Drugs and their illegality

[Russ]

What's wrong with comparing to alcohol? It's a drug, it's legal - when debating the validity of outlawing certain drugs, we should first ask what the logic is behind the current bans, and why it makes any sense to have marijuana banned but not alcohol and nicotine/tobacco.

Alcohol is a J shaped curve. Small amounts of alcohol regularly are good for you. Small amounts of marijuana regularly are not good for you.

[funkyducky]

Yeah. Alcohol is ok to a certain extent which varies from person to person, but alcohol abuse, drunkenness and alcoholism are dangerous. I suppose the onus lies with the individual to judge how much they can imbibe without becoming inebriated, eg. I know I'm fine after a couple of glasses of wine. But I'm being tangential here...

[thushan]

What's wrong with comparing to alcohol? It's a drug, it's legal - when debating the validity of outlawing certain drugs, we should first ask what the logic is behind the current bans, and why it makes any sense to have marijuana banned but not alcohol and nicotine/tobacco.

Alcohol is a J shaped curve. Small amounts of alcohol regularly are good for you. Small amounts of marijuana regularly are not good for you.

Actually, I think the j-shaped curve was a risk of heart disease - consumption of alcohol curve. So if we take people who are teetotal (or close to it) it is quite likely that they are teetotal because they have pre-existing health problems (eg. weak liver) which preclude their consumption of alcohol. These pre-existing health problems could themselves lead to risk of heart disease, which is why teetotals (by a non-alcoholic mechanism) would have a higher risk of heart disease. The curve simply shows that heart disease is more prevalent for teetotals than for people who drink a small amount, which does not necessarily mean small amounts of alcohol are good for you.

For more information on the argument, the book is "Bad Science" by doctor Ben Goldacre.

[giveup]

I'm actually raging at this thread, why do people continually say that marijuana is bad for you?
The only negative effect found has been short-term memory loss, there was also a correlation between mental health and marijuana (but this was found to be because people with mental health issues are attracted to marijuana).

Do you understand why it has been decriminalized? hurkadurka durrrr

[nubs]

I thought the short term memory loss was only experienced during the high itself
Everything else can be argued against by using the 'correlation does not mean causation' argument.

[Russ]

Actually, I think the j-shaped curve was a risk of heart disease - consumption of alcohol curve.

In future don't call me out when I shamelessly misuse statistics

I'm actually raging at this thread, why do people continually say that marijuana is bad for you?

Here you go

Recent studies on prenatal cocaine, marijuana exposure, and poly-drug use, however, have also found effects on functioning in adolescence in terms of language deficits, attention-related problems, and delinquent behaviors.

Offspring of heavier marijuana users were significantly more likely to report delinquent behavior at age 14

A significant association was found between Abstract Designs Latency and marijuana exposure, with the children born to heavier users displaying slower response times

Those were from a review last month (Substance exposure in utero and developmental consequences in adolescence: A systematic review, Irner TB) on how it has long term effects.

We show that THC exposure impairs adolescent learning when tested in the postacute period, and that THC impairs the ability of animals to use a chunking strategy.

Learning impairment by Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol in adolescence is attributable to deficits in chunking, Steel et. al.

For the six other studies, data show the existence of a significant association between cannabis use and psychotic disorders (with an increased risk between 1.2 and 2.8 in Zammit et al.'s study), particularly among vulnerable individuals (that is with a prepsychotic state at the time of inclusion). Therefore, all the studies that assessed a dose-effect relationship showed this link between cannabis use and the emergence of psychosis or psychotic symptoms. The fact that all causal criteria were present in the studies suggests that cannabis use may be an independent risk factor for the development of psychosis

A meta-analysis with 50,000 people enrolled.
Cannabis and psychosis: search of a causal link through a critical and systematic review, Le Bec et. al.

Now, nobody is saying that marijuana has no place in treatment, because it does. If we want to discuss decriminalization, that's also another thing. But if you want to say that marijuana has zero negative side effects and is not addictive, can we see some evidence? All I did was jump on pubmed and have a look for marijuana effects and these all turned up. I'm looking now for studies that claim no side effects and struggling.

Oh and

Everything else can be argued against by using the 'correlation does not mean causation' argument.

This is not an argument unless you have evidence to back it up or can show that a previous experiment had a faulty study design.

[giveup]

Recent studies on prenatal cocaine, marijuana exposure, and poly-drug use, however, have also found effects on functioning in adolescence in terms of language deficits, attention-related problems, and delinquent behaviors.

So the studies were conflated with a hard drug in that study?

Offspring of heavier marijuana users were significantly more likely to report delinquent behavior at age 14

I don't see how you falsely equate that behaviour with the drug. As it stands, marijuana is stigmatized, would you say that the use of marijuana is characteristic of a rebellious teen? This alone casts doubt on the credibility of the studies you have posted.

A significant association was found between Abstract Designs Latency and marijuana exposure, with the children born to heavier users displaying slower response times

Is this to say that it was smoked during pregnancy? If so, alcohol and general smoking are responsible for far more than slower response times.

lol I gotta go, I'll answer the rest later

[Russ]

Recent studies on prenatal cocaine, marijuana exposure, and poly-drug use, however, have also found effects on functioning in adolescence in terms of language deficits, attention-related problems, and delinquent behaviors.

So the studies were conflated with a hard drug in that study?

No (did you bother to look at the source?)

Offspring of heavier marijuana users were significantly more likely to report delinquent behavior at age 14

I don't see how you falsely equate that behaviour with the drug. As it stands, marijuana is stigmatized, would you say that the use of marijuana is characteristic of a rebellious teen? This alone casts doubt on the credibility of the studies you have posted.

Delinquent behavior was defined as being present if the teenager met enough criteria on theft/violence/status/damage scales. Your claim that this casts doubt on the credibility of the studies is laughable.

A significant association was found between Abstract Designs Latency and marijuana exposure, with the children born to heavier users displaying slower response times

Is this to say that it was smoked during pregnancy? If so, alcohol and general smoking are responsible for far more than slower response times.

Irrelevant. You have been claiming that marijuana usage has no negative side effects, not that other drugs are worse. Other drugs, like alcohol and tobacco may well be worse, but the idea that marijuana is completely harmless is demonstrably wrong.

lol I gotta go, I'll answer the rest later

When you do, do me a favour and present some reasonable evidence, because I'd like to see it.

[giveup]

1.
I don't see a source cited  .
But you do realize that the apparent results were said to be true for both poly-drug use (any combination of drugs) and marijuana. This proves nothing, "car crashes and stubbing your toe have found to be conducive of death."

2.
Are you proposing that the use of marijuana had caused an induced mutation of the user's genes, of which caused a more delinquent-prone offspring?
For example, a parent smokes crack all day while completely neglecting their children, is the child's higher rate of nefarious actions as a result of their parents smoking of crack or is it the result of being brought up by a person who is under the influence of a mind-altering drug ?
The same holds true for Marijuana, as it stands those that are attracted to Marijuana are not the greatest of people.

3.
I suppose what I meant by "no negative effect", the sort of "negative effect" that would warrant the banning of the substance. As the topic of the thread says "legality of drugs". They have found that Marijuana smoke in some aspects is worse than tobacco smoke, while in others much better. My argument is: given the strength and number of the positives, the tobacco-like effects should be disregarded and the substance legally grown.

This isn't addressing you by quotes because I got confused 

[Russ]

I'm still waiting on that evidence btw

Oh and the source for 1. is in brackets after the quotes

[giveup]

The fact that many different drugs, many with dissimilar effects, were all found to cause this behavior. This goes to show that this was not the effect of any drug, but rather bad parenting that often accompanies use of a socially unacceptable substance... There really isn't anyway to substantiate this with a 'counter all drug use has such effect' study, but I'm pretty sure that the people who conducted this research drew the same conclusion.

[Russ]

You have been particularly vocal in saying that marijuana is harmless and that it's not bad for you. I'm asking why you think that and if you can't immediately cite some evidence then you need to go and do some research.

[VivaTequila]

All benzodiazepines and all forms of amphetamines (including pseudo-amphetamines like ritalin and adderall) should be made legal, whilst all hallucinogens and narcotics like heavy barbituates should be made prescription only. Some over-the-counter medications like dextromethorphan (in cough syrup) make you trip BALLS if you take 8~9x the reccomended dosage, and this is the shit that is dangerous.

The only problem with the system is that pharmaceuticals contain mixtures of drugs that are controlled substances like Codeiene and uncontrolled substances like Paracetamol, because some have potential for abuse and some do not. One such brand is Panadiene Forte (not sure of spelling) which has both codiene and paracetamol, and people can always use methods like CWE to extract the codeiene out of the pill and then use it to make shit like desomorphone.

Benzodiazepines are harmless, fun, and are not serious narcotics. It's nothing but double standards if stuff like DXM which is over-the-counter and uncontrolled is allowed to be purchased by minors, when harmless meds like clonazepam, valium, xanax, and temazepam are banned.

In my humblest of opinions, serious CNS depressants should be banned whilst anti-anxiety meds and stimulants should be made legal, and ALL pharmaceuticals should contain only the one active ingredient so that things like Panadol only contain paracetamol and other medications ONLY contain codeine.

NB: The drug laws are fucked. A cop can't do anything to you except arrest you if you are trippin' on LSD (at least in Victoria, assuming you aren't being disorderly), but if you're carrying a gram of weed you can get a cannabis caution. The fuck?

[sunintherain]

(didn't read all of the posts so sorry if I come across as repetitive)
Lifting a ban on Marijuana and other drugs will just show people that the government and society as whole believes it to be okay to abuse such substances. It will not decrease usage rates, if anything the amount of people using such substances will substantially increase as they will no longer believe that drugs are as harmful to them.
As for those saying Marijuana is harmless have obviously not read into the side effects and are just relying on crack-pot hippies for their information.

[nubs]

^mmk

Although it is not harmless, it seems as if it poses much less of a danger than alcohol does - both to the user and the people around him/her
But yeah, you never argued against that, I'm just making sure you realise that just in case you hadn't already

As for your claim that legalisation will increase use, you are ignoring a lot of factors that come into play

Say suicide became legal tomorrow, would the amount of people commiting suicide increase substantially 'as they will no longer believe that' suicide is a bad thing.

Similarly, how many people would go out and start shooting H if it became legal tomorrow? Not many. That's why it is education rather than social stigma that has the greater effect here.

Although some sort of stigma will be lost for the next generation, it isn't something that should be too worried about
You would hope that education (without hyperbole or outright lies) alone should prevent people from using certain substances

Legalisation will make way for safer and cleaner use. You will know what you're buying, and some people won't have to resort to sharing needles which will lower the spread of infections or STIs. Amount of overdoses will be expected to decrease, and the number of people willing to seek out help for their addiction may also be predicted to increase. It wouldn't be too surprising if addiction (perhaps not usage) decreased.
People won't have to resort to substitutes such as krokodil in Russia, or they won't have to risk picking poisonous mushrooms or mouldy ones when searching for magic mushrooms.
Magic mushrooms are as close to harmless as you can get as far as I know

Also consider the drug war. The drug war alone should be enough to compel most people in to wanted some sort of drug reform. It seems as if legalising all drugs is the only option to end the blood shed, with over 15,000 people being killed in 2010 alone.

An increase in use isn't such a bad thing, as long as the users are educated well enough on the topic and are using 'safely', just like people are advised to drink 'safely'

Although use may increase, ultimately - or from a utilitarian POV - it may be that legalising drugs is the right thing to do