Study shows No long-term lung damage from marijuana

Discussion in 'Drugs, Alcohol & Tobacco' started by dreadpiratejaymo, Jan 11, 2012.

  1. dreadpiratejaymo

    dreadpiratejaymo New Member

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    http://news.yahoo.com/no-long-term-lung-damage-marijuana-study-220625384.html

    So there is that. Another myth debunked by a 20 year study.

    Yet people still feel the need to deny marijuana to others who could use it to improve their quality of life.

    When I don't smoke daily, I can't work. I have epilepsy but my seizures are completely controlled by daily marijuana use. When I don't have access to it, I tend to have Petit Mal seizures at a rate of 2 or 3 an hour.

    Why would anyone want to deny such a drug from people who could benefit from it?
     
  2. ian

    ian New Member

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    Is this the only drug which can prevent seizures? Im fairly sure there is other, legal stuff available.
     
  3. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I've personally no problem with marijuana (or even better, active ingredients from it) being used as a proscribed medical treatment. I do have a problem with it being presented as a harmless drug or being treated differently to any other medicine just because a whole load of people also use it to get high.
     
  4. marbro

    marbro New Member

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    Oh you mean drugs like this?

    Zarontin (ethosuximide)
    Used to treat absence seizures.
    Adverse effects include nausea, vomiting, decreased appetite, and weight loss.

    EDIT*

    Granted the side effects of weed is -

    Imprisonment, possible rape, segregation, and gang violence. so yeah... i guess weed is more harmful...sigh.
     
  5. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yep. He's taking money away from Big Pharma and their patented cures with nasty side effects. Terrible that he'd use something that grows like a weed and would be easily available and cheap but for prohibition.
     
  6. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It's not presented as a harmless drug. It's presented as a drug by which the user causes no harm to others in the use of it. As for getting high, do you have moral qualms with that natural, peaceful human desire to feel good and, if so, can you explain why you need to make the behavior into a crime when in done in a fashion of which you disapprove? I can think of a number of legal ways that people obtain highs that I find more dangerous than drugs and of which I generally (if not morally) disapprove, but I don't feel the need to make criminals out of those who engage in those activities, so I'm wondering why others do.
     
  7. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That was the impression I got from the OP and other similar statements. The idea that marijuana use could cause any harm appears to be being dismissed as a "myth".

    Most prescription drugs will harm nobody other than the person taking it. That isn't the reason we have the process of qualified medical professions providing them on prescription only.

    That's a complex question but regardless, the issue of morality are entirely irrelevant here.

    This is an example of the issue I was trying to get across though. If marijuana had never been (widely) used as a recreational drug, I suspect it would have been developed in to conventional treatments a long time ago and I think that would be a good thing - it does appear to have a great potential in a number of areas.

    The knee-jerk objection because of it's use as an illegal drug is a problem but just as disruptive is the knee-jerk promotion because it is an illegal drug. There are plenty of people out there arguing for "medicinal marijuana" just because they want to use it recreationally with fewer or no legal controls. If that dishonesty didn't exist, it would be one big stumbling block removed from the possibility of marijuana being used professionally to help people with real medical need.

    I'd have no major issue with general legalisation of marijuana, though I doubt it would be an especially positive move and would create a whole different set of problems. I think that should be an entirely separate question from the one of developing medical treatments from the plant though. Merging the two only serves to muddy the water and helps nobody.
     
  8. Peter Szarycz

    Peter Szarycz New Member

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    Get a medical perscription for marijuana for your condition, then you will be free from all legal harassment. Your condition warrants a legal use of the drug, so why the complaint? Then again, perhaps different states have different laws, and in some all options need to be exhausted before you get a perscription you want.
     
  9. dreadpiratejaymo

    dreadpiratejaymo New Member

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    It is the only affordable drug that has been able to prevent them for me.

    Depekote worked too, but it costs more than my rent for 1/2 of 1 months supply in the dose I need.

    phenobarbital made me a zombie. Couldn't work at all.

    Dilantin didn't work, it just gave me gingivitis and disturbing dreams.

    Tegretol doesn't work well. The siezures are less in frequency when I take it. This is the current medication my doctor has officially put me on.

    Marijuana makes them go away completely.


    So yeah, other medications are available. They just don't work.
     
  10. dreadpiratejaymo

    dreadpiratejaymo New Member

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    I never claimed it was harmless, nor did the article I linked to.

    There is plenty of medication that is legal, gets you high, is addictive, and extremely harmful.

    This can even be said for some over the counter medications.
     
  11. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Then we might as well refer to salt as harmless. Or coffee. Everything in moderation, including marijuana.

    And you claim that marijuana harms people other than those ingesting it? Tell me, when a person lights up a joint, who is the victim?

    On the contrary, it is an issue of morality because it has entirely to do with self-ownership and, by extension, the right to use one's body in whatever manner one see fit.

    Those who aren't obedient to authority because obedience is demanded like to tweak the nose of authority with overt references to that which authority has insisted is verboten.

    Well, I'm not one to hide behind the medical marijuana debate. Government has always been dishonest about drugs and the war on human behaviors. I have no problem with doing whatever is necessary, so long as it is peaceful, in order to, step by step, re-legalize drugs starting with marijuana.

    If it's ok for sick people, why isn't it ok for healthy people?
     
  12. DeathStar

    DeathStar Banned

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    Why?

    Because you're an evil sonofa(*)(*)(*)(*)(*) for doing something harmless that helps you live your peaceful life, that's why.

    :roll:

    I don't understand fascists, really
     
  13. diligent

    diligent New Member

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    I notice you didn't emphasise the fact that the report used the word 'occasionally' (smoking marijuana) and this sentence:

    'However, they warned that the risks of heavy marijuana use were difficult to assess and cautioned against regular or frequent smoking."

    When you are qouting statements, it's best that you quote them properly or you willbe found out!
     
  14. dreadpiratejaymo

    dreadpiratejaymo New Member

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    By occasional they mean "One joint a day for seven years". That doesn't sound very occasional to me...

    Notice how it's the smoking of the drug that is bad for you? The drug is much MUCH more effective when it is ingested. Apparently it is safer, too.

    You have to use a LOT more to feel the effect, so people generally save money by smoking it instead.

    ?

    Title of the article:

    vs. title of the thread:

    What did I misquote?
     
  15. dreadpiratejaymo

    dreadpiratejaymo New Member

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    ...

    The federal government can (and does) still prosecute users and owners of medical dispensaries in the states where it is "legal".

    Even so, I live in TN. The closest state to me where it is legal (on the state level only) is New Jersey. It takes about 11 hours to get there from here.
     
  16. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    As I said, it was the implication I received. You focused on the positive statement and suggested it means nobody should deny marijuana for medical reasons but you ignored the references to other potential risks.

    And they are widely recognised as such and are supplied and used with care and controls. As I've said, I'm all for marijuana or derivatives of it being used for medical treatment. What I object to is the biased views in favour of it overlooking any difficulties or complications involved, biases no better than those irrationally against it because it's an illegal drug. I don't think it should be treated differently to any other potential medicine, positively or negatively.

    I'm basically looking at the difference between telling people with infections to eat mouldy bread or developing penicillin.
     
  17. dreadpiratejaymo

    dreadpiratejaymo New Member

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    Which are all related to smoking. I would much rather ingest it than smoke it. If it weren't illegal, I could afford to buy enough to ingest it.

    Problem solved.

    How about OTC medications that are abused? Ever heard of teenagers drinking cough Syrup? That is because Dextromathoraphin is a powerful hallucinogen. How about pseudoephedrine? You can still buy it without a scrip, then use it to make meth.

    Setting them on the shelf where any 15 year old can steal them isn't supplying them with care and control.
     
  18. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Possibly. It depends on how and where it was legalised (or decriminalised) and while it might solve your problem, it could create problems for other people. We don't allow for the use of opiate based pain-killers by simply making all opiates legal.

    Again, I'm not against marijuana based medicines being developed and made available. That development would include processing, dosage and delivery methods to reduce any side-effects. Just like anything else.

    I never said the existing system was perfect (nothing is). I don't see how any of that is an argument for circumventing that system for marijuana alone.
     
  19. acm202

    acm202 New Member

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    The title is deceiving. A quote from the article, "In our findings we see hints of harm in pulmonary function with heavy use", shows there's some kind of damage to our lungs. Besides in the same article, it states "other studies have shown that marijuana use increases a user's likelihood of a heart attack... and impairs the immune system's ability to fight disease".
     
  20. dreadpiratejaymo

    dreadpiratejaymo New Member

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    It isn't an argument for/against circumventing. It is evidence that a statement you made is not correct.

    That statement being
     
  21. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I think you're clutching at straws. Medicines with the greatest potential for addiction or harm are controlled by prescription (or even by only being provided by medical professionals). There are lots of things that can be potentially harmful to some extent which the system can cover. There are also some things that probably should be prescription only but aren't for whatever political or practical reasons (and probably vice-versa too).

    The fact is that there is a system and it largely appears to work. All I'm suggesting is that if you feel marijuana based medicines should be available (and as I say, I see no reason why not), they should have the system applied to them in exactly the same way as anything else.
     
  22. dreadpiratejaymo

    dreadpiratejaymo New Member

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    Which part of the current system do you think appears to work?

    Pills are the most widely available drug where I live. The oxycontin problem (which has now been turned into a roxicet problem) is far worse than the heroin or meth problem.

    I know people that drive to the pain clinics in Florida from Tennessee for a living. There are plenty of doctors all over the country willing to sell a prescription for a price.

    That system is broken. America completely is inept when it comes to dealing with "Controlled substances".
     
  23. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Sorry, I was instinctively thinking on a UK basis. I overlooked the profit motive in US healthcare.

    So, it sounds like there is a general issue of medical drugs to address there. Adding marijuana in to the mix isn't going to make that any better (and would possibly make it worse). If you're presenting these issues as a reason for marijuana to be available without prescription, why shouldn't the same argument be made for pretty much everything else too?

    I sympathise with your personal situation but I still think you need to approach things like this from the wider picture.
     
  24. dreadpiratejaymo

    dreadpiratejaymo New Member

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    I would make the same argument for all drugs being legal, but by legal, I do not mean unregulated.
     
  25. TM2

    TM2 Active Member

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    In other news: Its still illegal, Cheech! HAHA!
     

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