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Why is Smoking bad, but Smoking Marijuana is COOL?

What about if they were on both? Just for good measure...

Posted at the same time as JW! Great minds... :p

Getting the perfect drunk-high is an art. Too much of either one and you get the SPINS. And even when you are in the perfect drunk-high, you REALLY don't want to be moving too much... just sit back and enjoy the ride.
 
Time to roll a fatty full of facts to contradict some of the comments in this thread:
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Myth: Marijuana Can Cause Permanent Mental Illness. Among adolescents, even occasional marijuana use may cause psychological damage. During intoxication, marijuana users become irrational and often behave erratically.

Fact: There is no convincing scientific evidence that marijuana causes psychological damage or mental illness in either teenagers or adults. Some marijuana users experience psychological distress following marijuana ingestion, which may include feelings of panic, anxiety, and paranoia. Such experiences can be frightening, but the effects are temporary. With very large doses, marijuana can cause temporary toxic psychosis. This occurs rarely, and almost always when marijuana is eaten rather than smoked. Marijuana does not cause profound changes in people's behavior.
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Myth: Marijuana is Highly Addictive. Long term marijuana users experience physical dependence and withdrawal, and often need professional drug treatment to break their marijuana habits.

Fact: Most people who smoke marijuana smoke it only occasionally. A small minority of Americans - less than 1 percent - smoke marijuana on a daily basis. An even smaller minority develop a dependence on marijuana. Some people who smoke marijuana heavily and frequently stop without difficulty. Others seek help from drug treatment professionals. Marijuana does not cause physical dependence. If people experience withdrawal symptoms at all, they are remarkably mild.
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Myth: Marijuana is More Damaging to the Lungs Than Tobacco. Marijuana smokers are at a high risk of developing lung cancer, bronchitis, and emphysema.

Fact: Moderate smoking of marijuana appears to pose minimal danger to the lungs. Like tobacco smoke, marijuana smoke contains a number of irritants and carcinogens. But marijuana users typically smoke much less often than tobacco smokers, and over time, inhale much less smoke. As a result, the risk of serious lung damage should be lower in marijuana smokers. There have been no reports of lung cancer related solely to marijuana, and in a large study presented to the American Thoracic Society in 2006, even heavy users of smoked marijuana were found not to have any increased risk of lung cancer. Unlike heavy tobacco smokers, heavy marijuana smokers exhibit no obstruction of the lung's small airway. That indicates that people will not develop emphysema from smoking marijuana.

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http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/factsmyths/

I left out the sources this time to save space, but you can find them all in the link. The sources provided weren't 'High Times' magazine or anything like that, just to stave off the obvious rebuttal. Nor do I smoke weed, but I do think I'm being followed by a walrus for some reason, so maybe I'm just forgetting that I smoked some.

mythbusted2144175.jpg
 
I'm not sure. Despite many of the claims people make, cigarette smoke is not an allergen.

I don't know if marijuana smoke is any different in that regard.
 
Well, I've waited on people who are allergic to alcohol (which is annoying being a bartender), so for now I am going to pretend that some people might be allergic to pot.
 
To be honest, that's pretty unlikely, too. It's more likely that they're allergic to some other ingredient in a drink, or that they have a low tolerance for alcohol.
 
I have zero allergies, so I don't really understand how they work. All I know is what people tell me.
 
I don't think either rates as "cool". But tobacco is a pointless waste of money and health, an addictive drug the smoking of which does nothing but relieve withdrawal symptoms, and marijuana is yummy.
 
And, BTW, there are ZERO teenagers sitting in mental wards because of pot. Now, something else may have landed them there, and they may have also smoked pot.
Sorry, guys, that's bullshit, there are a couple of studies happening in Australia that seem to confirm this. The key point is that the people that have gone that way had a susceptibility to mental issues, and MIGHT NOT have crossed that line if they hadn't smoked dope.

Back in the 60s was when all this started by Baby Boomers who were, I've come to realise, a bunch of self indulgent wankers who imagined they were being cool but were suckered in. They didn't buy tobacco off The Man, but bought grass off your local dope peddler, who then became richj... like The Man. They are also the root of the yuppie thing, which also means coke.

I was a long term smoker of weed, bit over 10 years. I saw what it did to one of my friends who had a couple of breakdowns, and later died (maybe of marijuana-related cancer, maybe not, too hard to say for sure). All of us, in my peer group from that time... haven't turned out right. We're reasonably successful, but I strongly feel that we've underachieved by a huge margin, and I'd certainly put part of that down to dope.

I live a life of numerous regrets. Smoking dope for so long is one of them, because every day I have to struggle with what I feel I've lost, and have to overcome it. It's a very slow process.

In short; marijuana's bad, mmkay?

That said, I still love the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.
 
Some of my mothers friend's were long-term marijuana smokers, and they've struggled to give it up, because like you, they felt it was making them miss out on a lot of things in life - child-rearing was often a big reason for their giving up. Can you be a responsible parent and a regular pot smoker? Difficult. Very shady area.

As to the more frightening aspects, like psychosis, I've had to go into mental wards in my time as part of my work, and have seen pretty messed up young people - their doctors, their families, and those close to them all believed it was the marijuana - whether because of long-term abuse, or because it tripped something in their brain that was already vulnerable to such illnesses.

I have come to see marijuana as a form of Russian roulette, with your well-being as the stakes, it all depends on whether you want to role that dice, and find out if you are part of that percentage who it can effect adversely.

It is not a miracle drug, it is a drug like any other, which means there can be all sorts of side-effects, some minor, some extreme.
 
It's simple: Smoking is established, mainstream and legal. Weed allows you got get away with something, you're the badass mofo rebel sticking it to the man. Plus you make fat stacks of cash when you deal and you have power over your friends because they are counting on YOU to help them get high.

The only way to eliminate the problem is to make it legal. It loses it's "cool" factor and therefore it's power over the young.

Most heavy users started out this way, wanting to stick it to the system, lookatme I'm getting away with it. Stuff is horrible, it causes neurochemical changes, affects your memory and is more damaging than tobacco long-term.

I know all this, because I used to be a user, I used to deal. For these very reasons. Now I'm one of those self-rightous high-and-mighty anti-weed Grownups who isn't shy about calling the cops on a couple of teens smoking a few blunts on the corner. :)
 
People smoke pot because they aren't allowed to? I just assumed they wanted to get high :confused:
 
Marijuana is a huge scapegoat for many things - for instance the psychosis theory. Having been a D&D playing kid in the 80's, I've long been familiar with this kind of crap. In fact they said the same thing about D&D, that it causes schizophrenia. So does living in the city, if you follow that logic.

Why is MJ cool, and tobacco not? I'll leave that to your individual research. :) However, *smoking* anything is not "cool" at all. No, it doesn't make you schizophrenic, gay, or jewish, but it does fill your airways with horrible stuff. Not a problem for the occasional imbiber, but for the more seasoned sort, there is a real health impact.
And being too high at inappropriate times is obviously a problem. Some people have no damn sense; they'll smoke in front of other people's children, but these types of idiots are very rare and it can hardly be said the herb made them that way. In fact I had to redirect someone at a party recently, who was about to light a pipe with a bunch of 13-15 year olds across the room, who that same guy was talking to minutes before! That's not weed, people, that's your good friend alcohol.
My main beef with MJ, my only beef really, is the smoking of it. It pisses me off that the Right spends so much time and effort demonizing and scapegoating this blessed herb, this wonderful resource, this gift of the Goddess, while by far the #1 problem with it is the inhaling of smoke.
Therefore, one should replace smoking with vaporizing whenever possible. You'd be amazed at how much of the negative/sleepy/stupor effects associated with smoking weed is due to the burning itself.
 
The only way to eliminate the problem is to make it legal. It loses it's "cool" factor and therefore it's power over the young.

Really? You wouldn't think that legalizing the stuff would imply that it's okay to do it?
Of course not, why do you think it works so well here in the Netherlands?

Kids try a joint, decide it's not all that big of a deal since you can get it whenever you want it anyways, and mostly never bother again.
 
The only way to eliminate the problem is to make it legal. It loses it's "cool" factor and therefore it's power over the young.

Really? You wouldn't think that legalizing the stuff would imply that it's okay to do it?
Of course not, why do you think it works so well here in the Netherlands?

Kids try a joint, decide it's not all that big of a deal since you can get it whenever you want it anyways, and mostly never bother again.

I'm not so sure the same thing would happen over here.
 
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