http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2002/7/11/14831/8815

Ok after reading the above article i figured id start a new poll to think what the vegens think :)

While I am against laws regulating sale, or consumption, by adults, of simple agricultural products such as cannibus sativa, I think smoking this stuff is disgusting and damaging. Smoking it causes drying of the mucus membranes, due to the effects of the nerve-affecting cannabinoids; this sets them up for damage from the irritating particles produced when smoking it. You are setting yourself up for a one-two punch and nasty damage to your eyes, nose, sinuses, lungs, tongue, throat, tonsils, gums, and as a result of damage to your gums, eventual damage to or loss of teeth.

I'm waiting for the medical reports that show an increased need for tonsillectomies, among people who smoke cannibus. I wonder if the statistics have even been looked at. Doctors have pronounced this stuff as being relatively harmless, as compared to injected heroin -- but nothing could be farther from the truth. Common sense shows us that cannibus is far more physically damaging. Of course it is less habit forming than heroin -- it is obnoxious and unpleasant, who would want to take it often? Yet people do anyway -- causing more physical damage to themselves than heroin users.

First you dry your membranes, neurologically, making them more susceptible to assault by smoke and damage by smoke -- and then you put smoke all over them, in insane concentrations.

I'm sorry, but only a stupid moron would voluntarily do this to themselves.

soilman, you don't have to *smoke* pot. you can vapourize it, or eat it, instead.

It still drys out your mucus membranes, and makes them more susceptible to whatever pollutants are in the air -- even preindustrial age wilderness air is not free of irritants.

Eating pot is unreliable way to get a neurological effect from it. It can take several days going thru you gi system. You will very slowly absorb cannabinoids from it, into your blood stream. Since getting "high" from cannabinoids generally depends on a a rapid "hit" of a large quantity, and the amount of highness you get from subdquent hits within hours, of the same amount, rapidly fade (tolerence) eating cannabus leaves or seeds or both is likely to be more of a miserable experience, than a pleasant one, if you eat enough to get any affect at all. Plus it ****s with your gi system, causing dire-rear or whatever.

Hmm i know people who make brownies and only have to eat at ray to get it to work.....it seems the facts on pot are different for everyone, so someone is misinformed. Some say its bad some good, its confusing wish theyd make up there mind, everyone must be stoned :)

KTW writes:
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i know people who make brownies and only have to eat at ray to get it to work
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What does making "brownies" have to do with eating foul-tasting dry leaves? So you are saying, KTW, that if you make brownies, and then eat eggplant at Ray's Diner, you will have changes in consciousness that you attribute to cannibus leaves, that you didn't even eat? Makes no sense.

Soilman- I just want to point out that heroin per say by itself in its pure form causes no long term damage to the body. Being an addict in a country in which it is illegal may, though.

I ment putting the dry tasting leaves in the brownies. :)

Of course, Thalia, doing something at once illegal and socially unacceptable, puts you in danger. No need to point this out.

Although I think injecting, eating, or intranasal use of acetyl morphine (heroin), in unpolluted, measured doses, is much less damaging to the body than smoking cannibus, I wouldn't go so far as to say it has no long term damage to the body. Nobody really knows for sure. It is possible that it causes permanent changes or long-term changes in gastro-intestinal nerve endings, and nerve endings or synapses in the brain and spinal cord. It certainly doesn't cause the same kind of devasting liver damage seen with alcohol, it doesn't cause lethal damage of any sort like that seen from tobacco, to one's lungs; it doesn't cause nasty mucus membrane damage like smoking or eating cannibus causes. It is doesn't cause or exacerbate enlarged prostates, like many non-prescription and prescription antihistamines do. But I wouldn't want to say for sure that it doesn't cause permanent damage. I would go so far as to say that any damage it does cause, if any, doesn't appear to be lethal, or extremely debilitating. Things like permanent gastro-intestinal disfunction are debilitating though, and I wouldn't be surprised if it cause permanent gastro-intestinal disfunction -- or at least gastro-intestinal disfunction that persists for months after you stop taking it.

Hmm question soilman, u seem to know alot about medicine, know of any bad effects from anti-depressents like Zoloft or Paxil, or from tranqulizers like Zantax?

I don't really know a lot about medicine KTW.

Stuff like Zoloft Paxi and Zantax have only been around a few years, while stuff like opium, and other extracts of the opium poppy, to which heroin is related, have been around for probably at least 8,000 years. So both scientific and anecdotal information has accumulated about opioids.

There seems to be little reason for researchers to look too hard into patented medicines, to see what their shortcomings are, unless they are working for a drug company making a competing product. Even then, the drug companies probably avoid saying too many bad things about the other companies products -- might be better for their company to not mention the existence, at all, of the other company's product. I think much of what we know is the "sales" pitch of patented products, not the reality.

Since 100-year old drugs like heroin no longer have patents, researchers are more inclined, i think, to find both the bad and the good, about them, and publish it. Scientific info and educated info about heroin, makes it sound much different than what propaganda about it makes it sound. That is, what doctors and pharmacists say about it, to each other, about heroin, is entirely different than what policemen say about it to ordinary laypeople.

So all these things make it hard to compare saftety and efficacy of herioin with safety and efficacy of Zantax.

Even comparing patented pain-relievers with 8,000 year old pain relievers, one has to dig thru a quagmire of nonsense. Things like aleve, and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory analgesics, though they may be safer for your stomach than aspirin -- well there is some evidence now that one of them may cause osteo porosis in long term use. I think will take a 100 years before we really know for sure.

The reason I know about opium, heroin, and opoids, is not because they are drugs, but because (1) I know about simple agricultural products, and their history and use -- and nothing is much simpler than opium poppies, poppy seeds, and other poppy products. It may be one of the earliet agricultural products, with people perhaps going happy, first, for the high-protein high-oil and very nutritious seeds, and then finding out that the fruits relieved pain! Wowee!! (2) I learned a little about agricultural chemicals -- industrially produce commercial plant food -- and i found out that there were a lot of tie-ins in between alkaloid chemistry -- opioids are alkaloids -- and nitrogen chemistry in general, with nitrogenous chemicals being key to feeding plants -- to making the "material" of plants -- and subsequently for us to make the material of us, animals, from the material of plants -- amino acids and proteins are another branch of nitrogen chemistry.

Essentially, we are making nitrogen plant food in factories, from air and natural gas, then making plants from nitrogen plant food, then making ourselves, from the plants. Much of the worlds food plants are grown with these industrially produced nitrogen plant foods. So essentially most of the world's people are made up mostly out of air and natural gas.

http://www.materials.addr.com/nitrogen.shtml

Note this has been reviewed by homework-helper web sites, and at one time was recommended reading for students at Cornell University taking a course in basic chemistry in daily life and in consumer products -- despite the fact that I am not a chemist but merely a "science journalist." "Theodore Zuckerman" is, of course, another name for "soilman."

i can't really answer the poll, because there isn't one that seems to fit.

generally speaking, i think it should be legal, but i certainly wouldn't use it and where it can be smoked should be restricted, same with cigarette smoke. personally, i don't think that people should use it, because it is generally unhealthy. it does cause some problems with short term memory which in turn causes long term memory problems as well. just thought i'd point out one aspect that is commonly overlooked.

as for baking it into the brownies, soilman is right, it isn't the most effective way to get a high. What KTW is describing is the placebo effect. i ran a fun little experiment on some fellow students in college. i threw a party and made brownies. I said that some were made with pot and some were not. Everyone ate all of the brownies and most of them said that they were feeling high, that they knew they'd gotten the brownies with the pot in it.

turns out, none of the brownies had pot in them. What everyone liked was the IDEA that they were eating brownies which would make them high, so, they acted high and felt high.

i've found the same to be true of people who think that they're getting wine or beer, when in fact it is non-alcoholic stuff, and acting drunk after a few drinks. because they think it's in there, they start acting like it is anyway. kinda weird.

Despite all the doctors who say people needn't worry about cannibus, smoking it or eating it -- I think they are wrong. I think cannibus leaves are rather toxic. Being natural doesn't make them non-poisonous. Far from it. If you think it does -- you should eat some poison ivy. Or mature leaves of poke salad -- yumm -- agonizing stomach pain. No, you won't die -- but you won't be happy. While eating cannibus leaves and seeds is not lethal, it appears to be nasty and irritating, and the cannabinoids have a really nasty drying affect on mucus membranes. Worse than "anti histamines" in the quantities that cannibus is frequently used at.

Mucus membranes are not only in the mouth, the nasal passages, and in vaginas -- all of which I think might be dried out by cannibus -- but the whole gastro-intestinal system is lined with mucus membrane. It is absolutely needed to digest food properly, and to prevent food from "digesting you" instead of vice-versa. Anything that ****s with this, like cannabus, causes your food, and the cannibus that is in your digestive tract, to "digest you." That is -- irritate, erode, make the inside of your whole digestive tract sore. Stomach ache. Abdominal pain. I suspect that eating cannibus leaves may be almost as bad as smoking them. Even make you susceptible to things like stomach ulcers, and appendicitis.

Doctors think appendicitis isn't so terrible, because people in rich countries don't usually die from it -- they get surgery to removed their thoroughly ****ed up infected appendixes. this is their idea of "not as harmful as heroin" -- which causes addiction -- something much worse in their mind than appendicitis. I'm sorry -- but not in my mind. Addiction in my mind is "bad habit." Appendicitis is potentially lethal infection should it burst and spread infection thruout your whole pertoneal cavity, can kill you slowly and painfully. Or cause surgeions to think they need to remove 3/4 of the total length of your intestines and simultanesously give yo enough antibiotics to screw up your liver. I don't buy this nonsense that having a habit of taking something every day that you find hard to break, is worse than appendicitis.

By the way I'm not saying you shouldn't try cannibus once, if you can get some purified cannabinoids to ingest without needing to smoke anything. Just so you can determine for yourself who is really telling the truth about it. But like zoebird said, it may screw with your memory. So I'd be hesitant to recommend taking it even once.

I heard it only paralyzes your brain cells not kill them, and that you slowly get your memory back as they reanimate.

"I heard it only paralyzes your brain cells not kill them, and that you slowly get your memory back as they reanimate."

I doubt that anyone really knows for sure.

When speaking to lay people, scientists sometimes like to pretend that what is merely their expertise-backed opinion or conjecture, is scientific fact. It isn't. Just because you are a scientist, doesn't mean that every casual statement you make, is backed by scientific research.

my choice isn't in the poll. i think that pot hould not be legalized, and alcohol should be made illegal. i think that they both have similar effects and severity.

i think that when someone freely engages in a recreational and unnecessary activity, one that causes so much pain and death, that is a weak behavior.

The government already tried to make alcohol illeagl and the crime and mayhem that followed finally got the act repealed.

I'm not saying legalize or deprive any particular substance but:

The use of drugs, that includes alcohol, may indeed show poor or weak behavior but the use of the "government" to legislate morality is a curse and affront to liberty. All the "ANTI" this and that folks keep crying for "government" control and it all leads to a socialist state in the end.

max

but, what about murder or theft or whatever?


obviously those are extreme examples, but what is the difference?

I was refering to the Federal Government in general.

Murder and Theft are, in general, regarded as undesirable behaviors within most societies and laws are made and used to punish such behavior. Most laws regarding murder and theft are local ones.

What I was getting at is the federal government should not be petioned to make laws that effect the whole country, the US in my case, that reflect the views of a small minority.

Case in point the Temperance movement of the 20's 30's if you wish to have a dry State or County so be it, it can be done on a local level as has been done in many areas.

Of course part of the reason for the repeal of the 18 amendment was a sourse of taxes was realised and all governments are greedy.

max

Of course part of the reason for the repeal of the 18 amendment was a sourse of taxes was realised and all governments are greedy.

HEHE

Hmm i would edit my poll to add your choice yet only moderaters can do that. How about a mederater add.....
No don't legalize it and
Alchohol and Pot are both the work of the devel!

i voted "i dont care" because i'm not in the US!

actually while we're on the topic, funny thing happened at the weekend. i was at a festival with some friends, and one of them was rolling when one of the security gaurds came up and told him "dont make a scene and dont throw that away, just stand up and walk over here with me. quietly" so my friend said "ohh ****" and went over to him". we couldnt hear what he was saying but apparantely it went like this:

security: "you know that is illegal and you could be thrown out of here in a second"
friend: "ah man dont throw me out"
security: "how much have you got"
friend: "just this" *shows him the joint he's just rolled"
security: *knowing he's lying* "you dont have any more in your bag or anything?"
friend: "nah nothing, seriously"
security: "take off your shirt"
friend: *takes off shirt*
security: "nah man i'm only messin, go on back and enjoy yourself"

lol

haha that's funny
like when we were camping and the guys were wandering around the park after midnight, each holding a glass of whiskey sour (mmmmm) and they ran into the ranger who'd been by our site a few times to chat. nice guy. anyway they asked if the park was always so quiet at night, and he starts explaining how they emphasize it as a family park which is why they made it against the rules to drink alcohol off your site *quickly flashes the light over the drinks, giggles, walks off*

umm yeah so anyway i think it'd be ok if they legalized pot but with strict restrictions. ie: minimum age to buy it and smoke it with very harsh punishment for disobeying, even harsher punishment for adults who supply it to minors, and imprisonment for anyone caught selling it black market.
since we all know the government will put a HUGE tax on it, the black market will go nuts selling it at lower prices which means lower quality, which means laced with god knows what, leading to lots of people getting sick and maybe dying from smoking unknown substances because it was cheap

Originally posted by LadyFaile
since we all know the government will put a HUGE tax on it, the black market will go nuts selling it at lower prices which means lower quality, which means laced with god knows what, leading to lots of people getting sick and maybe dying from smoking unknown substances because it was cheap

hmmm, i don't agree with this postulate.

otherwise, ppl would be dying and going blind all over the freaking place from drinking cheap black market hooch.