Facts About Marijuana

[Cramer]

1) There is no convincing scientific evidence that marijuana causes psychological damage or mental illness in either teenagers or adults. Some marijuana users experience psychological distress following marijuana ingestion, which may include feelings of panic, anxiety, and paranoia. Such experiences can be frightening, but the effects are temporary. With very large doses, marijuana can cause temporary toxic psychosis. This occurs rarely, and almost always when marijuana is eaten rather than smoked. Marijuana does not cause profound changes in people's behavior.

2) Most people who smoke marijuana smoke it only occasionally. A small minority of Americans - less than 1 percent - smoke marijuana on a daily basis. An even smaller minority develop a dependence on marijuana. Some people who smoke marijuana heavily and frequently stop without difficulty. Others seek help from drug treatment professionals. Marijuana does not cause physical dependence. If people experience withdrawal symptoms at all, they are remarkably mild.

3) When today's youth use marijuana, they are using the same drug used by youth in the 1960s and 1970s. A small number of low-THC samples seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration are used to calculate a dramatic increase in potency. However, these samples were not representative of the marijuana generally available to users during this era. Potency data from the early 1980s to the present are more reliable, and they show no increase in the average THC content of marijuana. Even if marijuana potency were to increase, it would not necessarily make the drug more dangerous. Marijuana that varies quite substantially in potency produces similar psychoactive effects.

4) Marijuana arrests in the United States doubled between 1991 and 1995. In 1995, more than one-half-million people were arrested for marijuana offenses. Eighty-six percent of them were arrested for marijuana possession. Tens of thousands of people are now in prison for marijuana offenses. An even greater number are punished with probation, fines, and civil sanctions, including having their property seized, their driver's license revoked, and their employment terminated. Despite these civil and criminal sanctions, marijuana continues to be readily available and widely used.

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

6) Marijuana has been shown to be effective in reducing the nausea induced by cancer chemotherapy, stimulating appetite in AIDS patients, and reducing intraocular pressure in people with glaucoma. There is also appreciable evidence that marijuana reduces muscle spasticity in patients with neurological disorders. A synthetic capsule is available by prescription, but it is not as effective as smoked marijuana for many patients. Pure THC may also produce more unpleasant psychoactive side effects than smoked marijuana. Many people use marijuana as a medicine today, despite its illegality. In doing so, they risk arrest and imprisonment.

7) Marijuana does not cause people to use hard drugs. What the gateway theory presents as a causal explanation is a statistic association between common and uncommon drugs, an association that changes over time as different drugs increase and decrease in prevalence. Marijuana is the most popular illegal drug in the United States today. Therefore, people who have used less popular drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and LSD, are likely to have also used marijuana. Most marijuana users never use any other illegal drug. Indeed, for the large majority of people, marijuana is a terminus rather than a gateway drug.

8) In 1972, after reviewing the scientific evidence, the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse concluded that while marijuana was not entirely safe, its dangers had been grossly overstated. Since then, researchers have conducted thousands of studies of humans, animals, and cell cultures. None reveal any findings dramatically different from those described by the National Commission in 1972. In 1995, based on thirty years of scientific research editors of the British medical journal Lancet concluded that "the smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health."

9) For twenty-five years, researchers have searched for a marijuana-induced amotivational syndrome and have failed to find it. People who are intoxicated constantly, regardless of the drug, are unlikely to be productive members of society. There is nothing about marijuana specifically that causes people to lose their drive and ambition. In laboratory studies, subjects given high doses of marijuana for several days or even several weeks exhibit no decrease in work motivation or productivity. Among working adults, marijuana users tend to earn higher wages than non-users. College students who use marijuana have the same grades as nonusers. Among high school students, heavy use is associated with school failure, but school failure usually comes first.

10) The Netherlands' drug policy is the most nonpunitive in Europe. For more than twenty years, Dutch citizens over age eighteen have been permitted to buy and use cannabis (marijuana and hashish) in government-regulated coffee shops. This policy has not resulted in dramatically escalating cannabis use. For most age groups, rates of marijuana use in the Netherlands are similar to those in the United States. However, for young adolescents, rates of marijuana use are lower in the Netherlands than in the United States. The Dutch people overwhelmingly approve of current cannabis policy which seeks to normalize rather than dramatize cannabis use. The Dutch government occasionally revises existing policy, but it remains committed to decriminalization.

11) None of the medical tests currently used to detect brain damage in humans have found harm from marijuana, even from long term high-dose use. An early study reported brain damage in rhesus monkeys after six months exposure to high concentrations of marijuana smoke. In a recent, more carefully conducted study, researchers found no evidence of brain abnormality in monkeys that were forced to inhale the equivalent of four to five marijuana cigarettes every day for a year. The claim that marijuana kills brain cells is based on a speculative report dating back a quarter of a century that has never been supported by any scientific study.

12) Marijuana produces immediate, temporary changes in thoughts, perceptions, and information processing. The cognitive process most clearly affected by marijuana is short-term memory. In laboratory studies, subjects under the influence of marijuana have no trouble remembering things they learned previously. However, they display diminished capacity to learn and recall new information. This diminishment only lasts for the duration of the intoxication. There is no convincing evidence that heavy long-term marijuana use permanently impairs memory or other cognitive functions.

13) Every serious scholar and government commission examining the relationship between marijuana use and crime has reached the same conclusion: marijuana does not cause crime. The vast majority of marijuana users do not commit crimes other than the crime of possessing marijuana. Among marijuana users who do commit crimes, marijuana plays no causal role. Almost all human and animal studies show that marijuana decreases rather than increases aggression.

14) There is no evidence that marijuana causes infertility in men or women. In animal studies, high doses of THC diminish the production of some sex hormones and can impair reproduction. However, most studies of humans have found that marijuana has no impact of sex hormones. In those studies showing an impact, it is modest, temporary, and of no apparent consequence for reproduction. There is no scientific evidence that marijuana delays adolescent sexual development, has feminizing effect on males, or a masculinizing effect on females.

15) Studies of newborns, infants, and children show no consistent physical, developmental, or cognitive deficits related to prenatal marijuana exposure. Marijuana had no reliable impact on birth size, length of gestation, neurological development, or the occurrence of physical abnormalities. The administration of hundreds of tests to older children has revealed only minor differences between offspring of marijuana users and nonusers, and some are positive rather than negative. Two unconfirmed case-control studies identified prenatal marijuana exposure as one of many factors statistically associated with childhood cancer. Given other available evidence, it is highly unlikely that marijuana causes cancer in children.

16) There is no evidence that marijuana users are more susceptible to infections than nonusers. Nor is there evidence that marijuana lowers users' resistance to sexually transmitted diseases. Early studies which showed decreased immune function in cells taken from marijuana users have since been disproved. Animals given extremely large doses of THC and exposed to a virus have higher rates of infection. Such studies have little relevance to humans. Even among people with existing immune disorders, such as AIDS, marijuana use appears to be relatively safe. However, the recent finding of an association between tobacco smoking and lung infection in AIDS patients warrants further research into possible harm from marijuana smoking in immune suppressed persons.

17) Many active drugs enter the body's fat cells. What is different (but not unique) about THC is that it exits fat cells slowly. As a result, traces of marijuana can be found in the body for days or weeks following ingestion. However, within a few hours of smoking marijuana, the amount of THC in the brain falls below the concentration required for detectable psychoactivity. The fat cells in which THC lingers are not harmed by the drug's presence, nor is the brain or other organs. The most important consequence of marijuana's slow excretion is that it can be detected in blood, urine, and tissue long after it is used, and long after its psychoactivity has ended.

18) There is no compelling evidence that marijuana contributes substantially to traffic accidents and fatalities. At some doses, marijuana affects perception and psychomotor performances- changes which could impair driving ability. However, in driving studies, marijuana produces little or no car-handling impairment- consistently less than produced by low moderate doses of alcohol and many legal medications. In contrast to alcohol, which tends to increase risky driving practices, marijuana tends to make subjects more cautious. Surveys of fatally injured drivers show that when THC is detected in the blood, alcohol is almost always detected as well. For some individuals, marijuana may play a role in bad driving. The overall rate of highway accidents appears not to be significantly affected by marijuana's widespread use in society.

19) Marijuana does not cause overdose deaths. The number of people in hospital emergency rooms who say they have used marijuana has increased. On this basis, the visit may be recorded as marijuana-related even if marijuana had nothing to do with the medical condition preceding the hospital visit. Many more teenagers use marijuana than use drugs such as heroin and cocaine. As a result, when teenagers visit hospital emergency rooms, they report marijuana much more frequently than they report heroin and cocaine. In the large majority of cases when marijuana is mentioned, other drugs are mentioned as well. In 1994, fewer than 2% of drug related emergency room visits involved the use of marijuana.

20) There is no evidence that anti-drug messages diminish young people's interest in drugs. Anti-drug campaigns in the schools and the media may even make drugs more attractive. Marijuana use among youth declined throughout the 1980s, and began increasing in the 1990s. This increase occurred despite young people's exposure to the most massive anti-marijuana campaign in American history. In a number of other countries, drug education programs are based on a "harm reduction" model, which seeks to reduce the drug-related harm among those young people who do experiment with drugs.

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Source: Myths and Facts About Marijuana

[Goodwin 1st MRB]

.......?

Also one could argue many of these 'facts' aren't really that clear - statistically they're ambiguous which leads me to believe there isn't much evidence one way or the other but they want to make a point that weed is 'okay', so they manipulate the stats to fit, and call it 'fact'. That's ridiculous - and a sure sign of a weak argument IMO. I mean hell - 'fact' #4 doesn't even have ANYTHING to do with marijuana other than it's an element to the statistic (which is a law enforcement stat).

I have to wonder who writes this bullshit - and even worse yet - who believes this shit?

I mean, I could literally go through this thing 'fact' by 'fact' and shoot holes through many of them... but I have better things to do with my time (like look at porn).

[GMoney BAR]

Who cares what myths and facts are about Marijuana? It's a narcotic that people buy from people who may or may not really care for America. What's next? Are we going to turn the forums into a whore house and sell our bodies to people?

Hey! Now that's an idea. lol

[Jasko]

If you want to watch a movie about myths and facts and other subjects on marijuana, here you go...

[Connary]

Who cares what myths and facts are about Marijuana? It's a narcotic that people buy from people who may or may not really care for America. What's next? Are we going to turn the forums into a whore house and sell our bodies to people?

Hey! Now that's an idea. lol

Would certainly help make money for servers and site =P I alone would get us at least an extra day of server play haha..

No seriously though Goodwin what you say is true and i realized that too it is all manipulated information in support of Marijuana being 'okay' however you look at the same information on the 'its bad' side and you can punch as many holes in that as well.

And then for Gmoney i agree that most the pot dealers are selling on behalf of anti-american agents. Many friends of mine are in law enforcement and the stories they tell of finding the pot growing areas with Immigrant workers forced to live in a shack for years so they can pay off there Mule debt. So if weed is to be 'okay' we have to do like it mentioned about the dutch and government control is very important.

And like #20 said i dont believe the campaigns will solve anything. I remember when overseas with the military i watched a military sponsored documentary on how bad Extasy was, i never wanted to try it before seeing the show but then i did lol, it actually made the stuff seem good. Of course i have never tried it and dont do drugs but i found that funny.

I recommend watching the documentary 'Super High Me' it is a good movie and shows some interesting information even if you do not believe in marijuana use.

[GMoney BAR]

You can never control the production of pot here in America. Everyone says lets legalize it and then tax it to help pay for things but why in the world would people pay for legal pot and be taxed on it when they can get it tax free? Especially when the "war" on drugs would be downsized if it were legalized. A lot of people just think too narrow minded anymore. lol Anywho, pot is pot and it will always be around whether legal or illegal.

[Goodwin 1st MRB]

You can never control the production of pot here in America. Everyone says lets legalize it and then tax it to help pay for things but why in the world would people pay for legal pot and be taxed on it when they can get it tax free? Especially when the "war" on drugs would be downsized if it were legalized. A lot of people just think too narrow minded anymore. lol Anywho, pot is pot and it will always be around whether legal or illegal.

Exactly.

And Connary, I am aware that there are a lot of holes that can be punched in both sides of the arguments, every story has two sides! And personally I don't care either way. I'm not a user so it doesn't matter to me but it's just the fact people read articles like that and go "hey, yea dude, see?? It's not bad at all!" when in reality those are some of the weakest made, poorly written, horribly structured 'facts' I've ever seen to date for anything!

I dunno, just seems silly to post something so erroneous, as if you're trying to make a point with it.

[Funkhouser]

Okay let me say this first off, I smoke weed alot. And I mean ALOT. Now some people will say that "Weed isn't a drug", which is bollocks. But can you become addicted to it, not physically. Some people can grow a mental addiction, where they seem to "need" it to go through their day, even though if they stopped they would be perfectly healthy.

Now contrary to popular belief SMOKING marijuana is bad for you. The human body is not meant to take in any type of smoke into the lungs, only oxygen. So when that guy tells you that smoking a joint is good for you every now and then, he's wrong. It can kill your lungs if you use it excessively over long periods of time.

There are however safer ways to partake in the use of Marijuana. Ways such as vaporizers, brownies, and boiling (though not recomended unless you really know what you are doing) are all methods that allow you to use, without damaging your lungs. Instead they will only temporarily damage your judgement.

Now with brownies or baked goods, be careful. Be sure to only eat half of the product first, wait 15-30 minutes then if you feel you can handle yourself eat the rest. Now be warned about baked baked goods, they contain a good amount of "love" in them, approximately 1-2 grams of love to be exact.

[Gooderham 1st MRB]

My cousin has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. It is believed that Marijuana, in addition to harming his mental functioning, also lead him to experiment with other more harmful drugs.

No matter how you cut it (pun not intended), Marijuana can be devastating to your mental health.

[Cramer]

Well, all I have to say is.. I'd rather smoke marijuana my entire life, instead of smoking cigs and drinking alcohol. We all know its safer than both of those substances.

[Goodwin 1st MRB]

Well, all I have to say is.. I'd rather smoke marijuana my entire life, instead of smoking cigs and drinking alcohol. We all know its safer than both of those substances.

Ah, youth.

...or someone who believes the propaganda outlined above

btw, I'm j'k. I don't care if people do whatever - as long as they ain't buggin me!

[Collins]

Ima say it now, Your an idiot if u do drugs, except the occasional drink of alcohol as proven studies have shown that it fights certain damages to the brain, like alzhiemers. i didnt spell it right so shoot me.

[Cramer]

Have you ever, personally, heard of someone getting cancer, or dying due to the use of marijuana? Now.. how many people have you heard of, or know personally that have died due to cigarette smoking and drinking alcohol? In my life... I have known about 10 people that have lost their lives, voice boxes, and/or body parts due to cigarette smoking and alcohol intake, (this includes my grandmother, my great uncle, a 2nd cousin, my step dad's father, and many more family/friends..) How many marijuana users do I know, personally? I'm in contact with, a rough estimate of about 50 - 60 pot smokers.. including some family, some friends, and friends of friends... but how many of them have lost their lives or gained cancer? NONE. Oh, how I love real statistics.

EDIT:: Also... the funnier thing is.... those alcohol and cig users in my family... were all high school drop outs or graduates who didn't go to college... but about half of the weed smokers I know.... are in college with positive grades, or have already graduated college and are getting paid a damn good amount of money per year. HMMMMMMMMMMMM

Edited July 12, 2010 by Cramer 1st MRB

[Goodwin 1st MRB]

NONE. Oh, how I love real statistics.

EDIT:: Also... the funnier thing is.... those alcohol and cig users in my family... were all high school drop outs or graduates who didn't go to college... but about half of the weed smokers I know.... are in college with positive grades, or have already graduated college and are getting paid a damn good amount of money per year. HMMMMMMMMMMMM

okay, you love "real" statistics, but you list off ONLY people you know, which amounts to about... probably (this is a 'real' estimate) 1/1000000000000000 of the population (you realize how insanely tiny that is, right? and how ABSOLUTELY unrealistic and completely statistically irrelevant that is, right? And how many MILLIONS of other factors come into play with your 'study', right?). How is that in any way shape or form even CLOSE to real? Let me explain - it's not. Also, personal bias comes into play in your story - which scientifically (i.e. statistically) is something you should avoid - another reason why your 'real' statistics are about as real as Santa Clause.

Also, if you want to talk 'statistics' when you're discussing alcohol & cig abuse vs. HS dropouts & college graduates - you must also look at their age, the demographics associated with those age ranges, and the educational levels of the different generations.

Did you do ANY of that? No. Whoops!

It's all good man, do what you do. But just as weed smokers hate people who try to shove down their throat how it's wrong... people who don't like drugs hate druggies who try and shove it down their throat that it's harmless.

[Cramer]

Then, in the end.. no one is right? Is that what you're getting at?

Edited July 12, 2010 by Cramer 1st MRB

[Collins]

No i gotta add one last thing.....................Drunks run over stop signs, people that are high just wait for them to turn green XD

[Cramer]

No i gotta add one last thing.....................Drunks run over stop signs, people that are high just wait for them to turn green XD

Ha. That's awesome. I lol'd, literally.

[Goodwin 1st MRB]

Then, in the end.. no one is right? Is that what you're getting at?

Yes, and no.

The statistics you listed as 'real', were probably the most 'unreal' stats anyone has ever tried to use in this debate. So that is a 'you're wrong' part of this conversation.

Also, the original 25 'facts', were completely wrong as well. Therefore another 'wrong' part of the conversation.

As far as who cares and 'live and let live', then yes - no one is right, lets all just get along and move on and forget this horribly unrealistic thread existed

[Gooderham 1st MRB]

Smoking Marijuana, drinking alcohol, or smoking cigarettes is a personal lifestyle choice. Regardless of how people rank them in terms of "harm done" it is a choice each individual must make.

As such, there is no need to judge each other based on our decisions, and therefore, I am going to close this topic.

[Legend]

Hey if your intererested theres a very nice documentary called. The Union, very information on marijuana and the drug culture, aiming to legalize to get ride of Crime!. Ial post a link for it, but its a very fun and funny documentary, i bet u will like it. Promise it will have the ambigouse statistics ur talking about covered, along with a ton of other stuff.

THE UNION

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9...14414651731007#

[Lanze]

Smh, a lot of you have definitly fell for the "brain-wash" bullshit that goes around about Marijuana, sad to see how misinformed some of you are, but I won't get into details.

[Ford 1st MRB]

Sorry Gooderham, I asked Engle to open this topic because it shouldn't have been closed, it's a clean friendly debate.

That I had to add my 2 cents. =)

Okay, starters.... I don't do drugs, anymore atleast. I used to do a myriad of drugs, ranging from pot, to more exotic things I won't mention. When it comes to pot, I'm on the fence on this argument.

Let's look at the reasons why Marijuana is illegal in this country shall we? Yes? Okay cool.

• In the 1920s and '30s, the american public became increasingly concerned about drug addiction---especially to morphine and a "miracle drug" that had been introduced by the Bayer Company in 1898 under the brand name "Heroin." By the mid-1920s, there were 200,000 heroin addicts in the U.S. alone
• Most Americans were unaware that smoking hemp was intoxicating; however, until William Randolph Hearst launched a campaign of sensational stories the linked "the killer weed" to jazz musicians, "crazed minorities," and unspeakable crimes. Hearst's papers featured headlines like:

  MARIJUANA MAKES FIENDS OF BOYS IN 30 DAYS: HASHEESH [sIC] GOADS USERS TO BLOOD-LUST NEW DOPE LURE, MARIJUANA, HAS MANY VICTIMS

• In 1930, Hearst was joined in his crusade against hemp by Harry J. Anslinger, commissioner of the newly organized Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Hearst often quoted Anslinger in his newspaper stories, printing sensational comments like: "If the hideous monster Frankenstein came face to face with the monster Marijuana he would drop dead of fright."
• Not everyone shared their opinion. In 1930, the U.S. government formed the Siler Commission to study marijuana smoking by off-duty service men in Panama. The commission found no lasting effects and recommended that no criminal penalties apply to it's use.
• Nonetheless, Hearst and Anslinger's anti-hemp crusade had results. By 1931, twenty-nine states had prohibited marijuana use for non-medical purposes. In 1937, after two years of secret hearings -- and based largely on Anslinger's testimony -- Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act, which essentially outlawed marijuana in america.
• Because Congress wasn't sure that it was constitutional to ban hemp outright, it taxed the plant prohibitively instead. Hemp growers had to register with the government; sellers and buyers had to fill out cumbersome paperwork; and, ofcourse, it was federal crime not to comply.

  Now there are two different conspiracies about the outlawing of Marijuana, I'll share them with you, but these are simply conspiracies, not facts. What I stated above are facts.

THE HEARST CONSPIRACY:

• Hemp was outlawed just as a new technology would have made hemp paper far cheaper than wood-pulp paper.
• Traditionally, hemp fiber had to be separated from the stalk by hand, and at the cost of labor made this method uncompetitive. But in 1937 -- the year that Hemp was outlawed, the Decorticator machine was invented; it could process as much as 3 tons of hemp an hour and produced higher-quality fibers with less loss of fiber than wood-based pulp. According to some scientists, hemp would have undercut competing products overnight. Enthusiastic about the new product, Popular Mechanics magazine predicted that hemp would become America's first "billion-dollar crop." The magazine pointed out and shows graphs stating 10,000 acres of hemp would produce more paper than 40,000 acres of trees.
• According to Jack Herer, an expert on the "hemp conspiracy" Hearst, the Du Ponts, and other "industrial barons and financiers knew that machinery to cut, bale, decorticate and process hemp into paper was becoming available in the mid-1930s."
• Hearst, one of the promoters of the anti-hemp hysteria, had a vested interest in protecting the pulp industry. Hearst owned enormous timber acreage; competition from hemp paper might have driven the Hearst paper-manufacturing division out of business overnight and caused the value of his acreage to plummet.
• Herer suggests that Hearst slanted the news in his papers to protect his pulp investments. "In the 1920s and '30s," he writes, "Hearst's newspaper chain led the deliberate... yellow journalism campaign to have marijuana outlawed. From 1916 to 1937, as an example, the story of a car accident in which a marijuana cigarette was found would dominate the headlines for weeks, while alcohol related car accidents (which outnumbered marijuana-related accidents more than 1,000 to 1) made only the back pages.

THE DU PONT CONSPIRACY:

• The Du Pont Company also had an interest in the pulp industry. At this time, it was in the process of patenting a new sulfuric acid process for producing wood-pulp paper. According to the companies own records, wood-pulp based products accounted for 80% of all of DuPonts railroad car loading for the next 50 years.
• But Du Pont had even more reasons to be concerned about hemp. In the 1930s, the company was making drastic changes in its business strategy. Traditionally a manufacturer of military explosives, Du Pont realized after the end of World War I that developing peacetime uses for artificial fibers would be more profitable in the long run. So it began pouring millions of dollars into research -- which resulted in development of such synthetic fibers as rayon and nylon.

  Two years before the prohibitive hemp tax, Du Pont developed a new synthetic fiber, nylon, that was an ideal substitute for hemp rope.

  The year after the hemp tax, Du Pont was able to bring another "miracle" synthetic fabric onto the market -- Rayon. Rayon, which became widely used for clothing, was a direct competitor to hemp cloth.

  "Congress and the Treasury Department were assured, through secret testimony given by Du Pont, that hemp-seed oil could be replaced with synthetic petrochemical oils made principally by Du Pont." The oils produced were instead used in paints and other products.

• The millions spent on these products, as well as the hundreds of millions in expected profits from them, could have been wiped out if the newly affordable hemp products were allowed onto the market. So, according to Herer, Du Pont worked with Hearst to eliminate hemp.
• Du Pont's point-man was none other than Harry Anslinger, the commisioner of the FBN. Anslinger was appointed to the FBN by Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, who was chairman of Mellon Bank, Du Pont's chief finacial backer. But Anslinger's relationship to Mellon wasn't strictly political; he was also married to Mellon's niece.

Hemp's Place in American History:

• Washington and Jefferson both grew it.
• Our first flags were made of hemp cloth.
• The first and second drafts of the Declaration of Independence were written on paper made from dutch hemp.
• When the pioneers went west, their wagons were covered by hemp canvas. (The word canvas comes from canabacius, hemp cloth)
• The first Levi Jeans sold to prospectors were made of hemp
• Abraham Lincoln's wife Mary, came from the richest hemp-growing family in Kentucky.

Hemps by-products remained popular well into the 20th century. Maple sugar combined with hashish was sold over the counter at Sears as a harmless candy. Hemp rope was a mainstay of the Navy. Two thousand tons of hemp seed were sold annually as birdfeed. The pharmaceutical industry used hemp in hundreds of potions and vigorously fought attempts to keep hemp legal. Virtually all paint and varnish was made using hemp seed oil.

Now not once in there did I say pot is good for you. I don't think it's good for you, I do however think it should be legalized. Not for taxes or anything, but the over crowding of our correctional facitlities is ridiculous. American tax payers pay billions of dollars annually to house inmates serving sentences for simple possession, which isn't right in my opinion.

I would love to hear your rebuttal.

[Yamagata 1st MRB]

*Witty Rebuttal*

Take that!

[Lanze]

Fyi, the Pharmaceutical Industry is the #1 Profitable Industry, period. Now why would big pharmaceutical companies want a medicine people can tend for themselves for little to nothing, instead of chemically made, and mastered medicines that they profit billions from. And if your argument is that Marijuana has no medicinal value whatsoever, I laugh at that statement..

Edit: About having medicinal value, if THC the active ingredient in Marijuana didn't have any medicinal value, why would the pharmaceutical company take THC and make a actual pill-type medicine with THC as the most active ingredient in it, side effects including Dizzyness, Drowsiness, Extreme sense of Happiness, sounds like smoking a J to me?

Edited July 12, 2010 by Lanze 1st MRB

[Sheneman 1st MRB]

dont dis the trees. if you live in Cali, support it. If you dont, well ya better move then. legalization is coming soon.