“Marijuana is a more consequential substance of abuse than our culture has treated it in the last 20 years,”

So.. ruining kids lives with long jail sentences, forcing them into rehab for using a substance that is not physically addictive, and keeping them from ever being able to get federal student aid was NOT harsh enough???

And then to DARE to use depression and suicide among teenagers to foist your idiotic agenda that has FAILED for decades and cost us billions and untold misery? Lets just ignore the question of whether pot makes teens depressed (it doesn't. If it did we would have seen this happening far more over the last 50 years) or depressed teens use pot BECAUSE they are depressed and want to in some way aleviate it if they can.

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Maybe crazy people smoke pot?

This is the latest in a long list of scare tactics - it was supposed to cause birth defects, and make men grow breasts or become impotent, cause hair loss. Turn women into sex-crazed prostitutes, cause short term memory... uh... what was the question again?

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All "drug warriors," from Czar Walters, to the DEA, to all drug task forces and every overzealous, misguided cop making his easy money by busting innocent marijuana consumers - are simply the American Inquisitors and should be tarred-and-feathered, and run out of town on a rail.

Let's grow up, please. End the monstrously destructive fraud of marijuana prohibition.

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Let's say I go to a therapist for...I don't know... say...depresion! He takes one look at me, and writes me one of those $4.00 prescription, that Walmart is always crowing about, (for the really GOOD shit)!

The therapist in question will be required to seek the services of another therapist, since the therapy provided to me, will bring up many disturbing issues which will now require therapy!

That therapist will have to go to another therapist, who will require the services of another therapist, who will probably require inpatient therapy to deal with the issues brought up by the therapist who povided me therapy.

Of course this will lead to a medical paper being published! One filled with vauge procedures, (and conclusions that Evel Kenevil couldn't jump to!), based on studies done for, and funded by the corporation that manufactures the really GOOD shit! Extolling the virtues of the really GOOD shit, and filled with marketing demographics (that have no place in a medical paper)!

So mind-numbingly complicated will this treatis be, that anybody reading it will now require a therapist!

The therapist, who provided therapy to the therapist, who read the medical paper outling the therapy, that the therapist for the therapist, who treated the therapist who treated me will all go scampering off to Walmarts with disturbingly glassy eyes, prescriptions in hand! (Except for the inpatient, who will be paying the customary $49.95 per aspirin tablet!)

Clutching their $4.00 prescriptions, and making soft mewing noises, they decend uppon the pharmacy counters to trade their prescriptions for happy brown bottles containing their thirty day supplies! (Of the really GOOD shit!)

After medicating themselves they will find that one of the many side-effects, (of the really GOOD shit), is an insatiable hunger for greasy food, and cheap shit! Along with an unquentable thirst for carbonated beverages that a chemist can't expalain the contents of, (which is the REAL reason for those $4.00 prescriptions at Walmart!)

The results will be half the medical profession wandering around Walmart, zonked out of their gourds, (on the really GOOD shit), filling their carts with deep fried entrails, over-priced, and over-hyped Chinese shit, bottles and bags of dangerous chemical concoctions in cheerful packaging, and something from the deli!

Dutifully they will procede to the check-out, where under-insured employees will sack up their booty, and put it all on credit cards that their grandchildren will never live to pay off!

This will result in Sam Wal rising from the grave, growing an extra head or six, and doing all manners of hairy Old Testament shit, (that a very vocal demograpic seems to think is just great!), to whoever happens to be around at the time!

This will lead to the implosion of the banking system, the end of Western Civilization, and the heartbreak of psoriasis! OR!!

...I could just go out to the woods, light up a joint, and get over it like I've been doing for the last fifty years!

THAT'S why medical marijauna is a really GOOD idea!

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I've read, even in progressive publications, that "marijuana use is not without its consequences." I assume that means that some people don't react well to the effects of marijuana. However, after decades of marijuana use and after concerted efforts to prove the terrible consequences, there are no recorded incidents of death due specifically to marijuana use.

What so many reporters and pundits fail to acknowledge is that very few human activities are "without their consequences." Take marriage. For many women, getting married is a sentence to years of abuse. In fact, some women even die as a result of their having married the wrong man.

Having children is another common choice that has its consequences. Some women die in childbirth. Sometimes children, in spite of their parents' best efforts, turn out to be criminals or engage in hurtful activities.

Going to school often makes children miserable without really giving them quality educations. Driving or riding in cars results in accidents and, very often, death. Same for airplanes or buses.

Eating sugar and fats results in obesity, diabetes, and other illnesses. Exercise may cause pulled muscles or a heart attack.

So, do we stop doing everything because everything we do "has its consequences"? From all the real evidence - not that which is trumped up to further whatever agenda keeps the status quo where it is - smoking or ingesting marijuana has fewer negative results than the most ordinary human activities. Marriage, childbirth, travel, food, exercise - all of these result in death from time to time, while smoking pot does not. Maybe all activities should be banned except for those with exemplary records in only ever having good results!

Of course, this is a ridiculous argument. But then, so are the marijuana laws and the arguments used to support them.

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It often frustrates me when I read discussions regarding substance use/abuse even if we are specifically talking about marijuana. I am a alcohol and drug counselor. I won't make all the disclaimers that everyone has to make in order to be consider left enough in these discussion, but needless to say that I openminded enough to see that punitive laws don't solve problems. However, with this said. I am equally frustrated when those advocating for policy changes regarding drug laws (and this usually ONLY means marijuana) are not able to think critically about this topic. There are costs to individuals, ESPECIALLY teens that are not fully done developing in using marijuana, especially regarding emotional development, social skills, and impacting any underlying psychological tendencies (ie. depression, anxiety, etc.). Are these consequences on an equal footing with other more intense drugs of course not, like alcohol, but they have consequences. In fact, anyone that has used marijuana in the 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s will attest to the greater potency of the drug which is having increasing more complex impacts on an increasingly younger group of individuals. For example, many adults that smoke marijuana see it as not being detrimental, and mostly reference their personal experiences, but the factors they don't consider is A. They probably started when they were 18, 19 or 20 (many teens start at an average age of 12 or 13) B. That the drug they began with in the 60s, 70s, or 80s was of the same potency as the younger folks are beginning today. I think that Eric Schlosser in his text Reefer Madness sets an ethical standard where he states that drugs need to be an adult choice and adolescent don't have the developmental skills to make sound decisions. So please think and talk sensibly about this topic because it is causing many young people great consequences.

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Why do we have endocannabinoid receptors?
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It has been researched and found that the U.S.Gov.is a lethal addictive drug,that causes death in young people across this country,another drug,called Big Pharma,also a blatant killer of the young and old alike,remains on the market,free of reprocussion[in most cases]and these are very difficult to prove due to their cartels bank of high priced sharks..er''lawyers! other drugs are alcohol,tobacco,Hearst,and the Gov.'s DEA,/state and local police who have not the brains to think for themselves,followed of course by a corrupt Judicial system of politically power hungry prosecutors and money hungry judges who have investments in many of this country's privately owned prison systems!!Yes Sir!,we absolutely need prohibition on this nationwide killer!

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