pot
Ah drugs, everyone loves them. Apparently, cannabis is remaining at class C in the UK. Which means theres less penalty for consuming it, essentially, than a class b drug. This has caused a lot of hassle, especially with evidence that it might cause psychosis in some cases.the government is now about to launch an education campaign to try and put young people off doing it. This is, of course, laughable. "Susceptible individuals who avoided cannabis had a 25 per cent chance of developing psychosis. Susceptible individuals who smoked it had a 50 per cent risk. And the more cannabis they smoked, and the earlier they smoked it, the worse the outcome." OK. "About 1% of the population experience at least one acute episode of schizophrenia at some time during their lives". OK, so basically it increases your chances of getting shizophrenia from 1%.... to 2%. Wow. Now, thats unscientific, but considering that the link is not completely certain anyway.
"Almost all excessive drinkers will develop the first stage of alcoholic liver disease fatty liver. This is a ‘side-effect’ of the liver breaking down alcohol into carbon dioxide and water. Fatty liver disappears when patients stop drinking excessively. If patients continue drinking excessively then a proportion (around 20-30%) will develop the next stage of alcoholic liver disease - alcoholic hepatitis. In this condition, the liver becomes inflamed and in its extreme form, patients can die of liver failure.
An even smaller proportion of patients (around 10%) will develop a permanently scarred and damaged liver (cirrhosis), if they continue to drink excessively"
Right. And we ban cannabis because......
Hey, I'm not saying that we should necessarily legalise it, but reclassifying it to B would have been clearly insane. Cannabis is not a dangerous drug, and practically everyone knows someone who has taken it, or has taken it themselves. It simply is not a big deal, and it is weird that certain people still treat it as such.
posted by Mr K @ 7:26 pm
6 Comments:
I guess it's basically the fear of the unknown. I'd like to know how many people who want to reclassify it have actually tried it. I've never tried it personally, as i've never really had the desire to. There's not really anything to tempt me there, you can't actually get a taste of it's affects without actually trying it which is quite strange really. You only have other people to tell you what it's like, although that's the case for a lot of stuff I guess.
I don't think i'd get addicted to it or anything (I only ever get addicted to non-alcoholic drinks for some reason, though i tire of them eventually, but sometimes i'll suddenly get the desire to drink them again from time to time.) The only exception would be my love of Hoegaaren, which is more of an obsession about the Hoegaarden "ideal" than an addiction to the actual drink.
Hmm, I think i've strayed a bit from the actual topic. Looking back at this post, probably the best reason for not taking it is that it would probably make me more insane than I already am (at the moment I can generally subdue it).
Anyway you wanna go have some cannabis go ahead it's your choice.
I'm all for do whatever you want, just leave me alone and don't hurt anyone else I guess (unless they deserve it - a lot of people do, but maybe they should be left alone too; they might turn decent eventually...
...probably not though.)
People who think cannibis cannot be harmful have obviously never taken it in serious quantities whilst going through a very stressful period in their lives.
It - can - be - dangerous.
Trust me.
The thing about cannibis is that is depends completely on what the individual's state of mind is like when they're taking it. Apparently, (according to New Scientist), it's much more dangerous to take these sorts of mind altering drugs when your brain is not yet fully formed - ie: basically any time before your mid - 20's.
The psychological effects of cannibis tend to be shown over a couple of months rather than in a short burst of heavy usage (ie: a binge drinking session). But it can completely kill your motivation, make your head wooly and lead to serious paranoia and confusion.
Apart from that, there are other serious side effects that can be had if choosing to mix cannibis with alcohol. If anyone reading this post has ever experienced a "whitey", then they'll know what I mean! A "whitey" is soooo much worse than a bad hangover, because although it only lasts for about 15 minutes, sometimes you actually think you're going to die. You struggle to breathe, gasp frantically, you can't move, feel as though you're about to black out, your heart starts pumping wildly and somtimes it's like you have pins and needles all over your body, including your face. Honestly, I'm not joking.
I'm not taking the absolutist stance that you should never enjoy a puff, but from my own experience, please I caution you to be careful when using it, because you never know what's going to happen.
1% of the population is 60,000 people. 60,000 less schizophrenics is a very good thing. Mental illness is the worst kind of illness, and if it can be stopped then it should.
I dunno, Rob I rather think liver disease is a bit more serious. People can still live productive lives with schizophrenia- look at John Nash. I'm just pointing out an inconsistency in the laws.
Also.... not all people smoke cannabis, so removing cannabis will not remove 60,000 shizophrenics...
I do not smoke pot, and do not intend to, but to put a drug with uncertain, very weak, links to mental illness, at the same level of a drug like ectasy which does kill is just ridiculous, and goes against medical advice. Meanwhile ciggerettes and alchohol, arguably far deadlier drugs are still legal. If you are going to have a policy, it should be consistent.
Oh, and making cannabis illegal has not really stopped people from smoking it now, has it? I wonder just how many MPs have lit up in their time....
Firstly, no-one has put cannibis at the level of ecstasy, because that would be ridiculous.
But did you not read my post??
If you havent tried pot, please refrain from giving such damning opinions.
welll.... ectasy is a class B drug, see, and it was suggested that cannabis should also be a class B drug.... ergo equality in the eyes of the law.
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