As election day nears we notice that one of the most polarizing of ballot issues is back. No, not gay marriage and not stem cell research. I am talking about that licentious girl Mary Jane.
With a measure to legalize the possession of up to one ounce of pot on the ballot in Colorado and a measure to allow the regulated sale of marijuana and the possession of up to an ounce in Nevada, Tuesday could be the first time voters in any American state have embraced an end to marijuana prohibition. At this late juncture, most polls are painting it as an uphill fight, though organizers have reasons why they believe the polls may be off. The odds are looking better in Nevada than Colorado.
The only state in which marijuana possession is legal is Alaska. There, it was the courts, not the voters, who made the decision. [Link]
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p>Maybe its inevitable that we will have to legalize marijuana in order to reduce our out of control prison population. However, that still doesn’t make smoking pot ok in my opinion. As South Asians, where can we go for advice if tempted (especially you younger readers)? Fortunately our community has a doctor we can trust. He’s a Michigan grad and has an all-American smile to go with his neurosurgeon creds. Let’s see if Dr. Sanjay Gupta has any advice for us before we go into the booth:
… marijuana isn’t really very good for you. True, there are health benefits for some patients. Several recent studies, including a new one from the Scripps Research Institute, show that THC, the chemical in marijuana responsible for the high, can help slow the progress of Alzheimer’s disease. (In fact, it seems to block the formation of disease-causing plaques better than several mainstream drugs.) Other studies have shown THC to be a very effective antinausea treatment for people–cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, for example–for whom conventional medications aren’t working. And medical cannabis has shown promise relieving pain in patients with multiple sclerosis and reducing intraocular pressure in glaucoma patients.
But I suspect that most of the people eager to vote yes on the new ballot measures aren’t suffering from glaucoma, Alzheimer’s or chemo-induced nausea. Many of them just want to get stoned legally. That’s why I, like many other doctors, am unimpressed with the proposed legislation, which would legalize marijuana irrespective of any medical condition.
Why do I care? As Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, puts it, “Numerous deleterious health consequences are associated with [marijuana’s] short- and long-term use, including the possibility of becoming addicted…” [Link]
I am totally against drug use (unless its in a dark jungle in Peru under the watch of a trained Shaman). Its amazing how many people think that its okay to drive stoned even if they would be against driving drunk. In any case, please consider Sanjay’s advice before the election on Tuesday.
If you haven’t already, you should read Carlos Castaneda’s books…
Getting stoned is no different from gettng drunk. If anything, getting stoned is safer. Drink enough fast enough, and you’ll die. Toke a lot of reefer and you’ll just fall asleep.
Speedy
The truth is, medically, we just don’t know if there are any long term health hazards from smoking weed, because there really isn’t enough research. But it’s probably true it won’t kill you, and since I spend a large portion of my life dealing with the consequences of smoking and drinking, I can’t say I can get too upset about what seems to be a less dangerous drug. Sure you shouldn’t smoke and drive and people who think it’s ok to do so are irresponsible idiots and should go to jail, just like people who drink and drive should. You don’t see a lot of MJ abusers in the ER because they got in a fight, or crashed their car, or are having a heart attack, or are in the middle of an intractable seizure because they are withdrawing. I don’t really care whether it is legalized or not, but I don’t tell patients not to smoke it.
This is part of my larger issue with legalizing things that eventually lead to a breakdown in the fabric of society and weigh our resources down and I just keep paying more and more taxes to fix the ills other people indulge in, drugs, alcoholism, obesity etc etc.
I’m not actually obese (though being overweight is not a crime). I was just trying to make a joke. I’m pretty sure abhi got it 😉
At the risk of repeating myself, I have NEVER seen a patient that ended up in the ER because they smoked too much pot, but as I head to work tonight I fully expect to be taking care of at least a few drunks and maybe a few people dying of some kind of smoking induced cancer. It’s just not that evil.
If my taxes help cure other people’s diseases, that makes me happy. All I ask is that the care be high quality so they really get healthy.
It’s when my taxes pay for illegitimate and botched wars that make the world less safe that I get pissed off. Also when they are used to offset tax breaks for the odiously rich.
Hungry
Actually you pay more in the form of higher insurance premiums. Very little of the federal budget goes to healthcare. The solution would be to join an HMO with strict health restrictions with respect to smoking, etc.
I don’t suppose you are implying that on pot are you?
Here are some leading causes of death (and healthcare burden) in the US, check those number before commenting on the evil effects of pot. The full report can be got here.
sumiti:
You know he made that shit up, right? Total fraud.
I have to say I really agree with Siddhartha and others here. I really don’t care if people smoke weed or not, but the ways in which it’s cracked-down upon – as opposed to alcohol and cigarettes, which are unquestionably far more harmful – are preposterous.
The question is, how much of people’s behavior are you going to regulate because of a potential burden on the taxpayer? There’s a balancing of financial incentives with personal freedoms. Motorcycles, ATVs, skiing, mountain climbing, paragliding–these are all dangerous things that people chose to do that present a healthcare cost to the taxpayer. But do we ban them all? You have to draw the line somehwere, and I would argue that pot is on the same side of the line as motorcycle riding.
Im assuming you are implying that all these above are acceptable by posting the link? I don’t understand. I think it’s horrible. Smoking, alcohol and voluntary bad health DOES weigh on the system.
Here is what I know and the ones I have highlighted bother me. I’m open to a degree about doctor dispensed pot to people who are sick but simply making the illegal factor go away. I simply cannot see myself agreeing to that point.
Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States. The percentage of youth aged 12–17 indicating a great risk of smoking marijuana once a month remained unchanged between 1999 and 2000 (37.2% in 1999 and 37.7% in 2000). Marijuana contains more than 400 chemicals, including most of the harmful substances found in tobacco smoke. Smoking one marijuana cigarette deposits about four times more tar into the lungs than a filtered tobacco cigarette. Harvard University researchers report the risk of a heart attack is five times higher than usual in the hour after smoking marijuana. The risk of using cocaine is estimated to be more than 104 times greater for those who have tried marijuana than for those who have never tried it. Smoking marijuana can injure or destroy lung tissue. In fact, marijuana smoke contains 50–70% more of some cancer causing chemicals than does tobacco smoke. Reaction time for motor skills, such as driving, is reduced by 41% after smoking one joint and is reduced 63% after smoking two joints.
How exactly did they come up with that number? I assume it wasn’t a randomized controlled trial… A lot of medical institutions accept tobacco money for their research so it may be in their best interests to come up with certain outcomes. I’m not necessarily implying this about Harvard but I’m not sure I can buy their conclusions without reading the actual study.
In high school my economics teacher had us guess what the largest economy/business in California was.
It was MARIJUANA.
Now dont’ ask me where he got that statistic from, he was an old WWII veteran that used to ride his bike to school.
I digress, I am all for legalizing it and taxing the hell out of it, so our schools can get the money they desperately need.
I don’t think it’s any worse thank drinking, smoking and definitely not worse than the the Rx drugs out there. People are so addicted OxyContin that they liquify it and shoot it up, but hey it must be ok because it’s a legal prescription drug. Obviously it should have the same ramifications as being under the influence of alchohol while driving etc.
Thew war on drugs is a battle that can NEVER be won. I knew a guy in collge that smoked a lot of weed and he had actually spent a number of years living in South America as his dad was a HIGH LEVEL DEA AGENT. Looks like daddy couldn’t even win the war on drugs at home.
In my belief system, alcohol, cigarettes, MJ, crack, whatever…all are haram (and I’m a Hindu!). However, I don’t care if other people do such things in the privacy of their homes, as long as they don’t drive or do anything else potentially dangerous while high/drunk. But I also really don’t like having to smell secondhand cigarette (and occasionally, pot) smoke everywhere I go, which is pretty much the case here in Berzerkeley. Ban haram stuff, NOW!
P.S. I think Abhi and Dr. Gupta are right. I personally think all drugs are wrong, just from a moral/health standpoint, which is why I also urge others to “Just Say NO.”
I’m betting it’s more expensive to jail these offenders than to possibly pay their health costs. Wouldn’t the better solution be to legalize (and tax) it and stop ruining people’s (who happen to be disproportionately black/latino) lives… then go about changing costs of the health policies of those who smoke marijuana? I’m sure it’d be easier to get people to take drug tests if they don’t fear the current legal ramifications…
NO! I meant there are so many deaths caused due to legal substances that the time spent on subduing MJ is uncalled for. I don’t support wasting taxpayer money on keeping MJ illegal and also believe that it should be a personal choice. I don’t believe that keeping it legal would be a burden on the taxpayer but rather that the opposite is true.
I am not sure where you got those statistics from but here are some articles which might throw some light on the topic. Marijuana Unlikely to Cause Head, Neck, or Lung Cancer U.S. study sees no marijuana link to lung cancer Cannabis chemical ‘helps heart
I am not saying it is ok to smoke and drive or say it is safe to smoke when pregnant. But it is harder to bring out these messages when MJ is illegal and the facts are often muddled.
There are plenty of studies out there which try to prove that MJ is bad but are mostly sponsored by Govt agencies which receive money to prove the same. Here are some more facts about Marijuana.
So lets support the problem and then pay to fix it? Addicts get treatment in jail.
Right like the lottery that was really supposed to help our schools. I’m sorry but I don’t do illegal drugs because it’s against the law. Why the hell can’t those that get in trouble for it and then complain about it? I realize terribly simplistic but I have no empathy for those that break the law. None. I stayed out of trouble so have numerous others. Why can’t those that get into it?
There are plenty of goverment and state run drug programs that someone can enter into without getting into legal problems and yes it’s funded by the tax payers. And a addict doesn’t NOT take drug tests because he fears legal ramifications, he doesn’t not take them because he sees no point to quitting.
There are a lot of lines being drawn arbitrarily here. First, addiction cannot just be looked at as a problem of “bad choices”! Alcoholism and drug addiction are considered diseases by mental health professionals. Why? Because they’re more than just a series of bad choices! There are a lot of stress, environmental, familial, and possibly even genetic factors that contribute to why people abuse alcohol and drugs.
It’s offensive to cite one’s own experience, JOAT, as the model for why others should have stayed off the crack, smack, and booze.
Not to mention the fact that many people’s addiction problems begin when they are adolescents. As we know, adolescents are a high-risk population, particularly when you throw in other sources of stress (which many youth of color and poor youth in particular have). Can you blame a 13-year old for becoming addicted to cigarettes, or trying harder drugs? I’m not going to say it’s purely about people becoming “victims of circumstance” – it’s certainly a complex matter. But I don’t think criminalizing them helps anyone except those who want to see our prison system burgeon with black and brown youth.
Also, know that there is some level of controversy over marijana’s connection to cancer. I’m not going to say this article is the gospel truth, but my point is that one can find competing facts about the matter. I’m no more in favor of people driving stoned than of them driving drunk, but that’s a matter of education… Hell, if our governments would invest more in public transportation, that’d help too!
I could understand your sentiment if we were talking about legalizing some of the harder drugs, but people who are addicted to marijuana are similar to those who are addicted to cigarettes. People who smoke cigs don’t lash out the same way people who are addicted to coke, heroin, etc. do. I don’t do any drugs either, but I think its wrong to make blanket statements about all types of drugs as if they all had the same effects. And as desishiksa mentioned, he/she sees more patients in the hospital with cigarette and alcohol related complications than THC ones. And if I recall correctly, you like wine quite a bit.
I’m sure you would reply with “but alcohol is legal” so its ok, and you are right. But not all laws are just and moral. ESPECIALLY when the laws aren’t applied equally. It is not my intent to turn this thread into a debate about black people… but I think that if this discussion is going to be had, people here need to be aware of how the criminalization of marijuana affects people outside the south asian community.
A few points from here:
*Overall, black men are sent to state prisons on drug charges at 13 times the rate of white men;
*Blacks comprise 62.7 percent of drug offenders admitted to state prisons across the country, although research has shown that there are five times more white drug users than black drug users. Currently, African-Americans represent only 13 percent of the national population, yet in seven states, blacks constitute between 80 and 90 percent of all people sent to prison on drug charges;
*Nationwide, more blacks were sent to state prison on drug charges than for crimes of violence;
The last line of the article makes the most sense to me:
“The solution to this racial inequity is not to incarcerate more whites, but to reduce the use of prison for low-level drug offenders and to increase the availability of substance abuse treatment,” says Fellner.
I also think people need to realize how devastating a trip to prison can be. Getting sent to jail for doing something stupid (like having too much weed in your possesion) at the age of 19 will put a red mark on your record that is so large that pretty much no one will want to hire you. I think its crazy to ruin so many lives over this when there are other LEGAL drugs that are so much worse.
i don’t advocate drug use…(actually have never smoked mj, or anything else…)
however i seriously don’t see any harmful effects from the use of mary jane.. cigarretes and alcohol kill… i’d rather my lung cancer, tongue cancer heavy smokers whiff and get high from the ganja… then go back to smoking their ‘cancer sticks’ as i call them… whats ironic is these patients while undergoing painful chemo/radiation and have their skin desquamating, salivary glands dysfunctioning, and can’t taste bitter from sweet, are still smoking packs a day….that befuddles my mind…
saying that, i hate second hand smoke, whether it be from the bud or the tobacco… they all suck ass…. why won’t all states BAN SMOKING IN PUBLIC PLACES? ahh.. I MISS MY CALIFORNIA!
and if mj is illegal, why NOT ILLEGALIZE CIGARETTES? why not? because phillip morris and all those tobacco daddies have much power in DC… oh yeah..that lobby group is one of the ultra elite..
weed is not like crack/cocaine/heroin which can cause harmful cardiac effects.. one of the top 5 diagnosis my intern year was what we called ‘crack chest pain’… followed by the other lovely ‘hiva with a shiver’ (HIV patients with fevers)
desishiksa hit it spot on..
badindiangirl:
in high school, my economics teacher lived in a nudist colony and was a pot smoker ;).
and abhi as for this:
don’t know if i’d trust a surgeon who wears platform shoes…
and comparing driving stoned to driving drunk is two completely different things.. i don’t know of any study on the differences on depth perception, reflexes under both these substances and how they compare in accidents…but from afar it seems as though you are comparing apples to lovely mangoosteens…they are berry berry different…
good night, good luck…and godspeed.
I had ayahuasca a few weeks ago while in Peru.It was quite an intense experience.
Dear Abhi and JoAT,
I’m sorry to have to put it this way, but viewpoints like this:
are pretty f****d up. America is nowhere close to having universal health-care. A major share of your Medicare taxes today goes towards meeting the pill-popping needs of the largely well-off, greying baby-boom generation. I don’t think there are too many swingin’ grannies and grandpas in this demographic threatening to be a burden on your tax-dollars in case pot is legalised! As for taxpayer-supported programmes that (very conjecturally) might be burdened by the legalisation of pot: you’re anyhow paying jack sh*t into the latter class of programmes in the present dispensation, so please don’t trundle out the my-tax-dollars-are-being-squandered argument.
GB with all due respect I’m going to disregard your emotional rant towards something I DID NOT write. In case you missed it in the melee here it is…
We’re talking about a substance that:
1) Contributes to domestic violence 2) Kills brain cells 3) Has resulted in countless vehical fatalities 4) Has lead to many deaths in college parties and drownings 5) Turns human organs to mush….
….Oh wait that’s Alcohol !!! 🙂
As for drugs it might be a good idea to do the same things they do with Tobacco and Alcohol namely: 1) Require stores to have licenses in order to sell it. 2) Have a minimum age (18-21, btw the drinking age SHOULD be lowered to 18 if you’re old enough to die in a war you’re old enough to drink) 3) Impose penalties for driving “under the influence”. 4) Committing crimes while “under the influence” is still a crime. 5) Tax the SH*T out of it.
GB, The quote which you consider F*cked up was about a tax on junk food. You added three dots and left that part out. In general I don’t believe in cutting taxes over providing social services. I don’t like paying taxes however, for the lack of self control demonstrated by others.
Valid point but what do you suppose society do with them?
Tax them.
It’s always been a deliberate tactic of policy makers and commentators driven by moral considerations to juxtapose Marijuana with drugs like cocaine, acid or heroine. The real hard drugs are all chemical substances that have been refined to enormous levels while marijuana is taken in the natural form. That is a big difference. I have seen documentaries about people in South America who used to have coca leaves for stimulation/pleasure. The problems started when these were refined in labs to make all kinds of synthetic substances. The hard drugs are a problem and they are highly addictive. But marijuana has been demonised unnecessarily.
GujuDude, Divya’s comment about US being instrumental in global policy against marijuana is not complete fantasy. If I can move my lazy butt, I’ll dig up some info in this regard.
troll alert!
To the medicine men and women posting here, would highly appreciate your opinions on the effects of pot smoking and how the risks being talked about compare with smoking/drinking risks.
Would you really consider their opinions more valid than Sanjay Gupta’s? What are you smoking? 🙂
related
News report in 1998 – “Poppy production in afghanistan is dramatically down since the Taliban came to power with the support of the united states government… the taliban practice a strict cde of islam and the drug production is counter to their faith… led by a saudi exilee named osama bin laden … “
etc.
Abhi, I consider your second question rhetorical 🙂
As for Dr.Gupta, he is paid by Time Warner. I cannot but be skeptical about his complete objectivity (as opposed to being politically correct).
You can’t be serious, are you?
JoAT, Sorry about that. The back-and-forth in the previous 10-odd posts led me to conflate what you were saying with Abhi’s postings. Having said that, this sentiment:
is precisely what I wanted to aim a gun at. I object to the claim that “more and more” of your taxes are going towards fixing the ills of other people’s indulgences. Refer to my post #76 about where most of your Medicare tax dollars are going. As for the quantum of your state/federal taxes going towards “fix(ing) the ills” of drugs etc., it’s simply not true that “more and more” money (in inflation-adjusted dollars) is being sucked into those programmes. Your above statement is borderline objectionable because it is on the same continuum as those know-nothing caricatures — those Welfare Queens who supposedly drove Cadillacs — that were the first salvo in the war against the welfare state in the U.S. Sure: some of your tax dollars are being used to fix the ills of vice, but it’s nowhere close to the level that you and Abhi seem to fear — just as the Welfare Queens were nowhere close to embodying the ills of Welfare the way they were made to.
Am I emotional about this issue? Heck, yeah!! But read my comment #76 once more. The sort of belief that your statement (and Abhi’s last part of #79) reveals is precisely what has caused highly-educated people to stand by as paralysed spectators as the welfare state is sought to be demolished — and that’s just cause for strong emotions.
One of the interesting things about marijuana is that the brain has receptors for it leading to the discovery that we make our own marijuana-like chemical in the brain. The Israeli researcher who discovered this substance called it anandamide, from the sanskrit word for bliss. I think he said something to the effect that Jewish folk didn’t have a similar word in their language. We also make opiate like molecules. So the brain is hard-wired to make pleasure chemicals and this human desire to tweak it with exogenous substances, likely disrupts a balance or order that we can influence through experiences instead (collecting scientific data, going to church, making love). Marijuana is not benign- it can cause a feminization syndrome through regular use and cerebral blood flow patterns are altered ( check out Roy Mathew- a Malayalee’s work on this).
Our society would be better off treating drug use from a medical point of view- some people are genetically more likely to become addicts, addiction is a treatable medical disease and our non violent drug offenders and society would benefit from increasing access to treatment.
Or, society would be better off if it succeeded in instilling temperance as a prized value instead of going overboard with commercialism. The problem is not drugs, or alcohol or sugar and I doubt there will ever be a solution if we problematize these things instead of human behavior.
About taxes. It probably balances out because those who over-indulge tend to die off earlier thereby sparing us some of our tax dollars. Although this is hardly a point that can officially be touted in response to the tax objection, it is worthwhile to bear in mind that a long life is not what everyone prefers.
why not? A higher tax on cigarettes, and may be even on junk food might not be a bad thing. (But not alcohol because I like my wine 🙂 )
The problem with that is that the taxation is based on a subjective criteria of abuse. So if we subscribe to that logic we end up taxing a lot of substances that are abused by a few people and affect a lot of responsible users who will feel that it is unjustified and not representative. Now that is what I would object to, having to pay an extra tax due to the problems of a few. And with such a tax law comes problems of enforcement, which will create an underground market trying to escape the tax man (of course the tax laws can be careful not to create an underground market but will still create a force opposed to it).
Getting back to the subject of the post we can’t have a tax on MJ as long as it is illegal! So the money which would go to the government as tax instead goes to dealers who use the money to strengthen their own network and end up using that money and power to corrupt the government bodies.
There are a few issues here worth examining separately:
Is MJ bad for you? I don’t think there is any doubt that MJ is bad for your health, much like alcohol, tobacco, saturated fat, and a lack of exercise.
Does MJ use cost society? Once again, little doubt that MJ leads to bad health which costs society and can potentially be a gateway drug (much like alcohol and tobacco) that leads to even higher costs from more potent drugs?
Is the freedom to use MJ worth the societal cost? As we all know, freedom has a cost. Many people have died to defend our freedom of choice and it’s not something we should toss aside lightly for a few bucks. The freedom to use MJ is part of the same logic that keeps us free to engage in other vices such as gambling, drinking, smoking, eating ding-dongs, watching TV, and devoting one’s life to fundamentalist religion. Ironically, the freedom to do all these bad things, and toleration by those who don’t, is what makes our country great. Let’s honor the sacrifices by those who have defended our freedom by valuing it more than a few bucks.