Does THC deprivation last a life time?

[Owyn_Merrilin]

First, appeals to emotion or morality are definitionally not ad homimen. They can be fallacious on their own, but they do not in any way fall into that particular category by any definition I've ever heard of.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ad%20hominem
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ad%20hominem

With all due respect, just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean the definition isn't true. Next time, look it up.

Second, the notion of ad hominem is profoundly abused. Ad hominem is a fallacy in that arguing against a person instead of the the topic at hand is illogical. If the character of the interlocutor bears on the discussion, it is not illogical. I don't mean to suggest that that is or isn't the case here (I'll get to that in a minute), but it's worth bearing in mind. Generally speaking, it's a good idea to avoid ever saying "that's ad hominem, you're dumb!". Ad hominem is best thought of as an instructional tool for debate - a sort of warning flag that says "uh oh, this might not follow, better be careful". If someone is being illogical, say why, don't say "you're attacking my character and that's not allowed!", say "you're attacking my character, which has nothing to do with this argument". There are many, many arguments where an interlocutor's character has a lot to do with the matter at hand, especially when morality, ethics, and legality are involved.

Ad hominem is pretty much universally considered weak arguing, especially in lieu of actual information. I called ad hominem in this case because he knew nothing about me nor my habits, and yet based his entire rebuttal on what he assumed my habits were and that they did not entitle me to an informed conclusion. Assumptions are, in general, weaknesses in any argument. Beliefs or personal experiences in a particular subject do NOT bar anyone from being able to form an argument on a particular issue that is not based on those beliefs or experiences; again, if the foundation of my argument was that doing drugs was immoral, then yeah, my character should be called into question, because I essentially made an argument based on my character (and not founded in logic to begin with). But I didn't. I merely pointed out that marijuana is still considered a harmful substance, and that's stuff I can pull articles based on studies and investigations to support. The fact that he decided to ignore the merits of my argument and basically accuse me of bias is weak arguing, especially since he had no idea whether I had actually done any substances myself or not. Furthermore, even if I HADN'T partaken of any of those substances, I could still quite ably form a well-researched fact-based argument, so his assumption that I was bashing something I was morally against contributes nothing to the act of rebutting the argument.

People who have never tried drugs are much more likely to pay attention to the negative qualities while forgetting why it is people do them in the first place. This would be akin to holding a debate on whether having kids is worth the trouble and not taking into account the reports of actual parents.

What difference does it make if parents would be consulted in this case or not? Yes, parents would be able to put forth a lot of emotional feedback as to why kids are worth it, but that's not an argument based in logic or facts, just their opinions. A man who doesn't want children would perhaps have additional motivation to research facts based on why kids aren't worth it, but that does not mean any facts he does come up with are automatically rendered unusable by his opinion on the matter. It may cause him not to fully research the issue on the opposing viewpoint, perhaps, but that's incidental, and the idea that all men who don't want children will poorly research the opposing viewpoint as to why kids are worth it is a flimsy assumption. This further illustrates just how weak ad hominem arguments really are.

Funny thing, you never denied that you weren't a teetotaler -- in fact, you've confirmed it multiple times. Is an assumption really weak when it turns out to be true? Also, yeah, I'm calling bias. As others have pointed out, the overwhelming body of evidence shows that marijuana is completely harmless. The only way that it's physically harmful is in what smoking it does to your lungs -- and, again, as others have pointed out, baking it into brownies or otherwise ingesting it without smoke takes care of that issue. As for what you're saying about parents and emotion, sometimes emotions actually play an important role in decisions. Humans are not robots -- and thank goodness for that, because robots can't get drunk or stoned.

 

[GWarface]

Its fun how these weed threads always shows up when i have pulled an all-nighter while smoking..

As said, its psychological, not physical.. It may be hard to understand for people that havent been into it, but i should know..

I would say she just really miss smoking, thats why she says she "needs" to smoke..

 

[chrisw23]

Is it realy so bad that she smokes?

Im just curious as to your reasons why she cant?

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

With all due respect, just because you haven't heard of them doesn't mean the definition isn't true. Next time, look it up.

With all due respect, maybe you should refer to actual discussions of debate rather than dictionaries. Ad hominem is virtually never used in this way in any of the historical documents from which it comes or in modern discussions of debate. And, as a technical term, it isn't really subject to the etymological fallacy either, so common public use (the kind most often documented in dictionaries), really shouldn't have much bearing on what you take as its meaning in the context of debate and logic.

Nor are dictionarities authoritative works. They're reference works, like encyclopedias. If something in an encyclopedia is demonstrably wrong, you don't trust the dictionary over reality. In this case, ad hominem is virtually never used in the way you describe and very, very never used that way within the discourse of academic debate where it sees the most common, most prototypical use. Moreover, dictionaries tend to be poor even as reference works with the average dictionary containing thousands of errors, extremely questionable value judgments, and technical definitions written by lexicographers with little training or understanding of the fields in question (sadly, this is sort of inescapable since lexical semantics is an ugly, ugly field even for experts and most lexicographers have little if any actual linguistic training).

Ad hominem is pretty much universally considered weak arguing, especially in lieu of actual information.

Ad hominem is universally dependent upon the context. If the discussion of an interlocutor's character is relevant, the discussion is not fallacious. If the discussion of an interlocutor's character is irrelevant, the discussion is fallacious. That was my point - you can't just say "ad hominem!" and throw your hands in the air - you have to actually show that the use is fallacious. You do a much better job of that in this post and that's all I was trying to suggest that you do before.

Furthermore, even if I HADN'T partaken of any of those substances, I could still quite ably form a well-researched fact-based argument, so his assumption that I was bashing something I was morally against contributes nothing to the act of rebutting the argument.

We're talking about something for which many of the facts are personal and subjective. I would argue strongly that you actually cannot offer a fact-based argument in the same way that someone with those personal experiences can. Though I will concede that you can offer an argument based on researched experiences of people who do have that personal knowledge, it would be folly to suggest that this isn't going to result in a somewhat weaker understanding of the issue under discussion compared to being one of those people. This is the difference between consulting an expert and consulting a consultant of an expert - you don't get quite the same kind of understanding.

In short, it doesn't absolutely disqualify you by any means, but it's certainly not unreasonable to suggest that a lack of experience with something so subjective might bias you in a particular direction.

I merely pointed out that marijuana is still considered a harmful substance, and that's stuff I can pull articles based on studies and investigations to support.

I can pull articles that state that evidence suggests that the world is flat, that the world is only a few hundred years old, or any number of crazy things. And every one of them will have real empirical evidence from experimentation in support of these conclusions. But that doesn't make them good evidence. There's a lot of bad science just as there's a lot of bad everything and one of the primary purposes of academia and the scientific method is to weed (no pun intended) that stuff out and base conclusions and subsequent research on what the scientific community agrees to be the most reliable data. Papers, even looking at them by sheer volume, will tend to lead you astray far mor often than looking at the consensus of the relevant scientific community. It's rare enough that there ever even is a consensus on something that was previously controversial in a scientific community - scientists are notoriously skeptical and argumentative and the existence of any consensus (so long as it isn't the "uh, why do we all believe that again?" sort) is usually a very strong indicator, certainly stronger than the mere existence of papers arguing the opposite. For marijuana, the consensus is overwhelming. You have to seriously dig to even find anything stating the opposite view in the literature. Hell, even the questionably independent studies commissioned by the government that effected and upholds the ban have universally reached the same conclusions

What difference does it make if parents would be consulted in this case or not? Yes, parents would be able to put forth a lot of emotional feedback as to why kids are worth it, but that's not an argument based in logic or facts, just their opinions. A man who doesn't want children would perhaps have additional motivation to research facts based on why kids aren't worth it, but that does not mean any facts he does come up with are automatically rendered unusable by his opinion on the matter. It may cause him not to fully research the issue on the opposing viewpoint, perhaps, but that's incidental, and the idea that all men who don't want children will poorly research the opposing viewpoint is a flimsy assumption. This further illustrates just how weak ad hominem arguments really are.

You're making the mistake here in assuming that the emotions of the people involved are not relevant. Again, just like in ad hominem attacks, emotions aren't automatically irrelevant, they're just a direction where arguments commonly go astray because emotional appeals that are not relevant come up so often in casual argument. When we're talking about whether it's "worth it" to have a child, emotional satisfaction is a huge part of one side's argument and to suggest that it's irrational to consider it makes absolutely no sense - it is profoundly relevant. And you can research the emotional satisfaction of parents, but that's a very subjective quality that we really can't do a very good job of measuring (not to mention that once we measure it, we have to somehow quantify how much each unit of satisfaction is worth compared to the costs of childraising). As above, this doesn't disqualify someone from the discussion by any means, but a lack of personal experience in such cases is clearly a biasing factor since no matter how much research you do, you really can't hope to arrive at an understanding of the subjective feelings that rivals those who have actually been subjected to them.

 

[thiosk]

lol-- I'm a jonsin' fer a doobie!

Its boredom, in my experience. She doesn't have enough non-marijuana related interests and hobbies.

 

[thiosk]

lol-- I'm a jonsin' fer a doobie!

Its boredom, in my experience. She doesn't have enough non-marijuana related interests and hobbies.

 

[Zorpheus]

Actually, bacon and potato chips inarguably affect the way your brain processes information. There is absolutely no debate whatsoever over this question. Anything you experience, much less chemicals you ingest (guess what bacon and potato chips and all food are made out of!), affects the way your brain processes information.

Really? So bacon alters how your brain interprets images (spatial reasoning, color perception, etc), how you hear certain sounds, and cause you to suddenly like the taste of things you didn't like before? It affects your ability to think, making you arrive to different conclusions while you're eating the bacon than you did before you ate the bacon? No... no it doesn't. The brain still processes all information the same way before the bacon as after the bacon. Now, upon eating, your brain might tell you that the bacon tastes good. It might release an endorphin of pleasure at the act of eating something you found appealing, a reward of sorts. But does it change at all how the brain operates in any meaningful way? No, no it doesn't. No one ever got a ticket for driving under the influence of bacon, to call on an example.

There's also an implicit assumption here that the way your brain processes information natively (abstracting away from the above issue that really clouds what "natively" is supposed to mean) is inherently superior. Though you could hold it as a personal belief, you would have a very, very hard time offering a defensible justification for this view.

Indeed, this may be a tough point of view to argue, as it's based solely on opinion. I have never attempted to argue this. I would note that a better argument would be formed in demonstrating why the way the chemical alters the brain function is harmful to the brain itself.

And as for how much you use of them - that's actually an empirical question. You're assuming not only that marijuana lowers inhibitions (I assume by comparison with alcohol and other drugs), but also that it lowers inhibitions against ingestion of additional drugs specifically. Neither of these assumptions are really borne out in the research at all. And, since it isn't chemically addictive, there is also no direct compulsion (again, there might be a compulsion in the same way that you have a compulsion to play more videogames or watch more television, but that's quite a different thing) to seek more as in the case of, say, alcohol or other, harder drugs.

Even beyond that, marijuana has an incredible plateau effect. Rather quickly you get to the point where you really can't derive any greater effects by ingesting more and that level is remarkably safe. And even if you were to do more beyond that level, it is literally impossible to experience acute toxic effects from marijuana. The LD50 is so high as to be completely unknown for humans. We can't even really give accurate guesses at it. Even if you do believe (despite scientific consensus) that there are harmful effects of long-term use, they're not hypothesised to have anything to do with how much you use on each occasion and, since the acute effects are remarkably short-lived, it's more or less unthinkable that one use could prompt subsequent uses at large enough time intervals to lead directly to chronic use.

There are no DEFINITIVE scientific findings either for or against the idea that Marijuana induces dependance, what long-term psychological effects it has, and whether it leads to the consumption of additional 'harder' drugs. There is research people have done that indicated it does, and there's research that indicates it hasn't. Really, there is no cold hard established fact in this matter, which makes this a tricky subject to debate. I cannot really call myself right. My argument is based on definitive research based on other drugs, and the idea that the brain doesn't normally input what you get from a marijuana high, so therefore it's probably frying something in there. But you're not as right as you think you are, either, in assuming it's been proven that Marijuana DOES NOT do these things. It hasn't been proved. There is no 'scientific consensus' one way or the other like you seem to believe.

With that, my friend, we have reached an impasse.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Really? So bacon alters how your brain interprets images (spatial reasoning, color perception, etc), how you hear certain sounds, and cause you to suddenly like the taste of things you didn't like before? It affects your ability to think, making you arrive to different conclusions while you're eating the bacon than you did before you ate the bacon? No... no it doesn't. The brain still processes all information the same way before the bacon as after the bacon. Now, upon eating, your brain might tell you that the bacon tastes good. It might release an endorphin of pleasure at the act of eating something you found appealing, a reward of sorts. But does it change at all how the brain operates in any meaningful way? No, no it doesn't. No one ever got a ticket for driving under the influence of bacon, to call on an example.

Actually yes. It doesn't do so in nearly as noticeable or easily-measurable ways as marijuana, but it absolutely alters information processing. This is inarguable and yes, you could measure it. Every experience you have at all influences information processing more or less forever. Ingestion tends to take things a further step by causing a cascade of chemical reactions that affect brain function even more, though in this respect I doubt that bacon would differ qualitatively from other foods with relatively similar chemical components. The point stands that you are never going to be able to completely avoid modification of information processing abilities. You're working off of an extremely naive folk theory of neurochemistry and brain function. You might argue that the way bacon changes information processing is preferable to the way marijuana does, but there's really no way to give a justification of that that doesn't quickly descend into nightmarish questions of ethics.

Indeed, this may be a tough point of view to argue, as it's based solely on opinion. I have never attempted to argue this. I would note that a better argument would be formed in demonstrating why the way the chemical alters the brain function is harmful to the brain itself.

That was more or less my point - you have to have a metric for harm. We can probably agree on some pretty clear ones - things that interfere with the ability to support life functions, cause problems for others, or significantly deteriorate performance on common tasks. And then we need a metric for the highly subjective benefits of marijuana use. And then we need a means of comparing the two. Nightmarish ethics again.

There are no DEFINITIVE scientific findings either for or against the idea that Marijuana induces dependance, what long-term psychological effects it has, and whether it leads to the consumption of additional 'harder' drugs. There is research people have done that indicated it does, and there's research that indicates it hasn't. Really, there is no cold hard established fact in this matter, which makes this a tricky subject to debate. I cannot really call myself right. My argument is based on definitive research based on other drugs, and the idea that the brain doesn't normally input what you get from a marijuana high, so therefore it's probably frying something in there. But you're not as right as you think you are, either, in assuming it's been proven that Marijuana DOES NOT do these things. It hasn't been proved. There is no 'scientific consensus' one way or the other like you seem to believe.

Discussion of definitive proof should be the posterchild for misunderstanding of the scientific method. There is no definitive proof for anything (at least under the definition of "definitive" implicit here). There is only broad scientific consensus. This notion of definitive proof is completely incoherent. The problem is that it seems sensible in everyday situations because there are situations in which consensus on a particular fact or experiment is widespread enough as to seem completely universal. This is a bigger topic than I really have room to address here, but it's been addressed in excruciating detail in philosophy of science over and over again for thousands of years (for more accessible, more modern stuff, you might google around for some basic discussion of Karl Popper).

As for the consensus - it really does exist. The media does a bad job representing it (like they do all of science, especially regarding social issues), but if you have some means of actually looking into the contemporary literature for large-scale reviews and (scientifically literate) polls of researcher beliefs, or in actually corresponding with members of the relevant scientific community, you find that the consensus is remarkably overwhelming.

 

[Gothproxy]

Ok, I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest something that may help with her 'psychological addiction' (or the fact that she has no 'escape' from the stress of life right now)....

...you need to bang the *(#_$@ out of her. Really. Give her the best damn sex you can come up with, use every trick in the book (go buy some if you need to), and be spontaneous about it. Then let her know if she's ever in the mood to hit the pipe again, that you have a pipe willing, waiting, and able to hit HER...in a good way.

If that doesn't work, try foot messages.

If THAT doesn't work, well, time for nose plugs or a new girlfriend.

 

[BarbaricGoose]

Marijuana addiction is like a cookie addiction. Or, so I've heard. I've never done marijuana in all my life, but I've eaten a wide range of cookies. Sometimes it can be hard to not want to eat cookies, but you just gotta tough it out. Sometimes you have a real bad craving for cookies, but it goes away. You can't actually get addicted to cookies, but they taste real good, so you really want to eat them, and it can feel like an addiction at times.

I hope this has helped. (It probably hasn't).

 

[Zorpheus]

Nor are dictionarities authoritative works. They're reference works, like encyclopedias. If something in an encyclopedia is demonstrably wrong, you don't trust the dictionary over reality. In this case, ad hominem is virtually never used in the way you describe and very, very never used that way within the discourse of academic debate where it sees the most common, most prototypical use. Moreover, dictionaries tend to be poor even as reference works with the average dictionary containing thousands of errors, extremely questionable value judgments, and technical definitions written by lexicographers with little training or understanding of the fields in question (sadly, this is sort of inescapable since lexical semantics is an ugly, ugly field even for experts and most lexicographers have little if any actual linguistic training).

Which is why I referenced TWO dictionaries, not just one. Multiple sources stated both definitions upon additional research, and therefore it is most likely true. There is certainly more evidence to support that it has those definitions than there is that it doesn't have them.

To list more sources:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ad+hominem - This one notes that while the definition is true, the particular meaning is falling out of style.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ad+hominem?region=us - This one not only lists the definition but gives an additional definition the others didn't have, likely more eccentric.

So, there you go, four sources that state the definition exists vs. your opinion that it doesn't, citing referential inaccuracies. Therefore it would seem that the existence of that additional definition has a lot of support towards being a true thing. There's some insight at least as to why you might not have heard of that particular definition before, that one source partially agreeing with you that it is not considered useable in that context in today's English. THE MORE YOU KNOW!

We're talking about something for which many of the facts are personal and subjective. I would argue strongly that you actually cannot offer a fact-based argument in the same way that someone with those personal experiences can. Though I will concede that you can offer an argument based on researched experiences of people who do have that personal knowledge, it would be folly to suggest that this isn't going to result in a somewhat weaker understanding of the issue under discussion compared to being one of those people. This is the difference between consulting an expert and consulting a consultant of an expert - you don't get quite the same kind of understanding.

Actually, you can use the same logic to argue that one who has used the substances cannot form an unbiased opinion as to whether the substance should be used or not, either, swayed as they are to the benefits of the use of their product. And I'd still call that argument ad hominem and flimsy, full of assumptions.

I can pull articles that state that evidence suggests that the world is flat, that the world is only a few hundred years old, or any number of crazy things. And every one of them will have real empirical evidence from experimentation in support of these conclusions. But that doesn't make them good evidence. There's a lot of bad science just as there's a lot of bad everything and one of the primary purposes of academia and the scientific method is to weed (no pun intended) that stuff out and base conclusions and subsequent research on what the scientific community agrees to be the most reliable data. Papers, even looking at them by sheer volume, will tend to lead you astray far mor often than looking at the consensus of the relevant scientific community. It's rare enough that there ever even is a consensus on something that was previously controversial in a scientific community - scientists are notoriously skeptical and argumentative and the existence of any consensus (so long as it isn't the "uh, why do we all believe that again?" sort) is usually a very strong indicator, certainly stronger than the mere existence of papers arguing the opposite.

And yet this statement you've made does not support the idea that your sources that claim support on your side of the issue are in any way better than mine. Only that "LOL SOURCES CAN BE WRONG!" I can easily just say that as a kneejerk statement towards any evidence you attempt to produce, and that gets us nowhere.

Funny thing, you never denied that you weren't a teetotaler -- in fact, you've confirmed it multiple times. Is an assumption really weak when it turns out to be true?

Did you completely miss the part where I pointed out I have drank alcohol multiple times? I think you have. So yes, that would be a denial, and your 'confirmations' are invalid. And it STILL has not contributed anything worthwhile to this argument.

Also, yeah, I'm calling bias. As others have pointed out, the overwhelming body of evidence shows that marijuana is completely harmless. The only way that it's physically harmful is in what smoking it does to your lungs -- and, again, as others have pointed out, baking it into brownies or otherwise ingesting it without smoke takes care of that issue.

As for the consensus - it really does exist. The media does a bad job representing it (like they do all of science, especially regarding social issues), but if you have some means of actually looking into the contemporary literature for large-scale reviews and (scientifically literate) polls of researcher beliefs, or in actually corresponding with members of the relevant scientific community, you find that the consensus is remarkably overwhelming.

What is this 'overwhelming consensus' everyone keeps referencing? I've seen nothing of the sort. Every non-biased resource I've looked at says the scientific community is completely at odds with themselves in this issue. I can at least acknowledge that my views aren't fully backed up, yet I'm the one that's biased and poorly researching information? For every one article I can pull up saying it doesn't do any harm, I can pull up one that says it does. There. Is. No. Scientific. Consensus. If you think there is, you're fooling yourselves, or simply reading the things that validate your viewpoint and dismissing anything that doesn't.

Anyway, I think it's time to bring the discussion back towards the original topic, as we're making absolutely no progress in this one. Take it away, guys.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Nor are dictionarities authoritative works. They're reference works, like encyclopedias. If something in an encyclopedia is demonstrably wrong, you don't trust the dictionary over reality. In this case, ad hominem is virtually never used in the way you describe and very, very never used that way within the discourse of academic debate where it sees the most common, most prototypical use. Moreover, dictionaries tend to be poor even as reference works with the average dictionary containing thousands of errors, extremely questionable value judgments, and technical definitions written by lexicographers with little training or understanding of the fields in question (sadly, this is sort of inescapable since lexical semantics is an ugly, ugly field even for experts and most lexicographers have little if any actual linguistic training).

Which is why I referenced TWO dictionaries, not just one. Multiple sources stated both definitions upon additional research, and therefore it is most likely true. There is certainly more evidence to support that it has those definitions than there is that it doesn't have them.

To list more sources:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ad+hominem - This one notes that while the definition is true, the particular meaning is falling out of style.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ad+hominem?region=us - This one not only lists the definition but gives an additional definition the others didn't have, likely more eccentric.

So, there you go, four sources that state the definition exists vs. your opinion that it doesn't, citing referential inaccuracies. Therefore it would seem that the existence of that additional definition has a lot of support towards being a true thing. There's some insight at least as to why you might not have heard of that particular definition before, that one source partially agreeing with you that it is not considered useable in that context in today's English. THE MORE YOU KNOW!

We're talking about something for which many of the facts are personal and subjective. I would argue strongly that you actually cannot offer a fact-based argument in the same way that someone with those personal experiences can. Though I will concede that you can offer an argument based on researched experiences of people who do have that personal knowledge, it would be folly to suggest that this isn't going to result in a somewhat weaker understanding of the issue under discussion compared to being one of those people. This is the difference between consulting an expert and consulting a consultant of an expert - you don't get quite the same kind of understanding.

Actually, you can use the same logic to argue that one who has used the substances cannot form an unbiased opinion as to whether the substance should be used or not, either, swayed as they are to the benefits of the use of their product. And I'd still call that argument ad hominem and flimsy, full of assumptions.

I can pull articles that state that evidence suggests that the world is flat, that the world is only a few hundred years old, or any number of crazy things. And every one of them will have real empirical evidence from experimentation in support of these conclusions. But that doesn't make them good evidence. There's a lot of bad science just as there's a lot of bad everything and one of the primary purposes of academia and the scientific method is to weed (no pun intended) that stuff out and base conclusions and subsequent research on what the scientific community agrees to be the most reliable data. Papers, even looking at them by sheer volume, will tend to lead you astray far mor often than looking at the consensus of the relevant scientific community. It's rare enough that there ever even is a consensus on something that was previously controversial in a scientific community - scientists are notoriously skeptical and argumentative and the existence of any consensus (so long as it isn't the "uh, why do we all believe that again?" sort) is usually a very strong indicator, certainly stronger than the mere existence of papers arguing the opposite.

And yet this statement you've made does not support the idea that your sources that claim support on your side of the issue are in any way better than mine. Only that "LOL SOURCES CAN BE WRONG!" I can easily just say that as a kneejerk statement towards any evidence you attempt to produce, and that gets us nowhere.

Funny thing, you never denied that you weren't a teetotaler -- in fact, you've confirmed it multiple times. Is an assumption really weak when it turns out to be true?

Did you completely miss the part where I pointed out I have drank alcohol multiple times? I think you have. So yes, that would be a denial, and your 'confirmations' are invalid. And it STILL has not contributed anything worthwhile to this argument.

Also, yeah, I'm calling bias. As others have pointed out, the overwhelming body of evidence shows that marijuana is completely harmless. The only way that it's physically harmful is in what smoking it does to your lungs -- and, again, as others have pointed out, baking it into brownies or otherwise ingesting it without smoke takes care of that issue.

As for the consensus - it really does exist. The media does a bad job representing it (like they do all of science, especially regarding social issues), but if you have some means of actually looking into the contemporary literature for large-scale reviews and (scientifically literate) polls of researcher beliefs, or in actually corresponding with members of the relevant scientific community, you find that the consensus is remarkably overwhelming.

What is this 'overwhelming consensus' everyone keeps referencing? I've seen nothing of the sort. Every non-biased resource I've looked at says the scientific community is completely at odds with themselves in this issue. I can at least acknowledge that my views aren't fully backed up, yet I'm the one that's biased and poorly researching information? For every one article I can pull up saying it doesn't do any harm, I can pull up one that says it does. There. Is. No. Scientific. Consensus. If you think there is, you're fooling yourselves, or simply reading the things that validate your viewpoint and dismissing anything that doesn't.

Anyway, I think it's time to bring the discussion back towards the original topic, as we're making absolutely no progress in this one. Take it away, guys.

Are you denying that you don't drink it at all anymore?

 

[achilleas.k]

Exactly how harmful does something have to be for it to be important? Playing video games certainly isnt benefitial or constructive, and certainly sitting on the couch playing them is more harmful than say, going outside and exercising, so is sitting here debating on a forum.

Water certainly can be harmful in large enough ammounts, even when you arent drowning in it, there is hyponatremia. "But you need water to live!" I hear you say. Well watch closely... you use water responsibly and you gain the benefits and mitigate the risks. We dont need marijuana or any other recreational drugs, we dont need a lot of things that occupy our free time, but if you use/do them responsibly you can ENJOY them while mitigating the risks. Maybe you dont enjoy marijuana, and that is fine, I dont think that people need to enjoy everything I do. I dont enjoy DragonBall Z, but I am not about to accuse anyone that does of any pathological problems even if they watch it everyday. I wouldnt call them an addict even if they find themselves wanting to watch it 2 years after they have stopped ^.^

I was reading through the thread and there were some really stupid responses and some really good ones, but I stopped at this one just to say: +1!

Not everything we consume is purely good for us, in any amount. Most things we enjoy are bad for us but we balance the "bad stuff we like" with the "good stuff we don't like", so we eat 1 burger for every 5 or 10 healthy meals instead of the other way around. Why eat the burger if it's bad for us? Because feeling good is just as important as being healthy. We need to indulge to give ourselves a break. Being on this forum for me is, more or less, a waste of time (I should be working now :| ), but I could argue that I need some "me time" during work hours because concentrating on work for 8 hours straight will cause more problems than if I take breaks and don't get as much done in a day (that's not to say I don't overdo it).

There may be more important things said after this but I have a reply to the "snake venom" and "drop book on toe" arguments a couple of pages back:
Yes, dropping a book on your toe is less painful than getting hit by a truck, but I see no reason to do EITHER of those. Certain drugs are (or can be) less harmful than alcohol and I see a few reasons for doing BOTH of those (see above). The argument here isn't that you should do the less harmful thing when there is another, more harmful alternative. The argument is that there are legal, socially acceptable substances that are more harmful. Acceptance of those more harmful substances should, in theory, imply an acceptance of less harmful substances. That is what "weed is less harmful than alcohol" is trying to imply!

PS: Sorry for being slightly off topic

 

[Ruuvan]

Sounds more like the nicotine side of things; assuming that when she smoked weed, she made the spliffs with tobacco and weed and that's that.

I doubt it's THC withdrawal as, unlike nicotine, your mind does not adopt a physical dependancy, only the mental side of "I like this feeling, I would like it again" whereas nicotine is more "My brain needs it now, even if I hate the idea of smoking, I know a nice nicotine rush would stop me being an angry bugger!"

I smoke cigarettes, smoked the other stuff for quite a while at Uni but no more, and I have no urge to do it again, so no THC withdrawal.

 

[mrF00bar]

The chemical addiction is gone. Its just the mental problems. Cant really do shit about that unless you take her to a voodoo doctor to cast out the bad juju. Or in the common vernacular, hypnotists.

There is no chemical addiction for weed I believe, its all mental, that is if I haven't been told wrongly. Also, why do you care and why does it turn you off that she wants to smoke weed? Just tell her its ok but you don't want anything to do with it, so just do it away from me?

 

[4li3n]

An ad hominem attack is by definition trying to undermine someone's argument by questioning their credibility on the subject. He used 'straight edged' for a "you never tried anything like it so you don't know what you're talking about" angle, so therefore, it is ad hominem.

No, an ad hominem is only when the attack is about an attribute of the person that is irrelevant to the disscussion. Like saying "you smell" and implying that means you must be wrong about how much 2+2 equals...

Questioning someone's knowledge about the matter discussed is a pretty legitimate argument... if someone said 2+2=10 pointing out that they failed 1st grade math is not an ad hominem, even if the proper way to do it is to prove 2+2=4, as that actually prove you're right, while showing the other person to not know anything about the subject discussed just shows they're wrong, while saying nothing about your own argument (a lot of people seem to think it does, which is another fallacy).


Also, anything can be psychologically addictive, and alcohol addiction doesn't isn't genetic, there are just genes that make you get addicted easier.

 

[4li3n]

It just might be that she has an addictive personality and feels like she needs it

If she stopped for 2 years it's unlikely that she has an addictive personality...

 

[Jake Lewis Clayton]

I've been clean for a few years (few years back I was smoking it everyday for 7 hours a day), apart from the odd day or two (had about 6 days i've gone back to it).

It's one of those things, if you do it once or twice a year it's nothing to stress about.

If all her friends do is smoke weed, then maybe she will slip back into it, but if she's not surrounded by it 23.5/7 and doesn't want to turn her life into shit she will be able to cope with 1 or 2 nights of getting high.