While pro-warming political pundits like to demonize climate skeptic research by comparing it to that of tobacco company research and marketing, it seems there is a parallel between the story of global warming and marijuana demonization. This story is about the parallels in research, and does not represent any position on drug use by WUWT – Anthony
Guest Essay by Dr. Robert G. Brown, Duke University (elevated from a comment)
Judith Curry’s remarks [Scientists and motivated reasoning], as usual, are dead on the money.
Here’s an almost perfectly analogous problem: CNN recently completely reversed its editorial policy and now calls for the legalization of Marijuana. Sanjay Gupta, its “resident physician editorialist”, who had previously somewhat vigorously led this opposition from the scientific point of view completely reversed his own position, and explained why in considerable detail both in text and in online video.
Historically, marijuana was both legal and considered to be a useful medicine all the way up through the beginning of the twentieth century. At that point, William Randolph Hearst had invested heavily in pine forests in Mexico, intending to sell them to his own newspapers to make newsprint. The Dupont family were discovering petrochemicals including plastic and oil-derived pharmaceuticals. A machine was invented that was the equivalent of a “cotton gin” for hemp — it mechanically stripped down the hemp plant and turned it into useful fiber, oil, and vegetable waste that could be used as an animal fodder (yes, we can imagine some very happy cows, can’t we?:-). One of many uses for the now inexpensive hemp fiber was to make equally inexpensive newsprint paper that was clearly superior in quality and cost to wood pulp paper. Another was that the oils and fiber could be used to synthesize various chemical products. Both Dupont and Hearst were suddenly hundreds of millions of dollars at risk.
They turned to Harry Anslinger, who happened to be Hearst’s brother in law. Anslinger was a suddenly idle ex-prohibitionist working for the FBI, and he created a propaganda campaign that portrayed hemp as literally maddening those that actually smoked it, leading them to commit acts of rape and robbery and moral turpitude. At the same time, political revolutions in Mexico (funded and fought by a private army belonging to Hearst) and a negative portrayal of blacks and Mexicans as common users of hemp for recreation purposes added a useful racist hook. Between these, congress outlawed hemp.
So matters remained until the Viet Nam war and the 1960s and early 70s. As part of the quiet “revolution” against what many perceived as a military-industrial complex with a life of its own that was fighting a series of expensive and pointless wars, pot had become “the” recreational drug of choice among young hippies and freaks as well as the military draftees who fought the war. Its use was so prevalent that Texas dropped the question about cannabis use from its entrance exam to police academy, because “asking a vet of they had ever smoked pot was like asking them if they smoked Camels”. Suddenly a large fraction of an entire generation of U.S. citizens had smoked pot and discovered that no, it does not turn you into a crazed rapist, and usually does not make you insane unless you are most of the way there on your own already. They also discovered that it is neither physically addictive nor dangerous in the sense that it is literally impossible to overdose on marijuana — it is literally one of the safest compounds we know of, with no meaningful fatal dose.
However, Ronald Reagan took office in the 80′s, an immediately declared a “War on Drugs”. Marijuana was reclassified as a schedule 1 narcotic by the federal government [in 1970], trumping communities that had already begun to experiment with decriminalization or even legalization. This once again gave law enforcement agencies lots of useful work (helpful if you are trying to build a police state), gave cops everywhere the ability to selectively enforce drug laws and thereby control the populace, and caused us to rather suddenly need to build enormous numbers of prisons because it rapidly turned out that by making marijuana trafficking a felony and putting even mere users in jail (just like heroin, cocaine, and actually dangerous drugs) somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of all prison sentences were being handed down for low grade drug offenses. Our expenditure on controlling pot went from next to nothing to tens of billions of dollars a year. Obviously, many profited from this, including (as usual) the money launderers and organized criminals that made fortunes providing marijuana on the black market, and the politicians and bankers that provided well-paid-for top cover.
And now to the interesting bit (although I think all of the above is interesting:-). One of the reasons given for making marijuana a schedule 1 felony class drug [in 1970] was that we didn’t know about the harm it might cause, and there was no known medical benefit. Yes, it had been used as a medicine for centuries, the founding fathers literally “mandated” the growing of hemp on American farms because it was so useful a plant both industrially and medicinally, but we had entered the era of double blind placebo controlled drug trials, and there were now enormous pharmaceutical companies whose billion-dollar products were at risk, dwarfing even the Duponts’ complaint back in the 30′s. Its risks were similarly unstudied.
A period of research then ensued. If you wanted to study pot, you had to both get funded and get the experimental marijuana from a single, small farm in Mississippi that grew “legal” pot for this purpose. The government itself was in complete control, in other words of what research got conducted, because even if you could find outside funding, you couldn’t get legal pot to do the research with without approval.
Gupta initially opposed marijuana legalization because a review of the medical literature showed him that 96% of all published articles found some sort of negative effect of marijuana, and almost no articles showed a benefit, especially compared to existing approved medications. However, a couple of anecdotal cases coming out of the states that had legalized medicinal marijuana in SPITE of the federal governments laws caused him to go back and reexamine the funding model. In retrospect it shouldn’t have been surprising, but he learned that 96% of all funded research was to look for negative effects of marijuana, and that to get funded and permission to get government grown pot was so difficult that there simply weren’t all that many papers in the first place. In well over thirty years of intensive examination, all of the examination was literally preselected to find problems, almost none to find benefits, and one had to walk on water and push much paper to do either one (and relatively few scientists had bothered).
That caused him to examine the body of emerging, still anecdotal, evidence from the states that had legalized medical marijuana. They showed that — again unsurprisingly — marijuana is a rich pharmacopeia with multiple legitimate medical uses that could survived double blind placebo controlled investigation, while at the same time having minimal side effects and no known lethal dose. Perhaps he came to realize that its negative effects might, conceivably, have been a bit exaggerated or might arise from confounding uncontrolled elements. Confirmation bias is, after all, the bete noir of science.
This situation almost perfectly matches the evolution of “climate science”. Nobody cared about it for decades, but suddenly a group of individuals emerged that all benefited from the demonization of carbon. This included environmental groups, that hated civilization itself and the burning of anything (as long, of course, as their own lifestyle was preserved), energy producers that saw in this the opportunity to triple or quadruple their profits by creating artificial scarcity of a plentiful resource, politicians that saw in this the opportunity to raise taxes, get elected on a world-saving “issue”, and perhaps line their own pockets along the way, and a United Nations that saw an opportunity to transform it into a way to tax the rich nations and transfer money to developing nations (while again lining various pockets along the way). The role of Anslinger was admirably met by one James Hansen, a True Believer who never stinted and does not stint today in exaggerating the data and claims of disaster (five meter sea level rise! temperatures like that on Venus!). And suddenly, quite literally all funded research was on how burning carbon was bad for the climate.
Even completely ethical scientists have to eat, and if the only way they can eat is to get funded, and the only way they can get funded is to submit proposals that seek to prove that CO_2 is bad, guess what they will propose to study? And if they want to get funded AGAIN, guess what they will find? Climate science has been effectively corrupted beyond any hope of objectivity.
On the good side of things, scientists are actually usually pretty ethical. Also, in the end data talks, bullshit walks. The hypothesis of CAGW or CACC could, in fact, be true (across a wide spectrum of the meaning of “true”, in fact). However, recent data is not in good correspondence with the theories that have predicted it, and many good scientists are in the process of reassessing their conclusions. As is the almost simultaneous case with regard to marijuana, the confounding evidence is starting to overwhelm to narrowly funded and directed arguments to date. We will see where the future takes us, in both cases.
======================================================
Addendum by Anthony:
1. I have added links to historical references into the essay along with some small edits [in brackets] for clarity.
2. This paragraph:
A period of research then ensued. If you wanted to study pot, you had to both get funded and get the experimental marijuana from a single, small farm in Mississippi that grew “legal” pot for this purpose.
Has a parallel with source data for global warming research. If you want to study the surface temperature record, there is one source: NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) who is not only the administrator, collator and keeper of the surface temperature record for the United States, but also the world via their Global Historical Climatological Network (GHCN). All other surface temperature datasets, HadCRUT, GISS, and even the supposedly independent BEST, are derivatives and/or custom interpretations of this source data, which as we know, is custom blended with NCDC’s own set of adjustments.
Like with pot research, the government is again the only source for data to study the surface record.
And people wonder why I spend so much time and effort to examine weather stations and adjustments.
Nixon, not Reagan was the first US President to use the term War on Drugs
marijuana is a rich pharmacopeia with multiple legitimate medical uses that could “””survived””” double blind placebo controlled investigation
====
typo
Opiates were not illegal for a long time too……….
Pot does have a lethal dose. Bruce Lee died of a hash overdose. It is difficult to OD by smoking as the effect from smoking is very rapid and you pass out before you get hurt. Eat enough high potency pot and you will indeed die of an overdose. That being said, there is enough cyanide in 15 pounds of almonds to kill a human as well. Good luck getting that into your stomach all at once.
Horrific when one realizes that these families lust for power caused the destruction of lives on the scale of the world wars. The unquestioning, law abiding citizens cooperated fully, even religion was on side. An article for serious reflection, thanks.
Anyone who thinks pot was made illegal because two newspaper publishers didn’t want better that better paper from hemp to come onto the market is smoking something. The real analogy is this: People should simply make the case for recreational pot legalization, and those concerned about pollution and our environment should stick to facts and raising awareness about the benefits of a cleaner environment, rather than inventing reasons like “Man-Made Global Warming,” which, like the numerous “reasons” why pot was made illegal, is bogus.
Marijuana was made a Schedule I drug in the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970.
RGB says: “…that hated civilization itself and the burning of anything…”
Well there is one thing they usually don’t mind burning.
As an aside, we are now growing hemp, not marijuana, in Canada, in substantial quantities.
Guess what ad popped up when I clicked on this thread? Potato chips! I kid you not!
Stephen Abbott says:
August 22, 2013 at 7:59 am
Anyone who thinks pot was made illegal because two newspaper publishers didn’t want better that better paper from hemp to come onto the market is smoking something.
It’s not THE reason. It’s just how it all started, the original impulse. Similarly, IPCC started because of Margaret Thatcher’s desire to criminalise coal to deal with a domestic problem involving miners strikes. The reason why CO2 is now officially a Devil’s product is not because of the UK miners. That’s just how everything started rolling.
I stand corrected. Bruce Lee did not die from hash. My bad.
On the whole, Dr. Brown does an excellent job. However, there is an inaccuracy and it is an important one. He says that “…recent data is not in good correspondence with the theories that have predicted it” ; Actually, the climate models are not “theories” in the scientific sense of the word and they do not “predict” but rather “project.” A model that predicts supplies information to a maker of policy on CO2 emissions about the outcomes from his or her policy decisions. A model which, like the current crop of climate models, “projects” provides a policy maker with no information.
So how come if environmentalists are so concerned about burning stuff that they drool when thinking about burning my money?
Where did I leave the Whole Earth Catalog?
Or did I?
This passage:
However, Ronald Reagan took office in the 80′s, an immediately declared a “War on Drugs”. Marijuana was reclassified as a schedule 1 narcotic by the federal government, trumping communities that had already begun to experiment with decriminalization or even legalization.
is misleading at best, dishonest at worst.
“All other surface temperature datasets, HadCRUT, GISS, and even the supposedly independent BEST, are derivatives and/or custom interpretations of this source data, which as we know, is custom blended with NCDC’s own set of adjustments.”
The vast majority of our data sources is GHCN daily and GSOD. Neither of these products has a NCDC adjustments applied.
You can, as Zeke and I have, construct a global record from GHCN daily data only, even with no QC applied. The answer you will get is the same.
Using daily unadjusted non QCed raw data you can see what youve never denied before Anthony. The world is warmer than it was in the LIA. After applying QC ( like removing daily temps of 15000C) the answer remains the same. Its getting warmer not colder. That estimate,
done with a method like RomanMs method, is within the confidence interval of every other published record
To repeat.
1. Daily data. No adjustments
2. RomanMs method, see jeffIds page for a discussion.
3. Final answer
A) Its getting warmer
B) The answer is statistically indistinguishable from all the other methods and data
sets.
This doesnt mean that there isn’t room for argument and debate about uncertainty and arguments about potential micro site bias, but the repeated mis information make
that discussion more difficult.
REPLY: Mosh, as an employee of BEST, I know you want to defend it as your own, that’s fine. I agree that daily data has no adjustments, but few (if any) trend demonstrative datasets use daily data, they use the monthly data, which is in fact adjusted before publishing on the GHCN FTP website. Can you show me time series temperature plots done for public consumption done with DAILY data? Can you show me a NOAA or NASA “state of the climate” report done for public consumption with daily data? Can you show me an alternate source of global surface temperature data that is not from NCDC?
“This work is often used as a foundation for reconstructing past global temperatures, and is used in two of the best-known reconstructions, that prepared by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), and that prepared by NASA as its Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) temperature set.[1] The average temperature record is 60 years long with ~1650 records greater than 100 years and ~220 greater than 150 years (based on GHCN v2 in 2006). The earliest data included in the database were collected in 1697.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Historical_Climatology_Network
And, it makes the record warmer, with each successive version of the adjustments, we are now on GHCNV3, as I illustrate here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/06/does-noaas-national-climatic-data-center-ncdc-keep-two-separate-sets-of-climate-books-for-the-usa/
The switch from one version to the other changed July 2012 from 76.93°F to 77.6°F.
Yes it is getting warmer, but what is the real number? That’s my question. Final answer. – Anthony
Thanks for those thoughts Dr Bob. That will cause some cognitive dissonance on both sides of the argument which you have no doubt considered. As an active, though amateur, researcher in both climate science and pot I can certainly see the parallels you highlight. It will be interesting to watch this debate take its own road to better understanding.
Based on 45 years of research I can state quite categorically that the negative aspects of marijuana are very hard to find Likewise after a shorter, but rather intense, period looking at the effects of man made CO2 it is also very difficult to find any downside. I do hope that I find that I am not the only pot vaping climate skeptic in the world because the two debates are hugely polarised. If you smoke pot you are supposed to be a tree hugging, hippie climate alarmist not a politically conservative successful engineer with his own business who thinks AGW is a pile of steaming horseshit.
Bruce Lee did not die from hash oil. If you do the research you will find that there is no accepted cause. There is no proven “lethal” dosage, and no deaths caused by hemp or its extracts listed in the literature. Tylenol is more dangerous and detrimental to health.
Hemp used to grow fiber and hemp used to grow mj are quite a bit different in their cannaboid content. Fiber hemp will give you the effect of smoking an “El Ropo” for good reason. The effect can hardly be considered a high.
As fun as RGB’s post is to read, it is 1/3 truth and 2/3 urban legend living on the Internet on sites advocating legalization. That is the main way it resembles CAGW. A half hour of fact checking easily shows this assessment is directionally correct.
Personally, I think it detracts from the very important and sometimes personal points Dr. curry made about motived climate science reasoning, and the resulting ‘monopolization’ and then ‘corruption’ of some of the underlying essential data, as Anthony’s crowd sourced project has proven. Fighting bad science using bad analogies to motivated urban legends is bad technique.
Luther Wu says (August 22, 8:19 am)
Where did I leave the Whole Earth Catalog?
Oh, sorry, man, I’ve got it. Here, I’ll sweep these bits back into the stash … 😉
Nice analogy, RGB. Thanks.
Climate Science is not a science. It is a political religion and is funded and organised accordingly.
Robert, thank you for your hysterically clever post
I have always said that anyone who is running for public office and is from my generation and claims they didn’t try/smoke pot is lying.
As an industrial raw material hemp is interesting, and the history of its prohibition as well. Doc Brown has an inaccuracy with the start of the War On Drugs AFAIK but that’s a minor nit.
Margaret Thatcher did not “desire to criminalise coal”. She was looking for a way to insulate the UK from the possibility that the miners might try again to take control of the government of the UK. See:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100211031/margaret-thatcher-godmother-of-global-warming/
The miners’ strike was 1984. Her speech to the Royal Society was 1988. She opened Hadley CRU in 1990.
I don’t know if she read Carl Sagan, but she may well have come across some of the rubbish he wrote in “Scientists confront Velikovsky” or “Broca’s Brain”. If she did, we can attribute the great CAGW scam to the writings of Sigmund Freud!
Terry Oldberg says:
August 22, 2013 at 8:11 am
Thanks for teaching about scientific method. Like freedom, scientific method is something that must be won again every day.
Dr Brown, would you please elaborate on ” …and usually does not make you insane unless you are most of the way there on your own already.”
in light of the excerpt from D.J. Castle, Cannabis and psychosis: what causes what?
F1000 Med Reports2013, 5:1 (doi: 10.3410/M5-1)
Published: 11 Jan 2013
“…a number of cohort studies from different parts of the world have converged in finding an association between cannabis consumption in youth and later schizophrenia/schizophreniform disorder. The first of these was a study of 50,087 Swedish conscripts [25], which showed an adjusted hazard ratio for schizophrenia of 3.1 (CI 1.7, 5.5), with a dose-response relationship with increasing exposure to cannabis. The Dunedin birth cohort [26] is particularly instructive in that it assessed individuals from a representative birth cohort at a number of time points and had excellent participant retention. In that study, the risk of schizophreniform psychosis at age 26 was 10.3% in those who had used cannabis in their teens, as opposed to 3% in the rest of the cohort (adjusted odds ratio 2.9 [CI 1.2, 7.0])”
25 Andreason S, Allebeck P, Engstrom A, Rydberg U: Cannabis and schizophrenia: a longitudinal study of Swedish conscripts. Lancet. 1987, ii:1483–1485.
26 Arseneault L, Cannon M, Poulton R, Murray R, Caspi A, Moffitt TE: Cannabis use in adolescence and risk for adult psychosis: longitudinal prospective study. BMJ. 2002, 325:1212–1213.
Dude, this post is like killer man. I just had one comment…. uh, oh, I forgot what I was gonna say. Oh well, just keep rockin’ dude.
I always enjoy Dr. Brown’ valuable contributions. I would like to point out one or two differences between the demonization of pot and the demonization of fossil fuel. In the case of pot, there was a call from the citizenry for the government to do something. Armies of mothers of teenagers sought relief from what they saw as the quickly growing negative effects of pot on their communities. In the case of fossil fuels, there has been no spontaneous mass movement against them.
Our government might have put its thumb on the scale in the case of pot but what it has done in the case of “climate change” is far worse and far scarier. Several government agencies that have ‘science’ in their names have put a hand and an arm on the scale. To take my favorite example, the National Science Foundation must be held accountable for abandoning scientific method in its awarding of grants for research into “climate change.” What is so scary is that we have seen our own democratic institutions bent in a way that would have made Lysenko proud.
In the sixties, I took a graduate level seminar in psychopharmacology. To indicate the naivete of the time and place, there were four students in the course. Our instructor, Dr. Swartz, was experimenting on the effects of LSD on neural pathways in cats.Unfortunately, at the same time, Dr. Timothy Leary was experimenting on undergraduates. College sophomores being the normal test subjects in most psychology departments. This lead to Sandoz recalling all experimental samples of LSD. Given that LSD is probably the most powerful drug in existence by volume, the lack of pure samples effectively ended all research other than government projects blessed by the Bureau of Narcotics or the CIA.
The current reversal of attitude on marijuana has led to an absence of research into cannibinoid hyperemesis, uncontrolled vomiting brought on by exposure to marijuana smoke. The emphasis on marijuana as a calming agent and appetite enhancer has led to repetitive misdiagnosis of this condition. By the way, if anyone sees uncontrolled vomiting accompanied with a desire for constant hot showers due to a disfunction of the body’s temperature regulating mechanism, tell the subject to get off the weed ,and avoid even contact highs.
Sponsored research has long since ceased to be a real search for truth. Climate change is only the latest victim.
Fruity language, if I may…
Kevin “Bloody” Wilson…
Tom in Florida says:
August 22, 2013 at 8:39 am
I have always said that anyone who is running for public office and is from my generation and claims they didn’t try/smoke pot is lying.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Yep, same with all the people who entered the armed forces in the 80s-90s (at least), especially the 80s. Declaring under oath that you had not used any illegal drugs was just a formality, no doubt dealt with by a wink and a nudge at the Pentagon, etc. Couldn’t have filled the recruiting quotas without giving just lip service to the issue. Of course the idea of barring anybody who had simply experimented a few times is absurd. But God knows they couldn’t deal with that honestly, not in the midst of the “drug war.”
Well, the case of cigarette smoking has similar elements. There is no doubt smoking can be detrimental to health, especially for those with the wrong genetic makeup, smoking cigarettes with unchecked carcinogen contents. However, the extremely poor science behind it is taken over by activists a long time ago to the extent one can hardly find out unbiased facts any more.
I have read a paper about the effects of smoking ban in Italian pubs. It has declared victory based on figures collected less than a year after the ban was implemented, saying number of cases hospitalized with heart attack has already dropped significantly. Well, I have the bad habit of double checking proposition. It turned out what they have said was true, but.
I have found mortality statistics for the same period and the same region of Italy. It turned out number of deaths due to heart attack has actually increased. How can that be?
Well, the most likely explanation is old alcoholics (a high risk group) used to spend their time in pubs, drinking & smoking. When they fell off the chair in agony, the barman called ambulance and bang! the guy was “hospitalized” in no time, where he had some chance of recovery.
After the ban this group took up a new habit of taking their drink home and having it alone at the kitchen table while smoking like mad. And, of course, as soon as the guy hit the floor with a heart attack, he had no chance whatsoever, because there was no one there to call the ambulance for him. He was found on the spot several days later, when neighbours could not stand the smell any more.
That’s how activist science works.
You may also want to check the Japanese smoking paradox to see how activist science is turned into mass murder.
Bert, I happen to know about schizophrenia. I would not consider it to be “adult psychosis”. It is well known to be a genetic-based disease that likely has early subclinical signs that become clinically manifest, usually, by age 18. The use of pot is likely related to the severity of early signs and is being used as a way to self-medicate the intolerable parts of this devastating disease. So the association is probably disease first, pot use a secondary side-affect with increased use tied to the severity of the disease. It may also be used to reduce the horrible side-affects of prescribed mood control drugs.
The corruption of research rather sounds like the “ozone hole” scare and nonsense of the 1980’s, and Dupont was implicated in that one, as well, since its world-wide patents on Freon were expiring. Soon, unfortunately, it will no longer be possible to believe any published research or publically released “information”, no matter the source. We’re very close to that already with the government’s economic statistics and the various “fudges” that go into their creation and release. Doesn’t look good for reason, rational thought and science … or for the rest of us, either.
I have read that schizophrenics are often heavy smokers of tobacco and that it seems
to help them a bit with their symptoms.
“Medical marijuana” should be held to the same requirements for safety, purity, and efficacy as any other drug. Once it has passed through rigorous clinical studies the questions of safety, dose and application will be answered. Otherwise, the designation of “medical” marijuana is hypocritical.
Those who advocate for medical marijuana also want to be able to grow and sell it independently. But, these growers are frequently selling the product for recreational use. You can’t do this with any other medicinal drug.
It should be treated as a recreational drug like alcohol, with similar oversight.
Rud,
97% of us here are 95% certain that what RGB wrote is most likely 90% correct.
Ambivalence. Can’t make up my mind whether to embrace a potsmoker or put on South Park episode “Die, Hippie, Die” (9th season).
For too much info on Cannabis (or any other drug) see
https://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis.shtml
Tom in Florida says:
August 22, 2013 at 8:39 am
They might not be “lying”. They might not be telling the whole truth. I can swear on whatever you want me to swear on that I never smoked marijuana. And I’m of the age to have lived through the 70’s. However, I can tell you I have been in rooms where I didn’t NEED to smoke the stuff to have received the effects of it. So, there may be some politicians who have not SMOKED it. But I bet they would have received the “benefits”. But the article draws a very good analogy.
Personally, I feel that all recreational drugs should be legalised (even the hard ones such as crack and heroin). Why? Because people will never stop taking drugs and we’ve been taking them since we first walked the Earth. Legalising it all would take the trade out of the hands of gangsters and third-world despots and into the hands of regulated and monitored retailers.
Many addicts die because they have switched dealers, been supplied a dose that hasn’t been cut with as much brick dust and crushed chalk as their last dealer used to add, and then consequently overdosed. If they had been buying their drugs from a legal retailer they could read the strength that would be printed on the side of the packet (just like the alcohol percentage proof printed on the side of a bottle of wine).
On the financial front, govts could make a fortune from taxes levied on the sale of drugs and we would have an instant market that many drug retailers could legally profit from, thus boosting the economy. Right now, that money just goes (untaxed) into the pockets of murders and thugs.
When I once explained my beliefs about the legalisation of all drugs to a guy in a bar, he was outraged and said that it would create a whole world of crack-head zombies wandering the planet. I then asked him if heroin was made legal tomorrow would he start taking it? Of course, he said he wouldn’t (just as I said I wouldn’t). The guy then told me that he would “never take drugs of any kind” and proceeded to take a massive swig of his pint of beer…..
David
I agree. It’s the prohibition itself that causes the greater harm to society. It creates the black market and empowers those who will be brutal in the growth & defense of their business. (and on and on) We learned nothing from our great prohibition experiment. Absolutely nothing.
Here we go again …
Another bunch of junkies who want their “prrrecious” drug legalized!
Man is the only mobile species I know of, where not all members instinctively shun the smoke and fire smoke is (what we all (?) knows) dangerous to our health … (I’ve heard excuses like, “yeah, but we can control the fire …“, which is not the same, as the smoke can still be avoided …
Isn’t it a mistake created by a higher power, whether substances other than carbohydrates can affect the reward system in the brain, as the true purpose is for our survival …
… and the man is seen as an intelligent species …
This is timely, given the semi-legalization in Colorado and Washington. We may soon get some real answers about the pharma and non-pharma claims of the hempsters. My guess is that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I’m not expecting to be reading any dead-hemp media any time soon.
I can hear the claims now. “Internet killed the hemp industry!”
“Pamela Gray says:
August 22, 2013 at 9:19 am
It may also be used to reduce the horrible side-affects of prescribed mood control drugs.”
Maybe not mood control, but mood “changing” such as beta-blockers. I wish I knew, ~4 years ago, what I now know about these drugs.
“Based on 45 years of research I can state quite categorically that the negative aspects of marijuana are very hard to find”
Ever look in the Oval Office?
You must surely admit the probability that he may well have been worse. Hard to measure the degree of worseness I know, but it’s a possibility.
Excellent analogy. Money, politics, and propaganda powered the anti-marijuana campaign in a similar fashion to today’s anti-“carbon” campaign. Both claimed to be based on science, but that was merely a fig-leaf. Both had an agenda, which was basically to sway people emotionally. A comparison between Reefer Madness, and AIT could be made. The one advantage today of course is that information is much more readily available, via the internet.
Bruce Lee did not die from hash oil. If you do the research you will find that there is no accepted cause. There is no proven “lethal” dosage, and no deaths caused by hemp or its extracts listed in the literature. Tylenol is more dangerous and detrimental to health.
As is aspirin, and arguably even caffeine (although caffeine is also very safe). To address the issue more directly, you might want to visit:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1005120803779
(among many other review remarks). Basically, there are no credible reports of death from an overdose of THC, and animal studies suggest that the dose that is lethal in 50% of the population is so large (scaled to human terms) as to be inaccessible to anyone not literally trying to commit intravenous suicide with purified THC.
This is not to assert that it is completely safe or without negative effects. Smoke inhalation alone is not very good for you. But it is way safer than Tylenol, aspirin and yes, probably even caffeine. Alcohol and tobacco are absurdly more dangerous — and legal.
rgb
Presideent Ford did it before Reagan.
Pot Shrinks Tumors; Government Knew in ‘74
http://www.alternet.org/story/9257/?page=entire
Study: Smoking Pot Doesn’t Cause Cancer–It May Prevent It!
The Greatest Story Never Told
By FRED GARDNER
http://www.counterpunch.org/gardner05032008.html
CANNABINOIDS: POTENTIAL ANTICANCER AGENTS
by Manuel Guzmán
NATURE REVIEWS | CANCER VOLUME 3 | OCTOBER 2003 | p. 745
THC (marijuana) helps cure cancer says Harvard study
http://www.nowpublic.com/thc_marijuana_helps_cure_cancer_says_harvard_study
http://search.nih.gov/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&affiliate=nih&query=endocannabinoids
Something on the order of 90K cites.
Endocannabinoids – The Science.
“David Smith says:
August 22, 2013 at 9:45 am”
Have you watched the movie “M.A.R.K-13”?
Sorry, typo:
I meant “murderers” and not “murders”
“rgbatduke says:
August 22, 2013 at 9:50 am
As is aspirin,…”
Came from coal!
I look forward to legalized marijuana in Georgia. With the government robbing Medicare of over half a trillion dollars, we will need an alternative to the Obama death panels.
The question stands.
Cannabis For Infant’s Brain Tumor, Doctor Calls Child “A Miracle Baby”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/01/cannabis-for-infants-brai_n_2224898.html
Watch vid.
Bert Walker,
Well correlation does not prove causation. Might the association between cannabis and schizophrenia be a case of self medication?
http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/30/marijuana-compound-treats-schizophrenia-with-few-side-effects-clinical-trial/
Patrick,
I haven’t, but I always like to spend my evenings in front of a film.
I looked on Google for a plot summary – is it the same film that’s called ‘Hardware’?
Regards,
David
John Eggert on August 22, 2013 at 7:53 am
Yes, this is correct for sweet almonds (Prunus dulcis var. dulcis), but it’s enough with 8-10 pcs of bitter almonds (Prunus dulcis var. amara) to achieve lethal dose.
I’ve always accused climate science papers of being paid for results. Not that none have merit but many are crap and based on the virtual world.
Also the IPCC has similarities. It was set up to find the effects of settled science. Once this was done it was doomed (as long as CAGW is false).
The ‘Declining Effect’ is one of the most worrying thing for researchers.
They chicken littles are always looking for new catch phrases to describe global warming. The problem is, the globe just isn’t warming and the predictions haven’t come true.
Out – global warming
Out – climate change
In – climate disruption.
What comes next? The following two candidate phrases were rejected by the central committee:
“Gore-bull warming”
“Gullible warming”
Rather than continue with expensive focus groups, I’d like to crowdsource this. Any suggestions?
~more soylent green!
No bad effects from recreational marijuana use? How about nodding off when you’re on the OP/LP (observation/listening post), allowing the VC or NVA to infiltrate your perimeter and kill your buddies? Sorry Dr. Brown, I don’t buy it.
Jay Davis,
The same effect can be had from alcohol consumption. Which leads me to ask: “and your point is?”
So, consider money is just the dye for the CAT scan. It helps us see patterns in value/behavior.
Was the drug war Keynsian stimulus? Was it effective on the short and medium term? Has it done damage?
And Jay,
Suppose you are sleeping in your bed and some one attacks you before you wake up. My advice? Never sleep. It can be dangerous.
Would be allowing boozing in that situation as well. Everything should be situation appropriate.
Btw, in a world with only potheads, not much will be produced, if any …
I apologize for conflating Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign and the involvement of actual military and the CIA with the placement of marijuana on schedule 1 in 1970 and coining of the phrase “War on Drugs”. The dangers of writing what was a COMMENT in another thread that is promoted to a top post is that one takes less care than one would when one’s remarks are going to be subjected to top-article scrutiny. The details of the “War on Drugs” — which did indeed involve a ramping up of international anti-drug activity involving US soldiers and the CIA in 1982 during Reagan’s administration, which is what I had in mind as it led to a profound alteration in the economics of marijuana cultivation and importation and (IMO) led to a proliferation of both hard drugs in the US and to all of the associated sequellae including money laundering and gang warfare (a fair bit of which I lived through) are here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs
The Just Say No campaign still stands out in my mind as the easy equal of Al Gore’s equivalent campaigns on behalf of CAGW — “Just Say No” to carbon based fuels, as it were.
Right. Except when we are flying all over the world to espouse the message.
rgb
There are many harmful effects of chronic marijuana use, e.g., as was pointed out above, memory impairment (lol, Bob B.) and respiratory ailments, making it, IMO, a noxious substance I am happy to have banned from the public square.
HOWEVER, I do see your point.
I’m willing to admit that the anti-free market values, obnoxious behavior, sloth, self-centered lifestyle, and stench in their person and belongings that commonly characterize pot smokers make me want to completely outlaw marijuana based solely on how disgusting they are. And that is wrong. Drunks are also disgusting, but because I know many responsible drinkers who are hardworking, decent, people, I do not want to ban alcohol completely.
There is hypocrisy on both sides. The two issues are not, nevertheless, morally equivalent:
— The Envirostalinists want to control virtually everything I do using Fantasy Science conjecture merely as a means to that end.
— I want only to control pot smokers’ joint smoking based largely on my disgust at their typical values and habits.
While controlling a specific behavior just because the actor is personally obnoxious is wrong, it is only directed at that limited aspect of behavior.
Thus, the analogy is accurate, but weak, and proves little.
“David Smith says:
August 22, 2013 at 10:02 am”
I think you are right. It was a film I saw in the 90’s, a while ago now *ahem*. I guess my main point in relation to this thread is that depicted in the film is, due to global warming/war etc etc, liberal use of MJ ciggies, dispensed in packets similar to that of tobacco products at that time, presumably purchased legally. Maybe to induce a sense of escapism.
“Janice Moore says:
August 22, 2013 at 11:26 am”
I can count the number of times I have smoked pot, maybe 6 or 7 times, on one hand.
Patrick! LOLOLOL.
Steven suggests: “The world is warmer than it was in the LIA.”
I doubt you’d find very many people who would dispute this, but simply because it is warmer now than it was well over a century ago does not mean A- that the globe is still warming, nor B- that the difference in temperature can be predominantly attributed to human activities.
M Simon says:
August 22, 2013 at 11:10 am
“Jay Davis,
The same effect can be had from alcohol consumption. Which leads me to ask: “and your point is?””
One difference: Flashbacks. Really really bad when the flashback eliminates your 3D perception instantly while you’re driving in the middle lane of a highway at high speed, or somesuch.
See also Sam Burroughs “Junkie” – he says you can always take a ride with a driver whom you know to be a junkie but never do it with a pothead. I can’t attest personally for the driving skills of junkies; but I trust Burroughs in that regard.
Jimbo says:
August 22, 2013 at 10:55 am
“The ‘Declining Effect’ is one of the most worrying thing for researchers.
The New Yorker – December 13, 2010
“And just because an idea can “be proved doesn’t mean it’s true.””
Let me put it this way: That statement is false.
We call a statement X true EXACTLY when it is
a) an axiom
or
b) has been proven as true.
ergo;
“Statement has been proven as true” implies “Statement is true”.
No bad effects from recreational marijuana use? How about nodding off when you’re on the OP/LP (observation/listening post), allowing the VC or NVA to infiltrate your perimeter and kill your buddies? Sorry Dr. Brown, I don’t buy it.
I did not assert “no bad effects”. I stated that — in fact — marijuana is far safer than many drugs you take without thinking about them twice, especially when one considers immediate risk to life. As I also stated in a reply, smoking ANYTHING is bad for you. Putting almost ANY chemical or substance into your system can be bad for you, including innocuous things like wheat gluten, milk, honey, salt, sugar, water. Everybody’s body and brain chemistry is a bit different. In addition, marijuana comes in a dazzling array of strengths and different strains have very different mixtures of different isomers and cannibannoids that bind to different receptors in the brain and body. So sure, nodding out can be a bad side effect from smoking too much, too strong weed just like drinking a single beer too much can cause you to wreck your car or kill someone. However, society’s response to this is disproportionate at historically ill-founded.
Two simple remarks. One is that a symptom of an overcontrolling society is one where the legal consequences of performing any action are worse — often far worse — than the supposed or known consequences of performing the action. Smoking weed may or may not be particularly dangerous, but getting arrested for smoking weed is very definitely very dangerous and can have an enormous negative impact on one’s life beyond any possible damage the pot per se might have been causing provided that one isn’t getting high as an air traffic controller.
The second is that in a libertarian society, victimless crimes aren’t. You can argue all that you like that marijuana, like tobacco, alcohol, hydrogenated fats, high fructose corn syrup, various sexual proclivities, and many other things are bad for a person that indulges in them (at least if indulged to excess or if one has the wrong genes or simple bad luck) but that is not sufficient reason to make them illegal. It is when alcohol is in a person driving drunk, when a sexual sybarite has unprotected sex with multiple partners and infects them with venereal diseases, when the gambler gambles away the house and fortune his or her family need to survive, that vices affect others and the law is justified in stepping in, and even then there is little point in stepping in a manner that is so draconian that the cure is worse than the disease — fining the gambler of the REST of their fortune, for example, executing the drunk driver who has not yet harmed anyone, deliberately giving HIV to or castrating the sexually profligate STD vector.
Prohibition really doesn’t work, and our society is already far too fascist and controlling.
So no, I’m not claiming that marijuana is harmless any more than I’m claiming that CAGW is proven to be NOT true. I’m claiming that there has been substantial bias and an ongoing media smear of pot that is entirely disproportionate to its known risks and that this bias and smear has made the search for its possible benefits far more difficult. I’m claiming that it has been badly infected with the confirmation bias bug, that further it has long since become a cure that is worse than any possible cost of the disease, and that in both regards it is remarkably similar to the CAGW hypothesis. You get what you pay for, and our government has long since been paying for marijuana to be demonized far, far out of proportion to its risks, just as its proponents probably exaggerate its benefits. Objectivity is long gone in both discussions, and what matters is much less reason and the facts than morality and religious beliefs. Objectively, we’d outlaw alcohol and tobacco both long before we outlawed pot.
If you want to compare and contrast the immediate risks of pot and tobacco, eat an equal weight of marijuana — any variety — and tobacco. When you stop projectile vomiting from the tobacco, and assuming that it didn’t make you seize and stop your heart, then come back and tell me which one is comparatively harmless.
rgb
This post is clearly not intended to be a post. It is a conversational aside (a comment) that is full of hyperbole and unchecked rumour.
But it makes a fine point about how a politically useful norm leads to..
funding that directs the subjects of research that leads to…
support for the politically accepted norm that leads to…
Good point.
Yet the analogy with cannabis is wrong as the biggest problem with cannabis is that it is a waste of time when you could be working.
Using fossil fuels is a sign of industry. That is working.
Personally, I’d legalise all drugs and advertise the deleterious effects. If people knowingly make that choice, let them.
After all, they may be right and I may be wrong.
Increased levels of CO2 make marijuana plants grow faster.
We’re on to you, Anthony! Your cunning plan is hereby exposed.
David Smith says:
August 22, 2013 at 9:45 am
“Personally, I feel that all recreational drugs should be legalised (even the hard ones such as crack and heroin).
[…]
Many addicts die because they have switched dealers”
First you want Heroin and Crack legalized and only 2 sentences later you call the users “addicts”. Now; in fact; Crack, Heroin or Meth users are physically addictive.
So in your drug utopia, it would be perfectly fine for a supermarket to hand out free samples of Meth with a bar of candy. Maybe you’ll like it? You can always come back for more…
I would expect ANY society that hands out highly addictive psychotrope substances like candy to collapse within a decade and be replaced by a saner one.
DirkH says:
August 22, 2013 at 12:07 pm
“First you want Heroin and Crack legalized and only 2 sentences later you call the users “addicts”. Now; in fact; Crack, Heroin or Meth users are physically addictive.”
Correction
“physically addicted”
Yeah you can stop laughing now…
RGB, you commit calumny against Reagan. It was Nixon who perpetuated Johnson’s anti drug policies under the name “War On Drugs”. Carter sought to decriminalize mary jane, yet instituted asset forfeiture. Nancy and Ronald Reagan appealed to intellect and personal responsibility with “Just Say No”. Reagan, being more libertarian, appealed to the power of the individual. Nixon, a statist, looked to the coercive power of the state and created the DEA. The war on drugs has been an abysmal failure in which all of our recent presidents have been complicit. Prohibition Doesn’t Work, but it sure is lucrative for all the players. Sorta like the war on climate.
One of the founders of hipster shock jock magazine Vice now regularly appears on Greg Gutfeld’s “Red Eye” show on Fox News. Today Vice is running a story on the Marcott hockey stick today. Hipsters and geeks who are suddenly suspicious of Big Brother due to the NSA/Apple/Google/Facebook scandal and who are actively rebellious about the Drug War represent libertarian liberals who could drag the whole left wing into skepticism if only more skeptics did outreach beyond the blogroll here….
http://www.vice.com/read/near-term-extinctionists-believe-the-world-is-going-to-end-very-soon
@DirkH
“I would expect ANY society that hands out highly addictive psychotrope substances like candy to collapse within a decade and be replaced by a saner one.”
I would expect the Darwin effect to take care of any of these problems sooner than a decade…
This article makes the same mistakes the warmists make when they bring up the tobacco lobby. CAGW is a problem like no other. By drawing parallels you just stir up connections and feelings that have nothing to do with the debate at hand. The only thing that comes close to AGW is obesity and even that is a two dimensional problem in comparison. Fossil fuels aren’t just something we might want, like pot, they’re something we need, like food. There is an argument to be made that we’re too energy greedy and we are a generation that hates to say no to ourselves – whether it be fossil fuels, food or drugs. Do we need regulating? Hard to say but in the history of mankind I can’t think of a time where making something we want easier to get made people use it less.
I don’t resent governments trying to restrict fossil fuels because I want the freedom to choose, I resent it because there is no other option.
TinyCO2 says at August 22, 2013 at 12:32 pm…
Yes.
I completely agree.
It was what I was trying to say when I wrote,
But you put it better.
Working is good and essential.
Not working is for the scrapheap. Or In human terms, for suffering.
Regnad Kcin says:
August 22, 2013 at 12:29 pm
“@DirkH
“I would expect ANY society that hands out highly addictive psychotrope substances like candy to collapse within a decade and be replaced by a saner one.”
I would expect the Darwin effect to take care of any of these problems sooner than a decade…”
So… when the drug sellers have run through the first batch of customers, what do you think will they do next? Darwinian only insofar as the libertarian anarchist who allows everything becomes the prey of the drug peddler until only drug peddlers are left. A hunter – prey scheme. Two subspecies. Morlok and Eloy. One of them would survive. That one would have a more stringent approach to the consumption of highly addictive substances.
TinyCO2 says:
August 22, 2013 at 12:32 pm
“Fossil fuels aren’t just something we might want, like pot, they’re something we need, like food. There is an argument to be made that we’re too energy greedy and we are a generation that hates to say no to ourselves”
You will use exactly as much or as little energy as you can pay for.
When the price rises, all activities who deliver less marginal value than the marginal cost of energy needed to do them will automatically cease.
Every time WTI went above 100 USD the US went into recession. The US is in one now (the GDP deflator is a lie).
Anthony,
You can find GHCN-Monthly unadjusted data here: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/
Just click on the QCU (quality-controlled unadjusted) files. NCDC does not publish a non-quality controlled unadjusted GHCN-M v3 dataset to the best of my knowledge, but the QC process simply involves removing extreme outliers (Mosh’s aforementioned 15000C measurements) rather than any sort of homogenization.
You can also find so-called Stage 1 un-QCed data in the new Internal Surface Temperature Initiative databank, available here: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/globaldatabank/monthly/stage1/
Their stage system is set up to provide data files from Stage 0 (digital images of log books) to Stage 5 (fully homogenized), so that folks can look at the data along each step of the way.
Hope that helps,
-Zeke
REPLY:Ah the ‘ol Zeke-Mosh 1-2 BEST punch. Oh, I’m quite familiar the with NCDC FTP site and its data, my point has to do with data prepared for public consumption, and how it shifts to warmer, such as July 2012 shifting 0.7 degree warmer when going from GHCNV2 to GHCNV3 in NOAA’s “State of the Climate” report.
So far nobody has been able to show me where a version change in USHCN or GHCN has resulted in a correction that made publicly reported temperatures cooler, they always seem to go up. There’s a clear warm bias.
While GISS gets a lot of blame, I blame NCDC for most of the problem. When temperatures of the past keep changing based on the latest versioning, it tends to leave one without much respect for the veracity of the work.
– Anthony
@TinyCo2, M Courtney; Both of you are missing the point. By a mile. The comparison was made solely based on the WAY the campaigns were waged, using government-funded propaganda and mass media marketing to sway people emotionally. The motivation, as always, is money and power. These forces are decidedly anti-democratic, and constitute a war on freedom, and on people. It matters not one whit what you think you know about marijuana and, just as importantly, hemp. Perhaps you should educate yourselves though.
DirkH says:
August 22, 2013 at 12:07 pm
==========================
Your post is fatuous. Nobody is suggesting that “a supermarket [would] hand out free samples of Meth with a bar of candy”. Does any supermarket hand out free samples of vodka like that? Or aspirin?
Oh and, I haven’t stopped laughing yet. When I do, I’ll just go back and read you post(s) again.
David Smith says:
August 22, 2013 at 9:45 am
Personally, I feel that all recreational drugs should be legalised (even the hard ones such as crack and heroin). Why? Because people will never stop taking drugs and we’ve been taking them since we first walked the Earth. Legalising it all would take the trade out of the hands of gangsters and third-world despots and into the hands of regulated and monitored retailers.
I agree David remove the profits and reduce the crime.
Anthony,
If you want a quick example, NCDC’s PHA-based homogenization in the U.S. (in USHCN) cools minimum temperatures relative to the TOBs-only data. Globally, the effects of homogenization to GHCN are pretty small, but they end up being rather large in the U.S. due to the combination of biases in MMTS transitions, 1940s station moves from city centers to airports/wastewater treatment plants, TOBs changes, and other factors.
I agree that GISS unfairly gets much of the “blame” for homogenization; these days they just use NCDC’s product as an input and do their UHI nightlight adjustment on top of it.
Gerry says:
August 22, 2013 at 9:48 am
“Based on 45 years of research I can state quite categorically that the negative aspects of marijuana are very hard to find”
Ever look in the Oval Office?
Yes I do every day and I see numerous negative aspects of Marijuana.
I hope I can remain skeptic to CAGW without having to accept this mix of conspiracy paranoia (if the US had grown enough marihuana to print the Hearst newspapers on hemp fibre paper there would be enough THCB to keep the country high 100% of the time and plenty to spare) and urban legends so lacking in precission and coherence. Its like claiming the big oil and/or car industries have bought up energy source and storage technologies and prevented their release to the public.
If the point is that both AGW and pot research has confirmation bias I agree, if the claim is that leads to both overstating their case I also agree. But as I see it we need to be tough on drugs and it starts marihuana. We have accepted the costs of living with alcohol and thats about all we can afford as a society.
AGW is in all likelyhood a costly folly but will eventually fold and go away as the facts come in, stopping well before the scale of drugs.
Bruce Cobb says:
August 22, 2013 at 1:28 pm
“@TinyCo2, M Courtney; Both of you are missing the point. By a mile. The comparison was made solely based on the WAY the campaigns were waged”
Which is exactly what warmists say when they bang on about Merchants of Doubt. I resent them using other, non related issues to argue for CO2 restriction as much as I resent this. CAGW is CAGW and drug liberalisaton is drug liberalisation. Mix the two and you narrow your audience.
RGB Thanks fr a very witty post.
/ikh
The drug war has to some extent destroyed Western Civilization, especially Latin Civilization. It converted banana republics to more profitable coca republics, financed the FARC, launched the careers of Chavez and Morales (a former coca growers syndicate boss), destroyed Columbia, left Mexico in shambles, and ratchets up gang warfare in the U.S. just like Prohibition did. It uses cannonballs to remove warts while trying to outlaw the principles of supply and demand. It is the law of Camelot. Our best hope of lowering the national debt is to legalize and subsidize the most popular drugs. Take the profit out of the hands of criminals. –AGF
more soylent green! says:
August 22, 2013 at 10:57 am
They chicken littles are always looking for new catch phrases to describe global warming. The problem is, the globe just isn’t warming and the predictions haven’t come true.
Out – global warming
Out – climate change
In – climate disruption.
What comes next?
_____________________________
Where ya been, boy? Time to catch up!
Your list should look like this…
Out – global warming
Out – climate change
Out – climate disruption
Out- extreme weather events
In- carbon pollution
“The moving finger writes and moves on…“
The thing about cannabis (marijuana was a term coined by the anti-mexican racist in the story above) is you need to smoke it to know what it’s all about. Unfortunatly in the eyes of many if you have smoked it, somehow you are incapable of being rationally unbiased on the subject…. or ‘tainted’ if you will.
P.S. There is no way you can overdose on cannabis. I remember the laughable experiments on monkeys to prove that smoking joints were lethal – they were made to smoke using an adapted gas mask of sorts and died of carbon dioxide poisoning. That didn’t stop the “scientists” proclaiming lethality of cannabis though.
To those who are against lifting the prohibition Penn and Teller’s BS did a good episode on the subject. I recommend it to anyone who can find it online or something.
Bloody hell, found it on youtube, sorry mod I’m not spamming, here it is;
sigmund PLEASE try to grasp there is NO “cost” to society when people use marijuana, legal marijuana = million jobs, uncrowded prisons, LESS crime, huge revenue to government and LESS spending by government…..
the only negatives are for the big drug companies, big government, and busybodies butting into others lives.
how any person can deny a sick person the obvious comfort of that SAFE natural herb is beyond my comprehension.
just read some more…….folks blaming marijuana for obama behaviors???? you cant possibly be serious?
While I can’t confirm or deny that I have used pot, the funds spent on fighting it are clearly an egregious waste of public money.
@ rgbatduke
You’re better off ingesting 10 grams of pure plutonium than 10 grams of pure caffeine. You’ll probably survive the plutonium, but that much caffeine will kill any human alive.
Aaron asked: “Was the drug war Keynesian stimulus? Was it effective on the short and medium term?” I’m not aware of any Keynesian stimulus in any country ever being effective, in terms of superior economic outcomes to a non-stimulus option. One of the leaders in this field, Robert Barros, says that his “best guess” is that the stimulus multiplier effect is 0.6 – 0.7 – that is, there are $2 of net benefit from every $3 of “stimulus” spending. The latter is wealth-destroying.
Robert G Brown @ 11.57 am Good sub-post.
I know that the issue here is alleged CAGW rather than pot. However: I first smoked cannabis resin in Istanbul in 1967, when I was 25, and it changed my life. I have always been naïve and trusting, as I grew up, I accepted the view of the world I received from society. And yet, despite my efforts to be “good,” and my positive volition, I was always getting into trouble. When I first got stoned, I realised that there were many ways of looking at the world, and the one that I had been shown was wrong. Either the adults/powers-that-be were lying, or they were ignorant. Either way, I had to understand the world for myself, directly. This set me on, in effect, a spiritual quest, which has proved very beneficial for me and others. (And led me to move on from drugs in the ‘70s.) I can’t see any convincing evidence that emissions-reduction programs will prove beneficial to people at large rather than certain vested interests.
In passing, in my drug era, I provided economic policy analysis and advice to a body chaired by the British Prime Minister. One of my papers sold out a first print run of 28,000 copies. I don’t, of course, attribute that to drug use, but I was functional.
Bill Taylor says:
August 22, 2013 at 2:41 pm
“sigmund PLEASE try to grasp there is NO “cost” to society when people use marijuana, legal marijuana = million jobs, uncrowded prisons, LESS crime, huge revenue to government and LESS spending by government…..”
The government would tax it so much that the drug gangs would continue dominating the market.
RGB,
Seems governments should not be the central planner/ funder of sciences other than very limited scope science for military defense. Just like it should not be the central planner of total economies. Government bureaucracy is not fundamentally capable of being a free (as in open) marketplace of scientific ideas and development; it will default to doing what is politically expedient based on the politically fashionable ideology of the moment.
RGB, as to the use of pot’s history in a comparison with the history of ‘motivated’ global warming science, it probably would have been significantly more effective to use the history of alcohol prohibition (and its subsequent repeal).
Environmentalism as a mandatory and exclusive worldview to determine all aspects of human activity (including its science) is a virulent form of totalitarianism. That cannot be confused with the many grassroots efforts to live in clean neighborhoods which commonly is thought to be environmental in nature.
John
Mr Green Genes says:
August 22, 2013 at 1:33 pm
” Your post is fatuous. Nobody is suggesting that “a supermarket [would] hand out free samples of Meth with a bar of candy”. Does any supermarket hand out free samples of vodka like that? Or aspirin?”
When kids want Vodka they pay an adult homeless.
If you fund studies to find something wrong with pot, they’ll find something wrong with pot. If that’s where you get your information, you’ll think there’s something wrong with pot.
If you fund studies to find something wrong with CO2, they’ll find something wrong with CO2. If that’s where you get your information, you’ll think there’s something wrong with CO2.
I’m willing to defend pot all day – I’ve been a pot-head for 49 years – but I didn’t think that was Dr. Brown’s point.
– – – – – – –
DirkH,
I tend to agree with you on the zeal of gov’t to tax increasingly. However, in the case of alcohol in the USA after repeal of prohibition till now (more than 60 years) the significant taxation currently on alcohol does not yet cause a significant underground unlicensed production of alcohol.
But at some taxation level I would expect a significant alcohol underground to start and thrive.
John
Here are two books that counter the fundamental basis for government prohibition of drugs. I found them to make good cases against prohibition.
‘ Ceremonial Chemistry’ by Thomas Szasz; published: January 1, 1974
‘Defending the Undefendable’ by Walter Block; current publisher:Ludwig von Mises Institute, May 1, 2008
I recommend them to those who find fundamental folly in prohibition.
John
Dr. Tashkin, the UCLA research scientist and subsequent DEA darling who discovered in 1970 that cigarettes were bad for you, lumped in marijuana with his findings back then; he had no proof. I know I certainly believed them.
It was his 2005/2006 repeat of his 1970 study that changed his mind. The participants were 35 years older. He had four groups:
1. People who didn’t smoke
2. People who smoked marijuana only
3. People who smoked cigarettes only
4. People who smoked cigarettes and marijuana
1. People who didn’t smoke
The natural aging of the lungs as expected.
2. People who smoked marijuana only
Some showed a reaction in the upper part of the lung
3. People who smoked cigarettes only
What you’d expect, big-time lung deterioration
4. People who smoked cigarettes and marijuana
This was the biggest shock. Their lungs were like No. 1. Their lungs looked like the people who didn’t smoke anything. Scroll up and read about it in my counterpunch link. I listened to him describe it in an hour long video too. Someone who smokes cigarettes only needs to have a joint one or twice a month to get the protection.
Tashkin–the DEA paid for his eponymous lab at UCLA–couldn’t get his results published in 2006-2008, but at least he had enough intellectual honesty to admit he’d been wrong. He did announce his findings to the doctors/nurses at a CA conference where research doctors and scientists tell the medical world about their latest findings (April, 2008). That’s where I first heard about it; took the top of my head off: you mean I’d been dead wrong for three decades, and virulently anti-marijuana for nothing, dismissing friends and disrupting our family?
I stopped banning my nieces and nephews from my house as a result of my six-month research into this, and once I read through Dr. Guzman’s work. The whole marijuana=respiratory ailments is bogus; marijuana protects the lungs. The 1974 NIH study called marijuana the best anti-tumor drug known to man in its natural form; I looked it up. One copy left at UofC Davis, and a copy in England from that. Remember President Ford had this research destroyed and removed from all medical databases; he banned the use of natural THC in all medical experiments. THC is the healing substance. In two human trials, Dr. Guzman had eradication of a glioma in 15 days. Not remission. Eradication. A glioma, the worse brain tumor you can get, and certain death within two months.
Janice Moore (more). They put THC oil on a pacifier for an eight-month old baby who had an inoperable brain tumor (glioma) in the middle of her brain. Gone within eight months. Scroll up and watch the video for the MRIs. The doctor who did this thought the whole thing was bogus until he saw it.
This is a little home-spun but it’s authentic. This is how you make the oil. My sister-in-law is European. Her brother’s wife was dying from some kind of cancer; age: mid-30s. I sent my sister-in-law this film, and she passed it along. They bought seeds from England, grew two plants on their farm, and did what this guy recommended and she’s in remission. Her doctors supported it 100% because she was a goner.
http://phoenixtears.ca/video-library/
Click on Run From The Cure – Full Version.
I don’t like the taste or smell of, or my reaction to, marijuana, but I sure as hell wish I’d known about this when other friends were dying. Shame on Ford and Reagan. Shame on them.
“Mr Green Genes says (about DirkH)
August 22, 2013 at 1:33 pm
” Your post is fatuous. Nobody is suggesting that “a supermarket [would] hand out free samples of Meth with a bar of candy”. Does any supermarket hand out free samples of vodka like that? Or aspirin?”
DirkH,
I was going to reply to your post, but Mr Green Genes beat me to it and answered you probably way better than I could. Legalizing drugs doen’t mean handing them to kids like sweets. It means allowing adults to make their own choices, without having to resort to paying gangsters.
You seem to be like the guy in the bar who told me we would all end up addicted zombies if all drugs were legalized. I know I wouldn’t, as I’d make a personal and informed choice not to take hard drugs. I’m sure you would do the same. In other words, society wouldn’t come crashing to the ground.
Having posted my initial comment I wasn’t sure if I would be answered with loads of commenters denigrating me for my views. However, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how many people seem to support the idea of complete legalization. I guess there are more libertarian-minded people hanging out at WUWT than I realised 🙂
If alcohol appeared on the market today as a brand-new drug it would be denounced as the ultimate nightmare drug:
– it’s highly addictive
– many people become irrationally confrontational/violent after having ingested alcohol
– even relatively small amounts of alcohol (in it’s pure form) can kill you
– it affects peoples’ motor skills in a very severe way
– the come-down (hangover) is unbelievably horrid compared to many other drugs
However, as it has been legalized for so long, society has learned to cope with it:
– We don’t ingest it in its purest form, instead we make a very palatable Chianti.
– We legislate against operation of machinery/automobiles by people who have ingested alcohol
– Govt campaigns openly inform the populace of the health problems that accompany the excessive use of alcohol
– The (very) small minority who do become addicted are given many options for support.
– It isn’t sold on street corners by young men with guns
– Govts make a fortune by taxing the sale of alcohol
– The brewing and sale of alcohol has kept many people in employment.
– Some people make a personal choice not to drink alcohol
And so, I believe it would be the same if we legalized all other drugs.
Compared to alcohol, Mary-Jane is a wonder-drug. I would love to be able to sit in a bar and enjoy a relaxing spliff along with my pint of gorgeous craft beer.
However, instead of legalizing and successfully taxing all drugs and creating a new and thriving drugs economy, govts are instead trying to tax the air we breath whilst watermelon activists try to convince us all that we’re going to fry to death because we use fossil fuels. As the great Prof Hal Lewis said, “Global warming is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life”
rgbatduke,
“and arguably even caffeine (although caffeine is also very safe)”
I had a dog die of caffeine overdose. He got a hold of an old bottle of caffeine tablets that I had forgotten I even had. I estimate he got the equivalent of 15-20 cups of coffee. It over stimulated his body to the point his heart gave out from the strain. The dog was around 60 lbs. and lethal dose for a human would be on the order of three or more times higher.
Now getting 120 or more cups of coffee into your system by drinking caffeinated beverages would be difficult, but overdosing on caffeine tablets is very doable and would likely be lethal at those levels.
rgbatduke said:
.”a symptom of an over controlling society is one where the legal consequences of performing any action are worse — often far worse — than the supposed or known consequences of performing the action. ”
Right on, Dr. Brown. Further, as you cogently explain, the collateral damage is that we are all less free. IMO, it boils down to power, money, the usual suspects.
There is substantial well-documented medical evidence that cannabis can impair the kinds of reasoning ability needed to do complex mathematics, can aggravate bipolarity and schizophrenia, can cause passivity and general indifference to one’s surroundings. These effects are the more pronounced the younger the person is when they begin to use it. Some tests reportedly show statistically significant reductions in IQ when children use cannabis. In addition, some physicians say that the effects of cannabis smoke on the lungs are as bad as, or worse than, tobacco smoke.
Of course excessive alcohol use can also contribute to mental deficiency and instability, and other “hard” drugs – opiates, methamphetamine – are worse still.
But even if cannabis isn’t as bad as the people saying these things claim, one has to wonder what need there should be for any intoxicants. A glass of wine or a mug of beer now and again, for the taste and not the buzz, is reasonable enough, but why do people feel the need to bend their minds around so totally? It’s hard enough to get by in this world without mentally (and physically) crippling oneself.
I personally take no position as to the legality of drugs. But I’m damned proud and glad I’ve never tried pot or any other illegal drug.
This all seems off topic anyway, but the research issues are pertinent to AGW.
My friend who is a pulmonary radiologist advises her patients to stop SMOKING cannibis… ingest instead if you like weed. Seems like sound advice to me and plenty of good recipes out there. Even though I live in Colorado where weed is now legal, I’ve decided that an appetite stimulant is the last thing I need.
Gerry says:
August 22, 2013 at 9:48 am
Ever look in the Oval Office?
—
Ahh Bill Clinton didn’t inhale, but that oval office thing with Monica.. well..
Willie Nelson, said once that he had smoke pot on the White House roof top..
But that is not what disturbs me..
Talking with an ER nurse recently. She was amazed at the increase in heroin overdoses in Fox Valley.
WPR recently talking about the recent epidemic increase in heroin use for the state.
We have middle eastern countries, largely controlled by a rather large and growing religious faction(s) where there primary industry is poppy.
Think hard about just how many countries with faction ties are poppy funded.
How many within the faction, industry and countries that grow poppy are hooked?
Are blacks just being used (as they have been in the past by this faction)?
They say Ottawa? is the heroin capital of North America. Close enough to the great lakes system for easy distribution.
Do terrorists come down the same pipe line? A war on terrorism should include a war on heroin and be stated as such. And did I also hear that North Korea has much of its farmland in poppy? Gee where are they getting their money from.
And then there is People smuggling, using amultiple marriages technique, India.. But probably not enough jobs over there to support the population base…..
So let’s scare the world with CO2? Or did they just want to wake us up and have look?
Reefer madness and global warming madness whoda thunk.
Domesticate the reefer to help as an assist to the war on heroin. Buy local please..know your farmer.
agfosterjr says:
August 22, 2013 at 2:27 pm
The drug war has to some extent destroyed Western Civilization, especially Latin Civilization. It converted banana republics to more profitable coca republics, financed the FARC, launched the careers of Chavez and Morales (a former coca growers syndicate boss), destroyed Columbia, left Mexico in shambles, and ratchets up gang warfare in the U.S. just like Prohibition did…
—
Gangsters, hacking up bodies and leaving them around in bags to be found. Not want I want to have around as a ruling body.
Policycritic, thanks for the links.
One more scary off topic comment.
Recently heard on WPR about the growing AIDS cases.
If left on checked, the current college aged gay man
who will develop AIDS by age 50, is
projected to be, 1 out of every 2 men.
Of course they are promoting more condom use and newer drugs (over priced preventative drug). But that is a startling projection.
> and does not represent any position on drug use by WUWT
So what is your position on “drug use by WUWT”?
(Only joking).
Chad did you get the point of the post? If the govnt pays for research to find harm related to pot use it most assuredly will be found, so your well documented evidence is probably about the same quality as Mr Mann’s. Further you proudly testify to never having used recreational drugs so your knowledge is not frontline but based on reviews of paid for research. Then comes the suggestion that pot use equals abuse “mentally and physically crippling oneself”, really? You couldn’t imagine that the vast majority of users have a little puff then proceed to read, write, eat, or just contemplate the wonders of life?
Final call. What do IPCC and pot have in common?
Dope.
Dear R. Murphy,
Why do you so patronizingly ask if Mr. Wozniak got the point of the post? Dr. Brown made a grandiose, largely unsupported, assumption in his article that marijuana use is essentially harmless. That was a big assumption to make. Instead of swallowing it whole, Mr. W. questioned that assumption and then added his own experience as you seem to have done at the end of your post.
Why should Mr. W. NOT be pardonably proud of a lifetime of being “clean and sober?” That is a good thing. If I had, for instance, never over-eaten even once in my life, I think I might boast a little about that, too. You think using pot is just fine. Mr. W. does not and says he is pleased to be able to say that he has lived up to his own standards. Is that something to scoff at?
Also, how do you know that all Mr. W’s evidence for harm caused by marijuana comes from biased sources? Is there NO ONE researching the effects of pot on the human body who simply wanted to find out the truth and who may have discovered that it can cause significant harm?
I respect you, R., and your opinion. I write here only because of your unnecessarily sneering tone. We have plenty of jerks who post here who deserve your contempt. How about saving your fire for them? Mr. W. is ON YOUR SIDE in this battle for Truth in Science. A house divided may not fall, but it is demoralized and, thus, weakened.
Your sister in the battle for Truth in Science,
Janice
Interesting discussion by rgb and commenters.
I say legalize the pot but if someone is driving like a soccer mom talking on a cell phone, then write ’em a summons. Yea get that soccer mom too. Stoned is an excuse, stupid isn’t.
On a serious note, legalization of “drugs” will remove the profit and much associated crime.
On another serious note, remove/limit government mandates/subsidies/funding of global warming scam and much of that associated crime will resolve itself.
One more late night comment. If the extreme stoners (hippies) want to get stoned and live in a cave it’s not my business. But when they decide that they should tell me how I should live then I should have an equal influence on their lives. At that point I may choose to make choices that may not make them happy. Live and let live, go get stoned but leave me alone.
Correlation is not causation, some people are just stupid and being stoned makes no difference.
DirkH says:
August 22, 2013 at 11:46 am ,
It is William Burroughs. He wrote Naked Lunch. He is against the controllers. And then there is this:
http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/02/why-medical-marijuana-laws-reduce-traffic-deaths/
MinB says:
August 22, 2013 at 5:30 pm
Marijuana And Cancer: Scientists Find Cannabis Compound Stops Metastasis In Aggressive Cancers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/19/marijuana-and-cancer_n_1898208.html
=================
Cannabis Can Prevent Cancer Caused By Cigarette Use, According To New Study
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bpb/36/7/36_b13-00183/_article
Janice I reread my comment and perhaps my impatience, at hearing some of the ‘tired old’ , did show. Apologies. I wonder if you might reread your comment on Dr. Brown’s post and ask yourself if this isn’t a case of ” the ‘pot’ calling the kettle……….” Cheers
So they used to exaggerate the effects from dope, now all the propaganda is picked to exaggerate its usefulness. Serious dangers are ignored by the greedy marijuana lobby. The kids are doped and they are maimed, a pattern is set for life for many.
Politicalized science and herbology and medicine all suck. Dumb yourself down if you wish, please don’t let any kids get it. This new stuff is very dangerous. The psychological effects have been known for thousands of years, but it’s being ignored:
Thousands of years of herbology; Auraveda, European, Tibetan, Chinese, even Native American; tens of thousands of herbs are approved as medicine in these traditions….NOT EVER is marijuana indicated. Never! “Medical marijuana” is an oxymoron. It’s dope, it makes you dopey, dull, and ends up creating just as much pain as it decreases during initial use. Look it up in Materia Medica….it’s not there!
“Follow the money” is good advice for any analyst, and follow power, prestige, etc. as further proxies. This situation is mirrored in major socio-economic situations of the past. Mancur Olson (in The Rise and Decline of Nations) described how apartheid in South Africa grew out of mining on the Witwatersrand, as the gold mines grew bigger and went deeper. Whites were being supplanted by blacks. The whites stopped that by passing laws that limited the ratio of white to black workers. It threw thousands of blacks out of work, or ended their chance of work.
Similarly, Thomas Sowell (in The Economics and Politics of Race) described how Jim Crow came about in the South, following a surge in the economic betterment and political fortunes of blacks following the Civil War. In order to protect white agricultural establishments, laws were adopted that began to suppress black farmers.
In each case, these laws took away the ability of blacks to fend for themselves, economically handicapping and impoverishing them. Once you have taken away a man’s ability to provide for himself and his, it is open game to despise him in every other facet of his existence. Some of this shows in the contempt of the alarmists for anyone who “denies” their “science”. Certainly they have made it hard for anyone to do science that doesn’t at least give lip service to their beliefs.
Hi, R. Murphy,
Thanks so much for replying (and how nice to know that you read my 11:26AM post). I did re-read it. The only line I found that might qualify me as a “pot,” heh, heh, was: “… the analogy is accurate, but weak, and proves little.”
Here it is, re-worded to be more polite: “The analogy is accurate and eloquently argued, but, my dear Dr. Brown, I beg you to consider that the legalization of pot issue does more to distract and create unnecessary strife than it helps to promote the truth that human CO2 emissions cannot significantly affect the climate of the earth.” How’s that?
Thanks for helping me to be less blunt and unfriendly in my writing, R.. Sometimes, I’m blunt because I’m lazy and sometimes……………. I’m blunt because IT’S FUN!! Bwah, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaaaaaaaaa! And I need to work on that.
Yours sincerely,
J. Moore
R. Murphy,
P.S. Why do the British people sometimes end a rather critical comment with “Cheers”? It sure comes off (to this fairly typical American) much closer to being flipped off than to a friendly greeting. It’s akin to that ultra-slimy “just sayin'” (ooo, I can’t STAND that phrase). And I am not assuming you meant “Cheers” in anything but a cheery, friendly, manner, just letting you know it tends to come off as disingenuous to some of us in that context. Okay, okay, when you want my advice, you’ll ask for it….. guess talking about “Cheers” helped me to cope with my above admitting that I was too blunt (I must say, that Dr. Brown’s own bluntness did much to bring out mine, but that is no excuse).
J. Moore
Janice I’m sure you want a modern clean world for your kids as much as I. One thing that can destroy a kid is a criminal record for pot. It is out of scale. Shouldn’t the punishment fit the crime, is there a crime? You seem to be a straight thinker, think it through.
“””””…..Terry Oldberg says:
August 22, 2013 at 8:11 am
On the whole, Dr. Brown does an excellent job. However, there is an inaccuracy and it is an important one. He says that “…recent data is not in good correspondence with the theories that have predicted it” ; Actually, the climate models are not “theories” in the scientific sense of the word and they do not “predict” but rather “project.” A model that predicts supplies information to a maker of policy on CO2 emissions about the outcomes from his or her policy decisions. A model which, like the current crop of climate models, “projects” provides a policy maker with no information…….””””””
A MODEL is a set of defined algorithms that are to be applied to INPUT data, If the algorithms are followed, the end result is an OUTPUT. If you repeatedly apply the same algorithms of the MODEL to the same INPUT data, you will repeatedly obtain the same output result, although it could be noisy if some of the algorithms are statistical processes.
Remove all the guff, and the INPUT leads repeatedly to the same OUTPUT.
That is a PREDICTION, no matter which word you choose to substitute for the word. It is a claim (before the fact) that if you apply the algorithms of the MODEL to the INPUT data, you WILL get the same OUTPUT.
A PROJECTION occurs when you apply a set of algorithms to a SUBSET of an INPUT, and then take a GUESS (INFER) what the output would be if you applied those algorithms to the complete INPUT data set..
If the model is incorrect, the ONLY information that exists, is the original INPUT data set.
Dear R.,
Thanks for the compliment. Without debating the issue (I’d just rather not, here, please forgive me) while this doesn’t solve the problem completely for you, I think society’s increasingly viewing a Minor in Possession of (marijuana) conviction as not terribly serious could give you some measure of comfort. If the above commenters are typical, that minor’s future employer will not view such a conviction as much of a problem. As for law enforcement jobs where drug enforcement is required, the controlled substance law would, of course, have to change.
Well, anyway, keep on fighting for what you believe in. I’ve seen too many stoners turn out just fine despite bad juvenile criminal records to think such a kid would be “destroy(ed)”. They may be hampered, though, for awhile, I’ll give you that.
And, with a bright Dad (or Mom?) with a caring nature like you, unless that kid got the renegade pirate recessive genes, YOUR kids are going to turn out just fine. Those weren’t your kids I saw skate boarding down the freeway off-ramp………………………. were they? Next time, though, how about giving them a RIDE (all the way into downtown) to the dentist, much safer (lol).
Glad you and I could have a bit of a chat. Sorry so curt (“Not curt enough!” you say? heh, heh), but, I tend to talk waaay too much on WUWT and, thus, may overcompensate a bit at times (as here).
Take care,
Janice
As for pot, I can’t stand the stench of it; nor cigarettes either. Only problem I have with cigarettes is they simply don’t kill people quickly enough, to spare us future generations of people with no common sense.
But if I want a good strong rope, I’d rather have one made out of gelspun polyethylene, from an oil well, than a hemp rope made from some green farmer’s “organic” garden.
But if it floats your boat, I don’t stand in between persons, and any cliff they are determined to jump off.
“””””…..Janice Moore says:
August 22, 2013 at 9:38 pm
R. Murphy,
P.S. Why do the British people sometimes end a rather critical comment with “Cheers”? It sure comes off (to this fairly typical American) much closer to being flipped off than to a friendly greeting. It’s akin to that ultra-slimy “just sayin’” (ooo, I can’t STAND that phrase)…….””””””
Well the British people simply don’t speak Italian too well, or they would say “Ciao” instead of “Cheers”.
So Janice,
Yours sincerely,
George E. Smith
Let us know. It’s currently against the law in the US (per Ford and Reagan edicts), and scientists have to jump through government legal procedural hoops to obtain the right to conduct experiments involving natural THC. My understanding is that they don’t get approval. Synthetic? Yes. But not natural THC. The real scientific work on this is being done outside the US.
“””””……
traffic-deaths/
M Simon says:
August 22, 2013 at 7:55 pm
MinB says:
August 22, 2013 at 5:30 pm
Marijuana And Cancer: Scientists Find Cannabis Compound Stops Metastasis In Aggressive Cancers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/19/marijuana-and-cancer_n_1898208.html
=================
Cannabis Can Prevent Cancer Caused By Cigarette Use, According To New Study
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bpb/36/7/36_b13-00183/_article……”””””
Well not smoking either one, will greatly reduce your likelihood of contracting lung cancer; and will also make you richer.
My behavioral Psychologist life long friend, puts it this way.
“There’s a body of peer reviewed medical evidence, that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer.
There is also a body of peer reviewed medical evidence, that sex cause children.
The cigarette evidence is much better ! “
Dear Mr. Smith,
I think we may have a slight misunderstanding re: “cheers.” I understand and like the cheery British greeting. They sometimes seem to use it, however, after quite critical, mildly pejorative comments. It was to those times I was referring. It comes off to me as a snarky, “Crap happens!” (with a big smile) as someone drives by you in their car, splashing muddy water from a puddle all over you. “Cheers” per se is nice. Following a criticism, it sounds phony or worse.
Thanks for trying to help me (oh, brother — do you REALLY think I’m that ignorant, yes?),
Sincerely but with a heavy sigh,
Janice
Janice lets agree to frame that comment. You are something, I feel blessed. Wow
Well, my dear R. Murphy,
You send me to bed with a smile on my face. Thanks for your generous words. My pleasure!
Take care,
Janice
Magnus Pyke comment (as far as I can remember) on the subject: Anyone who wishes to aspire to great achievement is well advised to avoid drugs.
Pot, like LSD, provides the illusion of insight, and the sensation of enlightenment, without the substance.
Tom in Florida says:
August 22, 2013 at 8:39 am
Tom, I don’t know what your generation is but I was part of the Boomer generation.
I have never smoked pot. In fact, now that I think about it, I have never touched it.
Been in places (hard not to) where the air reeked of the smell. In all these cases, left quickly.
Honestly, never touched the stuff.
Any other abstainers out there?
Pamela Gray says:
August 22, 2013 at 9:19 am
Pamela,
Excellent observation. Is the pot smoking a result of schizophrenia or a cause?
Unfortunately, I also happen to have some knowledge of schizophrenia. A very close, very dear, and very honest friend raised a son with serious schizophrenia. She had always maintained it was the pot smoking causing the disease. However, as you pointed out, it is quite possible her son was dealing with the early subclinical consequences with pot. His mother noted the pot use and the subsequent schizophrenia development. It was very reasonable for her to draw the conclusion she did. However, she may have been wrong in her reasoning.
Another possible explanation, pot smoking may simply be the act of pulling the trigger on the genetically loaded schizophrenia found in some individuals.
BTW, I always enjoy your comments.
Tamara says:
August 22, 2013 at 9:35 am
Tamara,
I appreciate your observation. It is true there should be requirements for safety, purity, and efficacy for drugs. Sad to say, there is an increasing body of evidence to suggest pharmaceutical companies game the system designed to protect the public. Some tricks of the trade: ghost writing articles for physicians to sign in various journals, not revealing the studies indicating dangerous side effects or lack of efficacy, attempting to denigrate the early reports of a drug killing people, not revealing the simple fact many of the drugs coming out are analogs of naturally occurring substances and not very effective analogs at that, hyping conditions not needing to be controlled (“high” cholesterol is a personal favorite of mine), misleading statistical reports of efficacy, etc.
The result is about 100,000 people die every year from properly prescribed and administered drugs approved by the FDA.
I have thought for a long time there should be a way to test the contents of any substance being rolled out as a ‘cure’ for disease. Some sort of organization completely independent of govt and business influences. I would like to be able to send a sample of say, St. John’s Wort, to this lab and get a report on its actual contents.
Have we gotten to the first anniversary of the impending release of the “game changer” study?
policycritic says:
August 22, 2013 at 3:57 pm
policycritic,
I did some checking on the published literature regarding glioma and THC.
Here’s one result:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19425170
Try this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21233844
Third time is a charm:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16804518
If I found myself, or one of my loved ones, afflicted with glioma, I would definitely run someone down using THC for its apparent anti tumor qualities.
The point that anything can be demonized or used to create a false scarcity to line somebody’s pockets is a valid one, you might have chosen a slightly less problematical example or better yet a more suitable vilified belief system. While the abuse of Pot does not make it a benign substance or victimless crime anymore than abusing a gun, the proper use of the marijuana plant has many benefits just as a gun does and likewise it is a shame that the rest of us have to deal with the fall out of those who are irresponsible.
But just to gore the ox of the Libertarians who blindly push for the legalization of Pot Abuse by smoking it, consider that putting anything into your body that shouldn’t be there has consequences. Just because it is a “natural substance” doesn’t make it benign, you can kill yourself by over using aspirin. A recent study I heard of fingered smoking pot as one of the key triggers for schizophrenia in twenty somethings. Honestly, do you really want to be a brainless pot head stumbling around via diminished mental capacity, albeit a temporary effect, just as an alcoholic? There are few things more pathetic than someone who has chosen diminished mental capacity. Just imagine what your lungs look like from smoking pot. You really think that is healthy? The case for legalizing anything to abuse it is in itself a case against it. What next, legalize huffing of spray paint and shoe polish? I have seen the results of that behavior and society doesn’t need more people who can’t or won’t be self sufficient due to their self destructive dysfunction. And no Libertarians, society is just not going to leave them in the gutter and step over them. Their self destructive behavior costs society and therefore society has a right to ban certain behaviors that incur said costs. Claiming we should legalize the abuse of the marijuana plant because the active ingredient THC has some medicinal uses is like demanding we legalize morphine abuse because it has medicinal properties. It’s just plain stupid illogical reasoning but then rational logic has nothing to do with substance abuse, just a cover for abuse.
David Smith says:
August 22, 2013 at 4:15 pm
David,
This website attracts liberty loving people.
There are many freedoms I cherish. The most important freedom in my mind is being able to gather the facts for any topic I might be interested in. Some of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in my life were made when I was operating under false assumptions. In some cases, I was willfully ignorant; in others, I was lied to.
I’m much more careful now in making decisions and advising others while they make decisions.
I always ask, even on topics I know something about, why do I believe this? I might go through a rather involved investigation if the question is important or interesting enough. Or maybe not. It might be a cursory examination. But now I always ask: why do I believe this?
What I love about this blog is the large collection of experts on almost any topic imaginable. It never ceases to amaze and delight me to have people roll out of woodwork and provide some real insight into topics I may never have known existed. Or, new understandings of topics I thought I knew.
I have had to change my mind on several topics due to statements found here.
None of this would be possible without freedom to explore the world of knowledge.
Obviously, this does not please some organizations and individuals. These groups and individuals will do everything in their power to conceal information contrary to their interests.
The typical comments found on this blog reveals a group of individuals who don’t like these traits of some organizations and individuals.
I’m not surprised at all people here did not attack you for your honestly held position.
But try lying or misrepresenting something.
John Eggert says:
August 22, 2013 at 7:53 am
Pot does have a lethal dose. Bruce Lee died of a hash overdose. It is difficult to OD by smoking as the effect from smoking is very rapid and you pass out before you get hurt. Eat enough high potency pot and you will indeed die of an overdose. That being said, there is enough cyanide in 15 pounds of almonds to kill a human as well. Good luck getting that into your stomach all at once.
The cyanide in apricot and almond and grasses and other nuts and fruit seeds is the form of a nitriloside that is only absorbed by anaerobic metabolism. The animal kingdom is aerobic metabolism thus the nitriloside is non-toxic. In metabolism, nitriloside is hydrolyzed to free hydrogen cyanide, benzaldehyde or acetone and sugar. This occurs largely through the enzyme Beta-glucosidase produced by intestinal bacteria as well as by the body. The released HCN [hydrocyanide] is detoxified by the enzyme rhodanese to the relatively non-toxic thiocyanate molecule. The sugar is normally metabolized. The released benzaldehyde in the presence of oxygen is immediately oxidized to benzoic acid which is non-toxic. Thus, the aerobic metabolism.
Its lethal dose, by injection, is about 25,000 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. By mouth it is less than 1/20 as toxic as aspirin.
As with the marijuana, big AMA, Pharma, and FDA have falsely demonized nitrilocide as dangerous to human consumption; however it destroys anaerobic cancer cells that thrive on blood glucose by accepting the nitrilocide as food in the cell’s mitochondria release of hydrocyanide. The reason cancer was known as “consumption” is that developing cancer puts huge demand on blood glucose levels which drives the body to self-digest.
Terry Oldberg says:
August 22, 2013 at 8:11 am
On the whole, Dr. Brown does an excellent job. However, there is an inaccuracy and it is an important one. He says that “…recent data is not in good correspondence with the theories that have predicted it” ; Actually, the climate models are not “theories” in the scientific sense of the word and they do not “predict” but rather “project.” A model that predicts supplies information to a maker of policy on CO2 emissions about the outcomes from his or her policy decisions. A model which, like the current crop of climate models, “projects” provides a policy maker with no information.
————————————————————————————–
Whether models predict or project and whether or not they provide useful facts is evidenced in the actions of the end users and the scientists supplying the pseudo data.
In this case world governments, NGOs and MSM are using the model outputs as predictions, period. No honest scientist or other professional would lie like this.
Scientists not only predict CAGW, they encourage (maybe demand is a better word) governments to use their predictions.
That may be the way you define models and you may twist, stretch and bend this as much as you want but you’re wrong about the models and how they are being used.
The public doesn’t know the difference, but THE TEAM does…..and they lie.
cn
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
In making arguments about global warming, climatologists often use a harder to detect form of deception than a lie. It is the so-called “equivocation fallacy.” I describe this fallacy and the ways in which climatologists use it in reaching false or unproved conclusions in the peer-reviewed article at http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=7923 .
One of the ways in which climatologists create equivocation fallacies is by conflating the words “predict” and “project.” In his article, Dr. Brown is guilty of doing this. When you state that “Scientists not only predict CAGW, they encourage (maybe demand is a better word) governments to use their predictions” you are guilty of doing this.
The word “predict” has a precise meaning and this meaning differs from the meaning of “project.” Climate models make no predictions. They do make projections.
Governments, NGOs and mainstream media are among those who have been duped by the equivocation fallacy into thinking that the climate models make predictions when they do not make them. A model that makes predictions conveys information to a policy maker about the outcomes from his or her policy decisions. A model that makes no predictions conveys no such information to a policy maker. Policy makers have been robbed of all of the information which they think they have through the agency of the equivocation fallacy.
Pamela Grey,
your reply is the only mention of “Adult psychosis.” I have seen, but perhaps I missed seeing it some where. Why do you think it import ant to mention it? As a physician since 1987 I have treated many suffering psychotic symptoms and schizophrenia.
For “know(ing) about schizophrenia”, your statement sans documentation “likely has early subclinical signs that become clinically manifest, usually, by age 18” , is mistaken. Mild negative symptoms are quite common and non specific among adolescents. Incidentally nearly all cannabis users experience at least one negative psychotic symptom every time they use cannabis.
Your hypothesis concerning onset of cannabis use is interesting but also only speculation. You to then go on to specify the order of onset of sub clinical disease first and implying secondary pot use as a form of self medication is pointless and directly akin to alarmist stating CO2 is causing warming even though there is absolutely no intermediate proof showing causation or even association. In fact if your theory were correct there would be no increase in risk of schizophrenia for cannabis users compared to non-users. In fact Dr. Brown made the error in his statement in his article. Please revisit Dr Brown’s statement ” …and usually does not make you insane unless you are most of the way there on your own already.”
The two studies I cited above were, however, showed strong indicators of increased risk of psychosis associated with cannabis use. There is about a 3% risk in the general population, by age 26 years, for overt psychosis predominately schizophrenia, but a 10% risk associated with teenage onset cannabis use. There are many other studies supporting this finding, and the skill of this finding is strong. Does correlation prove causation? Of course not, but in the current situation of not knowing fully the neuro-psychiatric effects of cannabis it is a great incentive for caution.
Beyond that, It is clear that cannabis use before age 25 (risk increasing with A. early cannabis use onset, and B. female gender) there is at least a two fold increase in risk (over the general population) of developing Schizophrenia. It seems probable that some or even half would become schizophrenic later in life even without cannabis use. But others seem to be tipped over the clinical diagnostic edge by cannabis use, and at a much earlier time in their life. Some studies suggest up to a three fold risk. Clearly by some mechanism cannabis affects developing humans more than most users and advocates appreciate.
There are many studies on the effects of cannabis use on developing human brains.
Consider Impact of Marijuana on Children and Adolescents, CSAM WEBSITE Evidence-‐Based Information on Cannabis/Marijuana (http://www.csam-asam.org/sites/default/files/impact_of_marijuana_on_children_and_adolescents.pdf)
“…marijuana use during adolescence has been found to contribute to asymmetrical increases in the size of the hippocampi, structures that are critical for learning and memory(Scallet, Uemura et al. 1987; Medina, Schweinsburg et al. 2007). The cerebellum, important for concentration and fine motor control, is enlarged in young marijuana users(Medina, Nagel et al.). The amygdalae, important for emotionality, have been found to be asymmetrically enlarged in female marijuana users(McQueeny, Padula et al. 2011). And the frontal cortex has been shown to be thinner in adolescent marijuana users, particularly in those who began smoking at earlier ages(Churchwell, Lopez-‐Larson et al. 2010). Measures of impulsivity were also higher the thinner the cortex, indicating that structural changes have functional consequences….Not only does the brain’s natural endocannabinoid neural system undergo development throughout adolescence, but it also helps guide the development of the rest of the brain. The proper laying down of nerve tracts within the brain is facilitated by our natural cannabinoids(Romero, Garcia-‐Palomero et al. 1997). Even the maturation of other neurotransmitter systems is influenced by our endogenous cannabinoid system(Trezza, Cuomo et al. 2008). Exposure to excessive cannabinoid stimulation from the outside during early phases of development has been shown to alter the normal development of endorphin, glutamate, GABA, serotonin and catecholamine (e.g., adrenaline and dopamine) neural systems.”
Does cannabis have beneficial effects? My great grandmother thought so. She grew it in her back yard (seeds brought from Czechoslovakia) in Texas till the 1960’s when she was told it was illegal. She used to make a tea from the leaves and buds, and used it for aches and pains. But Cannabis use is a serious health hazard to those under age 25 years.
Patrick says: @ August 22, 2013 at 9:54 am
“rgbatduke says:
August 22, 2013 at 9:50 am
As is aspirin,…”
Came from coal!
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HUH? Aspirin is from willow bark. It was originally made into a tea.
Another comment on Hemp smoking, aspirin, tylenol, ibeprofen and hemp smoking. I was suffering from a ‘Slipped’ Disk and on perscription meds. A neighbor convinced me to try a couple puffs of hemp. It killed the pain and eased the muscle spasms without the side effects from the meds. Unfortunately it is illegal so I am still on the ^&$% pain killers instead which has mucked up my stomach and no doubt my liver too.
I’d do it for more cancers than a glioma. Watch the movie I link to at August 22, 2013 at 4:15 pm. It’s not scientific, but it’s authentic. As I wrote above, I gave this film to my sister-in-law for her sister-in-law who was diagnosed terminal in her 30s. She’s in remission now after the European doctors did what was in this film.
However, there is a greater public danger lurking in all this that no one knows about because the press is remiss in covering it. The woman in this article is a volunteer investigating “grows” on public lands in CA. The Mexican cartel is using public lands to grow marijuana brutalizing Mexicans they haul across the border to watch their crops. You can read the entire article at the link, but this is the salient part towards the bottom of the article, and one you should print off for any teenager or young adult you care about who smokes it. This info came out in March, 2013
http://www.theweeklings.com/kago/2013/03/12/the-mexican-connection-part-i-cannabis-wrecks/
We need legalization and we need it fast.
Onlooker from Troy says:
August 22, 2013 at 10:14 am
David
I agree. It’s the prohibition itself that causes the greater harm to society. It creates the black market and empowers those who will be brutal in the growth & defense of their business. (and on and on) We learned nothing from our great prohibition experiment. Absolutely nothing.
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Yes we did Learn something. Once a bureaucracy is created it will live on even if its original purpose is gone. (Think NASA and Muslim outreach …rolls eyes)
Pfizer used to have this posted on their web site (sited at bottom). It is an example of the great harm being inflicted by pharmaceauticals and their abitility to control the AMA, insurance, and FDA. Alway research thoroughly before being duped by doctors who can’t seem to think for themselves.
There are many other examples of our government agencies boldly spreading misinformation for the purpose of agenda promotion regardless of the long term damage to the public. CAGW is just another in the list and look at how many publications like National Geographic have followed off the cliff as ponds.
LIPITOR
The following adverse events were reported, regardless of causality assessment in patients treated with atorvastatin in clinical trials.
Body as a Whole: Chest pain, face edema, fever, neck rigidity, malaise, photosensitivity reaction, generalized edema.
Digestive System: Nausea, gastroenteritis, liver function tests abnormal, colitis, vomiting, gastritis, dry mouth, rectal hemorrhage, esophagitis, eructation, glossitis, mouth ulceration, anorexia, increased appetite, stomatitis, biliary pain, cheilitis, duodenal ulcer, dysphagia, enteritis, melena, gum hemorrhage, stomach ulcer, tenesmus, ulcerative stomatitis, hepatitis, pancreatitis, cholestatic jaundice.
Respiratory System: Bronchitis, rhinitis, pneumonia, dyspnea, asthma, epistaxis.
Nervous System: Insomnia, dizziness, paresthesia, somnolence, amnesia, abnormal dreams, libido decreased, emotional lability, incoordination, peripheral neuropathy, torticollis, facial paralysis, hyperkinesia, depression, hypesthesia, hypertonia.
Musculoskeletal System: Arthritis, leg cramps, bursitis, tenosynovitis, myasthenia, tendinous contracture, myositis.
Skin and Appendages: Pruritus, contact dermatitis, alopecia, dry skin, sweating, acne, urticaria, eczema, seborrhea, skin ulcer.
Urogenital System: Urinary tract infection, urinary frequency, cystitis, hematuria, impotence, dysuria, kidney calculus, nocturia, epididymitis, fibrocystic breast, vaginal hemorrhage, albuminuria, breast enlargement, metrorrhagia, nephritis, urinary incontinence, urinary retention, urinary urgency, abnormal ejaculation, uterine hemorrhage.
Special Senses: Amblyopia, tinnitus, dry eyes, refraction disorder, eye hemorrhage, deafness, glaucoma, parosmia, taste loss, taste perversion.
Cardiovascular System: Palpitation, vasodilatation, syncope, migraine, postural hypotension, phlebitis, arrhythmia, angina pectoris, hypertension.
Metabolic and Nutritional Disorders: Peripheral edema, hyperglycemia, creatine phosphokinase increased, gout, weight gain, hypoglycemia.
Hemic and Lymphatic System: Ecchymosis, anemia, lymphadenopathy, thrombocytopenia, petechia
REFERENCE:
http://www.lipitor.com/cwp/appmanager/lipitor/lipitorDesktop?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=prescribingInformation#contraindications
Trust me when I say I wasn’t always that way. Until May 2008, I was intransigent on the issue for decades. If I found out you smoked dope (ingested, whatever) I mentally drew a big X on your face and you were removed from my sphere of operation. No exceptions. it was a physical, mental, and spiritual, crime as far as I was concerned.
I was misinformed. I bought the govt line. I was willing to believe without investigation, research, or objectivity, and I was willing, obviously, to be manipulated emotionally. Not a pretty sight of myself, but accurate.
As far as I’m concerned, everyone should be free to grow two Indica White Widow plants in their bathroom (with grow lights and extra CO2), and should be able to go to their local Fire Department on the weekends to make the hemp oil under their watchful eye for safety concerns. White Widow plants are the ones with sufficient THC to cure. You can buy the seeds from England. Legally. If you ever get cancer, you might want to know this. Takes ten weeks to grow.
Janice Moore says:
August 22, 2013 at 11:26 am
There are many harmful effects of chronic marijuana use, e.g., as was pointed out above, memory impairment (lol, Bob B.) and respiratory ailments, making it, IMO, a noxious substance I am happy to have banned from the public square…..
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And how much of that is actual and how much is due to a well orchestrated propaganda campaign? I know of several members of society who are brilliant contributers to society and who smoke. Except for one try of cigarettes and one of MJ I am a user of neither I don’t even drink coffee, another drug and alcohol very rarely.
What people are missing is a six year old can now go into Mommy’s purse and buy drugs on the playground. The police do not even bother to arrest drug dealers they just wait till he has sold most of the drugs and confiscate the cash under civil asset forfeiture laws. No need to make an arrest, no need to go to court and “..Over $7 billion has been forfeited to the federal government since 1985…”
In other words the ‘War on Drugs” is actually a profit making enterprise and has nothing to do with public protection.
Dr. Brown also failed to mention the Private Prison Profits Skyrocket, As Executives Assure Investors Of ‘Growing Offender Population’
If you wanted ‘useful slaves’ for your industry, do you want murders, rapists, and thugs or do you want a nice mellow pothead who won’t give you any trouble?
ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MONEY!
Great piece. That 96% number is certainly a consensus.
Typo: ” starting to overwhelm to narrowly funded”
(Disclaimer: Yeah, so, I read the article all the way to the end. I’m boring.)
Great comment Gail.
“Gail Combs says:
August 23, 2013 at 9:52 am
In other words the ‘War on Drugs” is actually a profit making enterprise and has nothing to do with public protection.”
Ya think?
M Courtney says:
August 22, 2013 at 12:03 pm
This post is clearly not intended to be a post. It is a conversational aside…
Personally, I’d legalise all drugs and advertise the deleterious effects. If people knowingly make that choice, let them.
After all, they may be right and I may be wrong.
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Yes and while you are at it legalize AND REGULATE Prostitution and Gambling. We now have the computer systems that would allow ‘restricted’ gambling. That is you can only bet a percentage of your net income. Prostitution should be regulated for health reasons and for the safety of the ‘Ladies’ and most of all for the safety of children ensnared into the trade and kept there via drugs/violence.
We waste a heck of a lot of resources on ‘Policing’ drugs, prostitution and gambling instead of concentrating on actual crimes like murder, assault, rape, theft and fraud. Just try to get the modern legal system to move on a theft. From past experience (multiple) I can tell you IT AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN. You can have the person, the evidence, witnesses and they still aren’t interested.
Coke isn’t a problem in Ecuador, when it is consumed by chewing on coca leaves, which similarly limits the dose consumed. Effectively, it’s like coffee, as a mild stimulant — and one that increases worker productivity, at least in manual chores.
So how about trying this first? The grocery store would sell vegetables like broccoli, carrots, etc. that had been marinated in dilute solutions of cocaine, opiates, etc. In terms of grams per dollar, these would be cheaper than what is available on the street. But to extract those grams users would have to consume lots of veggies–and doing so would take lots of time and thus put an effective limit on the amount consumed per session.
In addition, there’d be nutritional benefits from all this veggie consumption.
DirkH says: @ August 22, 2013 at 12:07 pm
…..I would expect ANY society that hands out highly addictive psychotrope substances like candy to collapse within a decade and be replaced by a saner one.
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Well there goes the USA….
Perhaps we would be better off piping a bit of MJ smoke into the schools. /sarc
It should be noted that the comparison of those who shilled for tobacco with those who deny AGW isn’t a metaphor. There is meaningful overlap between the two sets of people and institutions.
But their analogy is false. See my guest thread here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/16/notes-from-skull-island-why-skeptics-arent-well-funded-and-well-organized/
So many great comments, but they break down into two sets.
1. Those who have “done” weed and
2. Those who haven’t.
It certainly isn’t for everyone. Some who don’t like weed prefer booze. Those who like neither are into abstinence. Everybody thinks they have the real answer but it is just subjective.
Personally I have never encountered crazy weed artists. I have known unstable, unpleasant, incapable folk who are made worse by weed. I have known good, solid achiever types who value family and community who enjoy weed at nights and weekends.
I don’t know any bad guys who have been made worse and plenty of good guys who have been made better by using weed. It really is what you make of it and it no more makes you less or more useful to society than reading or watching movies, let alone listening to music. I understand the disapproval of some but it doesn’t do much for anyone. Weed artists are all around and they are no less decent than everybody else. Try meditation if that’s what works for you but stop kicking those who have found a different way of understanding their milieu.
Smoking through a vaporizer removes the damaging tars from the smoke, similar to smoking an e-cig. If vaporizers are classified as drug paraphernalia, as I suspect they are, their use is inhibited.
Some or most of those cases of harm Bert Walker cites should be blood-tested for contamination with those chemicals. If contamination is found, and it is plausible that the harm came from them, then this downside could be chalked up to a negative externality of prohibition.
Gail says, “We waste a heck of a lot of resources on ‘Policing’ drugs, prostitution and gambling instead of concentrating on actual crimes like murder, assault, rape, theft and fraud.
The implication is we won’t have to spend as much money on controlling versus prohibiting it. History says otherwise, Cigarette smuggling is either the #1 or #2 source of income for the mob in illegally selling bootlegged cigarettes. The States and ATF spend lots of money to stop them. Why? The taxation on cigarettes is such that selling them untaxed is incredibly lucrative, meaning the States minimally collect their taxes. Legalization of pot smoking is a panacea and will simply increase the numbers of people abusing themselves and what we will end up with is Idiocracy.
In that vein of logic, since the police have failed miserably to stop murder from occurring and have spent billions over the last two centuries trying to stop it, we should legalize it by selling hunting licenses. Absurd? Legalization of any controlled substance is just as absurd and for the same reason. Heck, the police since the foundation of the Republic have failed to stop crime in general, just disband the police, save billions a year and let everyone fend for themselves. Tax and regulate everyone who steals, rapes and murders … the same argument made for legalization of smoking pot.
George E Smith:
“As for pot, I can’t stand the stench of it; nor cigarettes either. Only problem I have with cigarettes is they simply don’t kill people quickly enough, to spare us future generations of people with no common sense.”
I think that says rather more about you than it does about any smoker.
dscott says:
Your comparison between violent crimes which involve real victims, and pot smoking and other victimless crimes is absurd. Think much?
please grasp reality, dscott, there is NO “cost” in terms of dollars with alcohol being legal and controlled, government at all levels gain revenue……the present war on drugs costs billions and brings in NOTHING in fact it lessens revenue by incarcerating non violent taxpayers.
and what you mentioned about cigarettes, you fail to grasp the government CAUSES that bootlegging with ridiculous tax rates…….they are buying of stealing cigarettes in one state or indian reservation and selling them cheaper even after buying them retail elsewhere….your claim of UNtaxed cigarettes is simply false….no tobacco company or individuals are bootlegging home made cigarettes.
seeing your claim that using marijuana is abusing ones self shows i am wasting my time.
Gail Combs says:
August 23, 2013 at 11:06 am
___
Heard on WPR awhile back about a guy who had done a comparison study of the problem of over diagnosis of ADHD and medicating of American children.
But the point was European children don’t seem to have the same rate of ADHD that American children do. There was a considerable difference is why I noted it to begin with.
Ya know if I was a paranoid schitzo who moked some.. I might be inclined to think that the pharmaceutical companies were preparing a next generation of heroin users by getting them started early on drugs, using ADHD medication, as the catalyst
“A Puritan is someone who lives in fear that somewhere someone is having fun.”-H.L.Menken
Carla says:
August 23, 2013 at 3:49 pm
….Ya know if I was a paranoid schitzo who moked some.. I might be inclined to think that the pharmaceutical companies were preparing a next generation of heroin users by getting them started early on drugs, using ADHD medication, as the catalyst
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It is worse.
It is the gifted child bored out of his skull by the USA’s dumbed down education system that is the target. Fifty years ago the kid would be put in an ‘accelerated class’ and challenged to use his brain and/or disciplined but that is now ‘Politically Incorrect’ so the kid is medicated and has his brain cells fried instead. (Note it is WHITE BOYS as young as seven who are the target.)
Using this conservative method of assessing ADHD treatment among nearly 30,000 students in grades two through five, 8% to 10% of the students were treated with stimulants for ADHD. … the rate of ADHD medication use was highest among white males and lowest among black females; 17% of white males and 3% of black females received ADHD medication in school.
And when the parents protest medicating the kid, the schools threaten them with charges of Child Abuse. link
i was wrong is claiming the war on drugs brings in nothing, asset forfeiture indeed is a growing source of revenue.
Here is more on the problems caused by Ritalin and such:
And people are worried about a little pot?
I erred. In composing my previous comment, I neglected to address it to Chuck Nolan
Yah, Gail, I know that Ritalin is one of your “issues”. I only wish that it had been around for MY use while I was growing up. I don’t want to minimize the problems of overdiagnosis and flagrant overprescription of that and much more dangerous and potentially addictive drugs, but I do think of the HELL that was my childhood and adolescence, with a Mensa IQ and a total inability to concentrate, memorize, participate etc. Now, at 72, my life has been different for the past 15-20 years, with a teensy dose of slow release stuff in the morning, I’m way more productive and my wife and other family members find me pleasant to be with. It wasn’t always so. Please accept that perhaps 5-10 percent of the population have “hunter” brains, following the trail of potential food, while staying alert to the tiger in the tree. Schoolteachers hate us. Please don’t despise us or condemn us to our inevitable, if unmedicated, hells.
I’m late to this thread, and have not read every comment. My apology if this has been said already.
The common characteristics of the research on CAGW, and on marijuana effects, are shared by another industry: commercial nuclear power plants.
A small group of reactor suppliers and plant owners benefit from a vast but tightly controlled set of information, which, when it is disseminated at all is spun with lie after lie after lie. Blame for cost overruns and late completions is cast upon any and all: the government for changing regulations, ill-informed anti-nuclear “shills”, evil attorneys, stupid environmental groups, and others.
Now that the truth of very high costs to build plants is known, disasters occurred when people were promised disasters cannot occur, and the long-term costs and environmental poisoning of cleaning up the meltdown disasters are becoming public, the game is up.
“Gail Combs says:
August 23, 2013 at 9:02 am
HUH? Aspirin is from willow bark. It was originally made into a tea.”
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/1578/
Someone has mentioned that cannabis gives a user a delusion of insight. That is absolutly wrong it is not a delusion. He also links insight and enlightment – the two are very much different.
The problem here like I mentioned above is when people who never used the substance talk about the experiences as if they have, or those whose experiences were different to others’ believe they have true insight on the substance. Truth is everyone is different and so are their subjective experiences on the substance.
I would not dare to assume what heroin is like as I have never taken it. I can look up others’ experiences online to have some kind of idea, but what I wouldn’t do is listen to myths, and especially “official advice” which only reason for its existance is to put people off the substance.
Reading through comments here I see a lot of misinformed people out there. Just like saying Cannabis is completly harmless, or that SMOKING it stops lung cancer, saying you can overdose from it, or that it CAUSES schizophrenia is a complete fallacy. Stoners do not ‘stumble about like drunks do’, that’s not what it’s about. What Cannabis is or should be about (“dude, where’s my car”, cheech and chong and other idiots turned it into a whoaaa dude experience) can be a tool for self insight, it also opens up the mind to states very similar to meditive states. Astetics use it exactly for that reason – years, even decades of meditation may not bring someone to such a state of mind that a nice reefer can bring.
And please don’t ever compare cannabis to nicotine or alcohol, ritalin or aspirin. It’s like comparing potatos and oranges.
@Wu . . well said. Many people who know nothing of pot have a picture in their mind and attack pot on the basis of that picture which is not anchored in reality ironically.
pro-warming political pundits like to demonize climate skeptic research by comparing it to that of tobacco company research and marketit
–
Exactly back-to-front, of course. Government climate research and marketing is what resembles what the tobacco companies did and do – funding “science” that supports the case for getting themselves more power and money.
Should have written “ascetics” instead of astetics… slow in the mornings sorry.
Could add that cannabis, like other mind-altering “psychodelic” drugs been used and are still used spirtually all over the world, and Rastafari still use cannabis to this day, and are given permission to do so.
I’m not saying cannabis can’t be used to relax, or have a giggle with, but to me it’s a waste of a substance. I’m a deep thinker and a musician, who tends to deeply meditate from time – to me cannabis is the ideal ‘lubrication’ for those things.
Chad Wozniak asked: “A glass of wine or a mug of beer now and again, for the taste and not the buzz, is reasonable enough, but why do people feel the need to bend their minds around so totally? It’s hard enough to get by in this world without mentally (and physically) crippling oneself.”
The entire point of consuming recreational drugs is to alter the brain function to what the user regards regard as ‘pleasurable’. Someone with a high IQ and a restless brain that constantly thinks is more likely to want a ‘downer’ (alcohol/pot/valium) and then there are people who find thinking comes easier when snorting cocaine or amphetamines. It all depends on what the user regards as a desirable enhancement!
And, some unfortunate, very sick people who have to constantly take mind-bending drugs for survival would regards being sober as a desirable high, this is why many mental patients forever attempt to stop taking their meds.
If I offered you a magic pill that would enhance your IQ and problemsolving abilty to a point where your world no longer is a hard and crippling place, would you take it? Of course you would, and you would think of this drug as a wholesome supplement whilst being high on the extra IQ points. And, the moment you decide that it’s ‘good stuff’ you would try to buy it, even it if was illegal.
Like the climate hoax, the drug war tries sell you ‘one solution to solve every problem’ — and as always, if it sounds too good to be true… it is!
“Hemp as Paper
Hemp fabric was smashed down into thin sheets to make the world’s first paper. 75-90% of all paper in the world was made with hemp fiber until 1883. The Gutenberg Bible, Thomas Paine’s pamphlets, and the novels of Mark Twain were all printed on hemp paper. Both the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were drafted on hemp, and then copied onto parchment.
Both the long bast fiber and the short bast fiber (hurd or pulp) can be used to make paper. Fiber paper is thin, tough, brittle, and rough. Pulp paper is not as strong, but is easier to make, softer, thicker, and preferable for most everyday purposes.
In the next 20-30 years the paper demand is supposed to at least double due to the economic emergence of third world countries, and the ever-expanding worldwide population. There is no way to meet this demand without clear-cutting every tree in the entire world. Paper is big business, and 93% of the world’s paper is made of wood. Think about how much of a difference it would make if commercial industries like San Francisco hotels and Miami hotels were to adopt hemp toilet paper. That alone could make an enormous difference in the way the war on global warming is fought.
Hemp Pulp vs. Tree Pulp for Paper
Making paper from trees is kind of a joke, because trees are made up of only 30% cellulose. The other 70% of the tree must be removed using toxic chemicals, until the cellulose can be formed into paper. The higher the percentage of cellulose in a plant, the better, because fewer chemicals need to be used, and less work needs to be done before the paper can be made. Almost any plant in nature with a strong stalk is better suited to make paper than trees, especially hemp because it can be 85% cellulose.
Hemp makes paper stronger and which lasts centuries longer than wood paper, which could be very valuable for people who want to keep records aside from on computers. Hemp paper does not yellow, crack, or otherwise deteriorate like tree paper does now. The acids which are needed for wood paper eventually eat away at the pulp and cause it to turn yellow and fall apart. Because of this publishers, libraries, and archives have to order specially processed acid free paper, but they could just buy hemp paper which already meets their quality standards.
Hemp paper also does not require any bleaching, and so does not poison the water with dioxins or chlorine like tree paper mills do. The chemicals involved in making hemp paper are much less toxic, in fact, both paper made from hemp hurd, and from the long bast fiber can be made without any chemicals at all, but it takes longer to separate the fiber from the lignin. Making paper from hemp could also eliminate erosion due to logging, reduces topsoil loss, and water pollution caused by soil runoff.
One acre of hemp can produce as much paper as 4 to 10 acres of trees over a 20-year cycle, but hemp stalks only take four months to mature, whereas trees take 20 to 80 years. This information was known in 1916, according to a USDA report. Hemp paper can also be recycled more often, though this fact is not of much value, since hemp is a reusable resource.”
http://www.hemphasis.net/Paper/paper.htm.
“””””……Patrick says:
August 24, 2013 at 12:49 am
“Gail Combs says:
August 23, 2013 at 9:02 am
HUH? Aspirin is from willow bark. It was originally made into a tea.”…….”””””””
Well Aspirin has a specific chemical formula, so you can make it in a factory, and not bother any trees.
Despite the advertising of Bayer , about 85% of the world’s Aspirin is manufactured by Monsanto Corp (well it used to be 45 years ago). As is common in the chemical business, a product introduced or invented by one company (usually patented), if found to be a profitable useful product, will end up being made by other companies, who found ways to do it, without infringing the patents. Often that means starting with different raw material feedstocks, that require following different process steps. That can result in a cheaper manufacturing process, or a better product, or both. That’s exactly how Monsanto ended up being big in Aspirin. I once had a Monsanto Aspirin in my desk, that was three inches in diameter, like a swimming pool chlorine tablet. It was just a way to “package” it. They sold it by the rail car load. I did sometimes scrape a chip off it with an exacto knife; but it was easier just to get a bottle of the regular ones, (only “headache” fix I will use).
Monsanto, also developed a better cheaper process for making Nylon, that was originally a Dupont invention. As a result, Monsanto got to be a big player in Nylon as well.
Monsanto’s first ever product, was Sacharin, which is still the only plastic sugar substitute, that has never been implicated after more than 100 years, in any negative health issues; well unless you would call its bitter aftertaste, a health issue.
But if you go into Ubergreen Starbucks, you will find every color of plastic sugar substitute, known to man, as their alternative to using the horrendous “high fructose” corn syrup.
By “high fructose”, they mean it is 55% fructose, and 45% glucose, whereas good real table sugar is 50% fructose and 50% glucose. Users are evidently too stupid to cut back the corn syrup amount by 10% to get to the good 50% level of fructose from the 55% “high” value.
Actually, they have it exactly backwards. It is the glucose than gives you the sugar “high” followed by the sugar “funk” ; fructose doesn’t give either the high or the funk.
The principle bad feature of high fructose corn syrup, is that it does not come out of a mutilated tree in Vermont; but is made by the rail car load, in the plains States of the Midwest, for a fraction of the cost.
I know this is a bit off the subject of why everyone needs to be a pot head, and wear hemp clothing, to get enlightenment; but it still in the category of chemistry gone amuck.
Poems of Our Climate,
How much do you know about the endocannabinoid system in your body?
““There’s a body of peer reviewed medical evidence, that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer.”
True. But there is no evidence that smoking cannabis only causes cancer. If you have the evidence I’d like to see it. Where are the bodies?
“george e. smith says:
August 24, 2013 at 11:05 pm”
I think the whole subject is fascinating and demonstrates what real science can achieve. These guys were looking for something particular and discovered something completely different by accident which however, turned out to be vastly beneficial to almost everyone. These scientists actually tested on themselves too. Once the active ingredient was identified it could be synthesised. I guess it could be considered similar to pot and THC, and the benefits that this ingredient can bring health wise. I am not sure if coal tar soap is still made from actual coal tar, but I recall using it in the 1960’s and 1970’s. I am grateful for this discovery and for it’s blood thinning properties, not sure if THC has similar properties.
I don’t know the geological age of the Willow tree however, if we can extract “Salix” from the bark of the tree now and have been for the last 3000 years or so and can extract “Aspirin” from coal (tar), then does it not logically suggest that, some sort of “willow” tree was fossilised into coal? What about THC?
What are you trying to say? You rambled and didn’t make a cogent point.
Reblogged this on 4:20 Smokers Blog.
Which bit poli? Or should I write in bullet points?
You can argue scientifically all you want about falsifiable aspects of cannabis use such as reactions to tumors, pain relief and so forth, but mental aspects of it are subjective to each person taking it. You can read all you want about it, you can’t understand the substance untill you have tried it. There is no science in it I’m afraid – it’s an opinion about it formed through own experiences. I dare say there’s absolutly nothing else like it so there’s no point trying to get perspective or insight on it trying other substances. For example one wouldn’t get insight on alcohol by taking caffine.
Like I also outlined, there are many other uses for cannabis than getting high or for medical reasons. Spiritual is one. If you’re not into the spiritual, psychonauting or whatever else that’s fine, but there are many people out there that use substances for that. Some religions have permits like Rastas do in Italy, and in India, where the aforementioned ascetics partake during the festival of Shiva if I remember correctly. The question here is why should people be punished for using the substance when the object of it is self-betteremnt or spiritual journey/ritual knowing that damage caused by the substance is minimal and exclusively to the person using it?
As for the insight vs enlightenment thing… a knowledgeable person isn’t neccesarily wise, and in my experience “intelligent” seldom means wise.
Wu,
I don’t use marijuana. Yeah, I’ve tried it, decades ago. If it had worked for me, probably would today, but I have no interest. The scientific uses for it do interest me, and the fact that it was made a controlled substance by a Prez who didn’t get the answer he wanted from a NIH study he demanded in order to show up hippies (1974) infuriates me.
Politics in America: Argue with the side that is perceived to be the majority or popular, forgetting actual facts, figures, & real data / science. http://youtu.be/ldVF6sGNltU
[Multiple links to the same U-Tube video? Mod]