...to think that weed can and does ruin lives and isn't 'harmless'?

[madonnawhore]

I know there are people who maintain that cannabis is harmless and they smoke it and they're fine blah blah blah.

I used to smoke it, all my friends used to smoke it, but none of us do any more because, you know what? it doesn't half make you a boring, lazy bastard.

Never mind the whole 'it causes psychosis' debate (my brother and a really good friend of mine both had to receive mental health treatment as a result of smoking weed), but there's a thread over on relationships at the moment about some woman's husband who spends all his salary on weed within the first 3 days of payday and who has actually cut his hours so that he can stay home and play more computer games.

AIBU in presuming that if he wasn't such a pot head, he'd be more inclined to get of his arse and go to work?

Sitting on your backside playing COD all day cos you can't be fucked to do anything else is not harmless.

Maybe he would have been a major fuck up with mental health issues anyway .
Correlation is not causation.

I think that it should be prescribed for medicinal purposes only. There was a programme about it on BBC Three, last week presented by the guy who played Martin Fowler on Eastenders, and one guy had ME which was relieved by taking cannabis. He had to take it illegally and faced prison if caught which is sad.

YANBU. I hate weed and this notion thta it is somehow ''cool.''

I'v eexperienced extreme paranoia on weed. Nothing chilled about it.

Not to mention tha fact that smoking it can cause cancer.

Something else to consider is that I can say from my experience of assessing hundreds of prisoners, that for the vast majority imprisoned for Class A drug related crime thier first experience of drug use was cannabis.

I bet most of the drank and smoked tobacco first too. what does it mean? It means that if you are the kind of person who likes getting out of their head, you'll try lots of things.

it doesn't mean that a joint or two instantly sets you on a road to a depraved 'my drugs hell' life.

Being poor makes you more likely to commit crime, have mental health issues and indeed indulge in excessive drug use.

Maybe being poor should be illegal?

Plenty of drug-free cocklogers in the world, buzz, QUITE TRUE.

Sativex is the legal version of cannabis and has been liscensed for use in MS, however most PCTs are refusing to fund it due to the costings, so people that have found relief for pain through its use are still having to use illegally. I think the cost is £11 per spray can, lasting approx 3/4 days depending on usage.

i know a few who use cannabis,skunk mainly and i have to aggree it makes them boring,dozy and lethargic.I used to be rmn and definately saw early onset mental illness in cannabis users and often they didnt test for any other drugs either.
My other observation is that it is often compared to alcohol use which can be a fair point but a lot of users i know smoke it constantly and will do anything to get hold of it-if this becomes the case with alcohol use it becomes a problem the same as over use of any drug.

Ledkr, I feel boring, dozy and lathargic and i dont take any drugs and never have . only dd waking up at 5 o clockam

the word 'assassin' comes from 'hashishim' a band of weed-eating killers in Arabia...with a rep for swift and extreme violence.

they were evidently rendred incapable by thieir usage

a test on the drug found when Thc was injected into a group unknowingly, there was no observed change in behaviour.

There are no studies that show smoking cannabis can cause cancer. Perhaps you are thinking of tobacco. Alcohol can also cause cancer.

I'm sure I've read that cannabis useage is linked to oral/oesophageal cancers, especially in combination with hpv.

www.inspire.com/groups/national-cervical-cancer-coalition/discussion/hpv-marijuana-and-oral-cancer-read-this-if-you-smoke-pot-1st-post/

In answer to your question, I don't smoke enough joints for it to ever be in issue as to whether i'd smoke one infront if ds. I maybe have a dozen in a year? and none since I 've been pregnant and breastfeeding. And none of these at home because I wouldn't want to take the risk of having drugs in the house and wouldn't want to be stoned while looking after him. Basically I'll only smoke if I have a child free weekend or something.

I probably would sooner drink infront if him than smoke though, as I wouldn't want to encourage him to start smoking. Alchohol could just be juice to a pre schooler. Smoking is something else entirely.

He's not even 2 yet, so explaining adult behaviour won't come for a good while yet, but when he's old enough I hope to be able to discuss openly and honestly all sorts of issues , sex, drugs etc. Fingers crossed !

You might want to read your own link;
"There is insufficient evidence to either implicate or exonerate
marijuana as a carcinogen in humans
( 28 ). In this study, marijuana
use was strongly associated with HPV-16 ? positive HNSCC. By
contrast, no association between marijuana use and HNSCC was
observed in a California cohort study
( 29 ) or in three previous
case ? control studies ( 22 , 30 , 31 ). "

So they found a statistically significant association in one study that was not replicated in 4 others, and which no causation could be found.

so as I said, there are no studies that show that cannabis causes cancer.

Mal, as you know I love your posts. And, as you know, I believe frequent dope smoking is (these days) the death knell for a relationship. Here's the "but" ... You're coming across as afraid of weed. It's very odd. Is there a personal reason for it?

Mary, that sounds awful and I'm so sorry that your son and family is having this experience. Must be killing you. I don't blame you atall for being very anti cannabis with the experience you have, you'd be the mist open minded person ever to feel otherwise.

Makes me wonder what the difference is between the group of teenagers I was in ( who are all fine, happy, productive and normal 30 somethings) and your son and his friends?

I just find the idea of breathing in hot and toxic smoke totally repulsive and I think any addiction is pretty pathetic and weak.

Maybe it harks back to childhood when everyone seemed to smoke and I hated it, most of my family smoked and I vowed that I never would, I never have and neither has DH or DD, she's as phobic about smoking as I am thankfully.

I don't personally know anyone who uses cannabis but my sister had a friend whose 18 month old baby burned to death on her cooker while she we was stoned - I'm totally against any kind of drugs (of the non-medical kind).

I've had weed mary. Weed is smoking the dried leaves of the plant rather than hash (mashed up resin of the leaves held together as a bunch and treated with various kinds of liquidly chemicals).

Weed does seem to be getting stronger, and I agree is much stronger than the shitty hash around when I was young. But you just smoke less surely if it's stronger?

older sister has totally, utterly destroyed herself basically through smoking weed, is now 42 and a heroin addict, but the heroin use started only a year or two ago as self medication for the terrifying delusions that twenty years of heavy smoking has induced in her. and obviously, pretty much impossible to get any sort of help for a delusional junky who is in denial, so that's my mother's old age fucked too. broken heart, i believe they call it.

maryz is right, they call it weed but it's really not the same as the harmless, dull substance i messed about with slightly in my late teens.

It's not harmless in our current society. Putting aside the much debated effect on your mental health, unless you grow your own, it is unethical. You are giving money to organised crime and dealers who also make a living though selling harder drugs. Who are also involved in the prostitution of women and beating the shit out of those that they don't like. In my work I come across the young people who are trafficked into this country and kept in slave-like conditions to run cannabis farms in someone's attic and then left to face the criminal charges when the place gets raided. Just because it is bought from a mate, doesn't mean it wasn't produced with a huge human cost.

It always makes me when friends who do all their recycling, buy ethically traded fruit and veg etc, go and buy drugs for the weekend. Fairtrade cocaine anyone?

As far as I understand, "weed" as you're calling it is still cannabis, but just stronger strains. Like the stuff you get in a coffee shop in Amsterdam that blows your head off if you don;t know what you're doing and take it very slowly.

Is this the case?

Or do you mean it's a different drug entirely. but called the same name?