mikespoff said:
1. No, it's not like tobacco. Regular marijuana use results in psychosis in 10% of users and has been linked to higher incidence of schizophrenia; this is far more damaging than similar usage of either tobacco or alcohol.
None of the medical tests currently used to detect brain damage in humans have found harm from marijuana, even from long term high-dose use.
But yeah people who have a mental illness will be highly affected by weed or other drugs that can alter the state of mined like ritalin or conserta
An early study reported brain damage in monkeys after six months exposure to high concentrations of marijuana smoke. These tests aren?t to be taken serious, because these monkeys were tested with outdated technology thus making the result inaccurate.
In a recent, more carefully conducted study, researchers found no evidence of brain abnormality in monkeys that were forced to inhale four to five marijuana cigarettes every day for a year. This clearly proves that marijuana leaves NO brain damage.
The claim that marijuana kills brain cells is based on a report dating back 25 years and has never been supported by any scientific study.
2. I'd prefer to eliminate tobacco smoking, so that argument that "it's no worse than tobacco" - even if true (see above) - would still not justify legalising it. It's a harmful substance, you'd need a strong positive justification for legalising it, not just that it's on par with other harmful stuff.
moked marijuana contains 2 times more tar and carbon monoxide as tobacco, but you should realize that someone who is a heavy tobacco smoker, smokes a lot more tobacco then a heavy marijuana smoker.
So a heavy tobacco smoker inhales much more smoke then a heavy marijuana smoker. As a result, the risk of serious lung damage is far more lower with marijuana smokers.
Then there are always people that say stuff like this:
?Someone told me that one joint equals 8 tobacco?s?
Some ?scientist? said this 20 years ago on TV and people still believe this ferry tail.
Allow me to bust this myth once and for all and hit you with the facts.
Tar and carbon monoxide are the main reason why tobacco and marijuana are dangerous.
Tests have proven that the amount of tar and carbon monoxide in marijuana is about 2 times more then the amount of tar and carbon monoxide in tobacco?s.
This would mean that 1 (pure) joint equals 2 tobacco's. But, like I said before, Marijuana smokers smoke lesser joints then people that smoke cigarettes and there are only a very few people that smoke there joint pure.
3. You are correct when you write that smoking weed is much more dangerous than drinking alcohol.
drink and drive = dead
smoke and drive = dead
4. The numerical count of drunk driving and marijuana-related accidents is meaningless; there is no context and the relative userbase (and social acceptability) makes this a useless statistic.
Early studies showed that people who smoke marijuana have about the same amount of car accidents then people who drink alcohol.
However, a more closer examination revealed that 85% of the people who used marijuana and had a car accident also consumed alcohol!
For people only intoxicated on marijuana, the rate was much lower than for alcohol alone. This finding has been supported by other research using completely different methods.
For example, states that had reduced penalties for marijuana possession experienced a rise in marijuana use and a decline in alcohol use with the result that fatal highway accidents decreased.
This would suggest that, instead of causing a "carnage" on the highways, legalizing marijuana might actually save lives!
Tests have also shown that people intoxicated on alcohol drive a lot faster then people who didn?t used alcohol, while marijuana smokers drive a lot slower and approach other cars more cautiously.
This is because the effects of marijuana makes you more aware of your surrounding so you pay more attention to the things happening around you, it also feels like you are going 60 miles a hour while only driving 30 miles.
Also I would like to add that I drive my car at least a few times a week after I smoked some joints. The funny part is that I have had my share of car accidents but never while I was high on weed, isn?t that something?
