I'm not aware of any other drug with such potentially wide-ranging applications, especially considering its risk of patient harm.

mason240 13y ago

"I am so tired of the US lagging behind the rest of the world" Can you give a list of countries that are "ahead" of the US in regards to marijuana decriminalization? Lets see, there is North Korea, the Netherlands, and Uraguagy might decriminalize this year. I am so tired of the "the US lagging behind the rest of the world" trope. It's the same thing with same sex marriage. The US has been and is ahead of curve when it come to sex marriage rights. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-cannabis-laws.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-cannabis-laws.png

hahainternet 13y ago
The fact you leave off Portugal indicates you don't really know what you're talking about. The US is often behind the curve. I have no idea what 'sex marriage rights' are but DOMA is pretty much not going to prove your point.
- mason240 13y ago
  DOMA was just ruled unconstitutional by Supreme Court. Even if we put Portugal in the "legalized" category (which the source I cited does not), that puts the list 3, possibly 4 when Uruguay passes their law.
kin3tic 13y ago
What!? >I am so tired of the "the US lagging behind the rest of the world" trope. It's the same thing with same sex marriage. The US has been and is ahead of curve when it come to sex marriage rights. That statement is true of almost everything except cannabis legalization. It's certainly true for decriminalization. And the "country", the US, is no better than it was 5 years ago. The only thing that's changed is individual states making more reasonable laws.

bjourne 13y ago

The US is not lagging behind. When it comes to marijuana liberalisation, it is definitely leading the way. With the exception of Netherlands, attitudes to marijuana is pretty strict in Europe. The US has the most pot smokers/capita by a long shot. Also, Hollywood movies seem to portray it as some cool party drug, that hippies and pseudo-intellectuals use. The drug is present in most American Pie-style movies, many sitcoms and animated series like Family Guy. Personally I believe marijuana going mainstream is an engineered phenomena. Hollywood is able to create perceptions and demands where none was before. Older generations weren't miserable all the time because they couldn't smoke pot. New generations found out about it by the marketing.

Jazonk 13y ago
Portugal is also ahead of us - they have decriminalized all drugs. Their attitude towards drug abuse is that it needs to be treated instead of punished. http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-d...
- hanley 13y ago
  What an insightful idea - HELP people instead of just locking them up in timeout only to release them back into the public with the same (or worse) problems that they started with.
toyg 13y ago
Older generations could, in fact, smoke whatever the hell they wanted: large-scale criminalization of cannabis started in the 1960s in the US. In Europe, even heroin was legal during most of the XIX century!
hanley 13y ago
I don't necessarily disagree with your post but you should be careful with generalizations that aren't backed up with evidence. "The US has the most pot smokers/capita by a long shot" sounds a lot like some assumption you just made up based on your own personal experience. A study like marijuana users per capita is inherently difficult because people don't like admitting that they partake in illegal activity. The only statistic to go on for that study is how many people were arrested for marijuana crimes, which only shows how many people were caught breaking a law, not how many people use. Also I think your marijuana/drug law knowledge is a little behind. There are a number of countries in Europe and elsewhere who are changing to more relaxed drug policies similar to the progress in the US (including Portugal who effectively decriminalized all drugs in 2001).