http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/marijuana.html
I stumbled upon this website and at first glance I was confused, because everything I read was the opposite of what I understood to be true having done my own research on the internet. I wrote the following article in response to that website and e-mailed it to them.
“You decide. Here are the facts:
Alcohol consists of one substance only: ethanol. Marijuana contains more than 400 known chemicals, including the same cancer-causing substances found in tobacco smoke. Unlike cigarette smokers, pot smokers tend to inhale deeply and hold the smoke as long as possible to increase the effect of the drug, worsening the damage to the lungs.
Alcohol is eliminated from the body in a few hours, but THC stays in the body for weeks, possibly months, depending on the length and intensity of usage.”
“There is no intention here to minimize the dangers of alcohol abuse, which can be equally harmful. Users, however, need to be aware that the chemicals in marijuana, some of them cancer-causing, remain in the body long after the drug is taken.”
http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/marijuana/it-s-background.html
The first thing that caught my eye when visiting the marijuana section of your website was the alcohol vs. marijuana section. I was very surprised to see that you were attempting to compare marijuana to alcohol. Well let’s begin by looking at the easiest way to gauge how harmful something is by looking at how many people it kills. One in 25 deaths across the globe can be directly attributed to alcohol consumption, according to new research from the Toronto-based Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. 1 So if alcohol kills 1 in 25, then certainly marijuana must be hovering around the same figure, right? Not exactly. "A careful search of the literature and testimony of the nation's health officials has not revealed a single human fatality in the United States proven to have resulted solely from ingestion of marihuana. Did you get that? Not 1 in 25, not 10,000 a year, not 100 a year, not 1 a year. Not a single person has died because of pot, ever. “Experiments with the drug in monkeys demonstrated that the dose required for overdose death was enormous and for all practical purposes unachievable by humans smoking marihuana. This is in marked contrast to other substances in common use, most notably alcohol and barbiturate sleeping pills. ``2 The World Health Organization reached the same conclusion in 1995 and had the following to say concerning the health effects of smoking pot. "There are health risks of cannabis use, most particularly when it is used daily over a period of years or decades. Considerable uncertainty remains about whether these effects are attributable to cannabis use alone, and about what the quantitative relationship is between frequency, quantity and duration of cannabis use and the risk of experiencing these effects.” 3 They also had this to say on the health risk of marijuana compared to other legal substances. “On existing patterns of use, cannabis poses a much less serious public health problem than is currently posed by alcohol and tobacco in Western societies." 3
If pot is such a terrible drug, then how can no one have died because of it? How can this be true if weed causes cancer? Well, there is no evidence to suggest that marijuana causes cancer at all. Despite the fact that inhaling hot ash into your lungs is never good for you, and vaporization is the healthiest method of extracting the THC, there is no research to prove that smoking marijuana causes cancer. Evidence actually points to the contrary, there are many studies being published which come to the conclusion that marijuana can prevent and slow the development of cancer. One report suggests that THC, the main active chemical in marijuana, actually reduces cancerous tumours by triggering a process called autophagy, (i.e. "self-eating"). 4
In another study from 2006 began by stating the following: ``Several lines of evidence, including the presence of known carcinogens and co-carcinogens in marijuana smoke, as well as results from cellular, tissue, animal, and human studies, suggest that marijuana smoking may predispose to cancer, particularly respiratory tract cancers (1). In a recent epidemiologic review of the marijuana-cancer association, (prior to the study) we concluded that sufficient studies were not available to adequately evaluate the effect of marijuana on cancer risk (2).`` 5 At the end of the study, their result found no link between marijuana use and cancer: “Despite several lines of evidence suggesting the biological plausibility of marijuana use being carcinogenic (1), it is possible that marijuana use does not increase cancer risk .`` 5 In an article published in The Washington Post on May 26, 2006 said the following: “The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer.” "We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect." 6
In conclusion, it is quite apparent through the relatively small amount of research that I did that it cannot be stated that marijuana causes cancer, and it is, in my opinion, completely asinine that you would compare alcohol to a relatively harmless plant. “Alcohol is one of the most toxic drugs, and using just 10 times what one would use to get the desired effect can lead to death. Marijuana is one of – if not the – least toxic drugs, requiring thousands of times the dose one would use to get the desired effect to lead to death. This thousands of times is actually theoretical, since there has never been a recorded case of marijuana overdose.” 7
Furthermore alcohol has a far greater negative influence on our society than marijuana:
“About 3 million violent crimes occur each year in which victims perceive the offender to have been drinking at the time of the offense. Two-thirds of victims who suffered violence by an intimate (a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend) reported that alcohol had been a factor. Among spouse victims, 3 out of 4 incidents were reported to have involved an offender who had been drinking.” 8
“The odds of any male-to-female physical aggression were more than 8 times higher on days when men drank than on days of no alcohol consumption. The odds of severe male-to-female physical aggression were more than 11 times higher on days of men’s drinking than on days of no drinking. Moreover, in both samples, over 60% of all episodes occurred within 2 hours of drinking by the male partner.” 9
“A Harvard School of Public Health study found that 72 percent of college rapes occurred when the female was too intoxicated by alcohol to resist/consent.” 10
“Cannabis differs from alcohol … in one major respect. It does not seem to increase risk-taking behaviour. This means that cannabis rarely contributes to violence either to others or to oneself, whereas alcohol use is a major factor in deliberate self-harm, domestic accidents and violence.” 11
"Alcohol use in the six hours prior to injury was associated with [an elevated] relative risk compared with no alcohol use. Cannabis use was inversely related to risk of injury." 12
Source: Jack E. Henningfield, PhD for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Reported by Philip J. Hilts, New York Times, Aug. 2, 1994 "Is Nicotine Addictive? It Depends on Whose Criteria You Use." Source: http://drugwarfacts.org/addictiv.htm
To even attempt to compare alcohol and pot is irresponsible and completely ridiculous. Your website gives off the impression of sharing information, when in reality you are spreading lies and reinforcing stereotypes that have existed since the prohibition of marijuana began. Your site says “there is no intention here to minimize the dangers of alcohol abuse, which can be equally harmful.” No, it is not equally harmful, it isn’t half as harmful, there is no comparison. Please remove the marijuana section of your website, as it is complete bullshit and spreads false and potentially dangerous information.
Here are some more idiotic quotes:
“In 2005, 242,200 emergency room visits in the United States involved marijuana.”
Also in 2005, doctors told 242,200 patients “kid you’re just really high, go home.”
“According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration, a large percentage of those arrested for crimes test positive for marijuana. Nationwide, 40% of adult males tested positive at the time of their arrest.”
I also bet that half of them used shampoo as well, should we make that illegal? Pot doesn’t cause crime. Poor people have no money so they commit crimes; poor people also have low quality of life so they smoke pot to make it a little better.
“Next to alcohol, marijuana is the second most frequently found substance in the bodies of drivers involved in fatal automobile accidents.”
As you stated on your own website, marijuana stays in your system for weeks to months after consumption. So clearly when a blood test is done the person could have been high at that very moment, or more likely they were high at some point during the previous month.
“The vast majority of cocaine users (99.9%) began by first using a “gateway drug” like marijuana, cigarettes or alcohol.”
Really? You mean to say it is not a regular occurrence for someone with no experience with drugs to find and do cocaine? Thank god for your website and the wisdom you impart.
“Marijuana is sometimes combined with harder drugs. Joints are sometimes dipped in PCP, a powerful hallucinogen. PCP is a white powder, also available in liquid form, often used with cannabis. PCP is known for causing violent behaviour and creating severe physical reactions including seizures, coma and even death.”
Define your understanding of “often”. Do you have a source for this fact? Of course not. Nobody is going to waste their more expensive drugs by lacing pot. What would the purpose be? And somehow I doubt the person who wrote this is going around trying pot to try and find PCP in it.
“A study of postal workers found that employees who tested positive for marijuana had 55% more accidents, 85% more injuries and a 75% increase in being absent from work.”
And 99% less likely to lose their minds and shoot up their place of work. Pot should be mandatory for postal workers to keep the rest of society safe from those crazy bastards.
“In Australia, a study found that cannabis intoxication was responsible for 4.3% of driver fatalities.”
Again, impossible to prove. Did they interview the deceased and ask them when was the last time they smoked pot?
“Many people will tell you marijuana is not dangerous. Consider who is telling you that. Are these the same people who are trying to sell you some pot?”
No, I am not trying to sell you pot, you idiots.
“They will approach you as a friend and offer to ‘help you out’ with ‘something to bring you up.’ The drug will ‘help you fit in’ or ‘make you cool.’ Drug dealers, motivated by the profits they make, will say anything to get you to buy their drugs. They will tell you that ‘weed won’t lead you to harder drugs.’ They don’t care if the drugs ruin your life as long as they are getting paid. All they care about is money. Former dealers have admitted they saw their buyers as ‘pawns in a chess game.’ “
Pot dealers don’t go around offering random people weed. The only dealers who go around saying things like that get arrested. Look at some of your statistics, clearly weed is popular enough that they can sell it without having to put themselves at risk by advertising it or pressuring anyone. What dealer said that quote? I am curious what pot dealer is also an avid chess player.
And finally. The most ridiculous part of this website was the random quotes put in the article without explanation by people who only seem to have first names:
“I started using on a lark, a dare from a best friend who said that I was too chicken to smoke a joint and drink a quart of beer. I was fourteen at that time. After seven years of using and drinking I found myself at the end of the road with addiction. I was no longer using to feel euphoria, I was just using to feel some semblance of normality. Then I started having negative feelings about myself and my own abilities. I hated the paranoia. I hated looking over my shoulder all the time. I really hated not trusting my friends. I became so paranoid that I successfully drove everyone away and found myself in the terrible place no one wants to be in—I was alone. I’d wake up in the morning and start using and keep using throughout the day.”—Paul
Paul, it sounds like you were smoking crack, not pot. Also, why was your friend so specific about the amount of pot and alcohol he wanted you to consume? Perhaps you were right to distrust him later in life.
I was given my first joint in the playground of my school. I’m a heroin addict now, and I’ve just finished my eighth treatment for drug addiction.” —Christian
I have a feeling your problems began with your second sentence, not your first. Maybe avoid the heroin next time Chris.
“The teacher in the school I went to would smoke three or four joints a day. He got lots of students to start smoking joints, me included. His dealer then pushed me to start using heroin, which I did without resisting. By that time, it was as if my conscience was already dead.” —Veronique
This site takes no prisoners, not only is pot evil, but our educators are as well. Again, see my advice to Chris above.
Work Cited
1 (http://www.canada.com/health/Alcohol+related+deaths+rise+globally/1735774/story.htm)
2 Shafer, Raymond P., et al, Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding, Ch. III, (Washington DC: National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, 1972);
http://druglibrary.net/schaffer/Library/studies/nc/ncc3.htm
3 Hall, W., Room, R. & Bondy, S., WHO Project on Health Implications of Cannabis Use: A Comparative Appraisal of the Health and Psychological Consequences of Alcohol, Cannabis, Nicotine and Opiate Use, August 28, 1995, (Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, March 1998).
http://www.druglibrary.net/schaffer/hemp/general/who-index.htm
4 http://www.jci.org/articles/view/37948
5 http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/15/10/1829.full.pdf
6 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729.html
7 The American Scientist (Magazine of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society). Gable, Robert. May-June 006. http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/num2/the-toxicity-of-recreational-drugs/1
8 U.S. Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics. National Crime Victimization Survey 2002.
9 Fals-Stewart , William, James Golden, Julie A. Schumacher. Journal of Addictive Behaviors. 28, pages 1555-1574. Intimate partner violence and substance use: A longitudinal day-to-day examination. Research Institute on Addictions, University at Buffalo, State University of New York
10 http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/Documents/rapeintox-pressRelease/
11 British Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, 2002.
12 BMC Public Health, 2009. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/9/40
