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(25,592 posts)Just ask the DEA.
marble falls
(57,257 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)bluestate10
(10,942 posts)40 to 150 million people. I voted to decriminalize up to an ounce in my state and voted for Medical Marijuana. But I want people using the death comparison to stop until the effects of a large number of people in states and the nation using Marijuana is known.
Silent3
(15,280 posts)...but until more studies are done, when it comes to smoking pot (which is, of course, not the only way to consume it), I'm still very wary of the idea of sucking soot from burning vegetation into your lungs. It's hard to imagine their aren't some respiratory disease consequences from inhaling the particulate residues of incomplete combustion, and that doing so hasn't, at least a few cases, been a contributing cause of death.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)The average cigarette smoker might use a pack/day; the average pot smoker less than a joint. Both "units" are roughly the same size. I doubt someone smoking a joint/day is going to make a blip on long function tests.
packman
(16,296 posts)Now that would be something. You'd have the cough, the pale skin, the stinking breath, the darkened lungs, the yellow teeth, the loss of taste, the smelly clothes, BUT you just wouldn't give a damn.
dougolat
(716 posts)The RW bloviators saying "It's soooo much stronger now, the President doesn't know what he's talking about!" are the ones who don't know what they're talking about; deep inhalation of a room-full of smoke can't be as healthy as mere puffs.
eggplant
(3,913 posts)It is true that long-term chronic pot smoking can contribute to lung damage:
However, Moderate Marijuana Use Does Not Impair Lung Function, Study Finds
While tobacco smokers showed the expected drop in lung function over time, the new research found that marijuana smoke had unexpected and apparently positive effects. Low to moderate users actually showed increased lung capacity compared to nonsmokers on two tests, known as FEV1 and FVC. FEV1 is the amount of air someone breathes out in the first second after taking the deepest possible breath; FVC is the total volume of air exhaled after the deepest inhalation.
So while there is evidence that smoking pot doesn't affect lung function:
That was a bit of a surprise, says Pletcher, since There are clearly adverse effects from tobacco use and marijuana smoke has a lot of the same constituents as tobacco smoke does so we thought it might have some of the same harmful effects. Its a weird effect to see and we couldnt make it go away, he adds, explaining that the researchers used statistical models to look for errors or other factors that could explain the apparent benefit and did not find them.
The improvement wasnt seen in the heaviest users, however. At high levels of marijuana usefor example, in those who smoked more than 20 times a monthFEV1 slipped back to levels seen in nonusers and a reduction was seen in, um, the most chronic smokers. But FVC remained high in even the longest term, heaviest users.
In something of a twist, the researchers found that compared to nonsmokers, marijuana users performed slightly better on the lung function test, though the improvement was minuscule. Even with this tiny increase in airflow, I have to admit that I really doubt that theres any real increase in lung health, said Dr. Stefan Kertesz, an associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham school of medicine and an author of the study. The finding may merely reflect marijuana smokers years of training in taking deep inhalations and holding the smoke, the researchers said.
there seems to still be an opinion that long-term heavy smoking can be bad. Personally, I don't see that as an indictment of pot, but rather of sucking on any large quantity of smoke for years on end. Combine that with heavy Cheetos abuse and who knows.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Silent3
(15,280 posts)Maynar
(769 posts)like he wants to be there.
klook
(12,170 posts)chasing that red dot. What for?"
Straw Man
(6,625 posts)It can be ingested in raw or cooked form. Baked is popular. (See what I did there?)
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)jsr
(7,712 posts)Stuart G
(38,448 posts)Gothmog
(145,619 posts)Fla Dem
(23,764 posts)nt
dickthegrouch
(3,184 posts)Cha
(297,713 posts)and go out and shoot people? Or is it the furthest thing from their mind?
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)Isoldeblue
(1,135 posts)Thanks!
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)Maybe i should have titled it better.....it's just too good to miss!
Isoldeblue
(1,135 posts)interest to play it. I loved it! It really brings home the message.
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)Hey, it couldn't hurt.
PeoViejo
(2,178 posts)BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)Cha
(297,713 posts)BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)Haaaaaaahahah pizza sales! LOL
I visited Hawaii many many zillions of years ago---and I remember the most awesome sushi!!!
Mmmmmm
increase in sushi sales
Cha
(297,713 posts)BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)that went in my cooking folder .
WillyT
(72,631 posts)Isoldeblue
(1,135 posts)would be a huge help for our environment and could put a dent in continuing global warming. If paper could be made from hemp and not trees, that would help.
It's ludicrous that this isn't cultivated here as it once was.
"Hemp was the first plant known to have been domestically cultivated. The oldest relic of human history is hemp fabric dated to 8,000 BC from ancient Mesopotamia, an area in present-day Turkey.
The paintings of Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Gainsborough, etc., were primarily painted on hemp canvas, as were practically all canvas paintings.
Hemp sails and ropes carried the European settlers to America for hundreds of years - 1492 to the advent of steamships in the early 1800's.
Cannabis hemp was legal tender (money) in most of the Americas from 1631 until the early 1800s. You could pay your taxes with cannabis hemp throughout America for over 200 years.
You could even be jailed in America for not growing cannabis during several periods of shortage, e.g., in Virginia between 1763 and 1767.
HEMPstead, Long Island; HEMPstead County, Arkansas; HEMPstead, Texas; HEMPhill, North Carolina; HEMPfield, Pennsylvania; among others, were named after cannabis growing regions, or after family names derived from hemp growing.
Maps, log books, Bibles, books were all made of rag bond paper that had a high hemp content from recycled clothes of homespun hemp, sails, ropes, tents made of hemp.
Hemp was used for clothing, military uniforms, ship's rigging, shoes, parachute webbing, baggage, and much more. Christopher Columbus' ships were fully rigged in hemp. The U.S.S. Constitution, "Old Ironsides," was outfitted with over 40 tons of hemp rigging.
Benjamin Franklin started one of America's first paper mills with cannabis. This allowed America to have a free colonial press without having to beg or justify paper and books from England.
It was not just any string that connected Ben Franklin to the clouds above for his famous experiment, it was hemp string.
Thomas Jefferson drafted both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution on hemp paper.
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew cannabis on their plantations. Jefferson, while envoy to France, went to great expenseand considerable risk to himself and his secret agentsto procure particularly good hemp seeds smuggled illegally into Turkey from China. The Chinese Mandarins (political rulers) so valued their hemp seeds that they made their exportation a capital offense.
Betsy Ross allegedly made the first flag of the United States of America out of the finest, strongest fiber available, hemp fabric.
When Rudolph Diesel produced his famous engine in 1896, he assumed that the diesel engine would be powered by a variety of fuels, especially vegetable and seed oils. Rudolph Diesel, like most engineers then, believed vegetable fuels were superior to petroleum. Hemp is the most efficient vegetable.
More incredible facts:
http://truthabouthemp.org/History.html
Cha
(297,713 posts)And, keeping people out of jail!
ALL THIS.
Cha
(297,713 posts)Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)this year.
JackInGreen
(2,975 posts)We've seen a lot more than that LONG before it was legalized, so if you want to count those in, sure, lets...
Then lets look at the numbers of deaths from alcohol or alcohol related disease or tobacco and the related primary and second hand smoke deaths from that....so sure, lets throw a few gravestones up there for those who died when someone makes the poor decision to drive under the influence of marijuana like we would with booze.
If we want to put that fine a point on it, sure, lets.
Can we also acknowledge however, that if we take those as stand alone items;
each drug unto itself just as a matter of 'responsible' use.
Use alcohol for long enough, it'll break your liver and other organs, and you will die.
Use tobacco for long enough, you develop lung cancer or emphysema (or myriad others) and you die.
Use marijuana long enough...and...well.....we've got the data up top, no one so far. Other things have killed folks LONG before we've been able to isolate pot as the primary source of their death by prolonged use.
So, yes, lets address those finer points, if you'd like.
Edited for this:
If we're addressing finer points...I'd like you to consider the amount of lives the drug war has ruined or ended in pursuit of prohibition? Or would you prefer to add those bodies to the pot graves as well?
JackInGreen
(2,975 posts)I'm going to take it he died of boredom. He should have smoked a joint and took a few to watch the clouds before filling that hole in, planting a lovely purple kush or godbud on top, and going home.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)by keeping it illegal or the ones who are just fucking ignorant! So if any of you are against legalization, which category do you fall in?