I smoke almost everyday and I work 2 full time jobs. It helps me relax and concentrate on what I am doing, also I think alot better when I am high, I think more "outside the box" as they say. I don't know why everyone things its a bad "drug", I mean its just a planet that grows like that. Besides the fact that things are used in it to help it grow doesn't mean jack. There is alot of things out there we eat that have the same thing done to them. Research it and you will find out its true. Fruits and vegetables get sprayed down with pesticides to keep bugs off of them, yet we still eat them don't we? I agree with whoever posted this subject "It IS a gateway drug... But not why they think." the truth does need to be told about weed, whoever has any other info that they would like to share with me or just wanna chat feel free to hit me up on AIM at snipingkirby

I'm so glad someone has done this study! All throughout high school the information saying that marijuana would lead to harder things, etc, just seemed unlikely to me that someone would smoke a joint and then suddenly wind up in a drug rehab center? This is why D.A.R.E. never really panned out (I'm sure you remember D.A.R.E.- that program that never worked but Zack Morris helped speak for?) D.A.R.E. didn't pan out because people weren't being told the truth. If you are honest with people, then the information you give will sink in much deeper.

LVE WEBCAST on www.telluridewebtv.com
July 22, 2008 6:00 – 7:15 pm
“The Science of Recreational Drugs”
Thomas Cheatham III, PhD, University of Utah Assistant Professor in
Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmaceutics & Pharmaceutical Chemistry.
This talk will be archived also.
Pinhead Institute, Telluride, Colorado

The first statement "Marijuana is not a “gateway” drug that predicts or eventually leads to substance abuse, suggests a 12-year University of Pittsburgh study." is lunacy.

There is multiple issues with just that one statement which make this article a laughing stock. I'm an addictions counsellor who has a very intense history with personal drug use. So I have first hand experience with hard drugs and years education to back me up.

First, using marijuana for reasons other than those you would be prescribed, is substance abuse in itself. So obviously, the person writing the article is very uneducated or purposely misleading. Substance abuse is using an illegal drug or using a legal drug beyond the suggested consumption base. For many, that means drinking over 3 beer or 4 1/2 oz of hard liqour are suffering from problematic behavior.

The reason I feel marijuana is a gateway drug, is because of the misinformation and propaghanda available and so highly distributed about it. If people are responsible and smoke reasonably, the harm done by pot is extremely low. The "negative" symptoms, you sleep well. That's more of a blessing to most of us. Now back on track. With how evil and dangerous they make marijuana sound, you'd think it were life or death with each toke. When someone uses it and realizes that it's all bull, they WILL become more willing to try other things which do cause potential harm. In order to prevent it from being a gateway, the governments have to start being honest and provide accurate information about these substances. By providing lies, they do nothing other than create a feeling of rebellion in youth who in turn, may say to themselves "Wow, pot's not very bad for you. I've been lied to. I here heroins pretty good, and they say things about it just as they did marihjuana. I'm smart though. I know it's a ploy. I'm going to try it". I've seen this situation too often in my career.

Fight the lies and speak the truth. Don't cry wolf.

hey there, me no english but me know this

MARIII JEE WANNNA DIS FUN !
and no harmfull, if vapirizor is used

tank u

I LUVE WEED

I agree with you and I love my pot smoking wife deborak smith

well there is no way that statement is true, there is however, a few who have died that I PERSONALLY KNOW ABOUT. The truth is, it's a medicine that some people abuse. It's called self medicating. Life is more managable high. I can't smoke pot, becuse it makes me paranoid, but i remember a time when it was the best feeling ever, man....

those studies are not completely credible i have studied psychology and there is no way to tell if it actually causes it the only thing they found hard evidence of is if someone has it and smoke marijuana they have a chance of developing it sooner but that was never completely proven schizophrenia is not even completely understood so trying to blame marijuana for it is asenine also as a side note 30 days of not using marijuana your memory returns and it is completely out of your body it has also been proven that caffeine is more addicting than marijuana while nicatine is more addicting than cocain so put that in ure ass and smoke it

this is one thing people dont understand marijuana does impair driving but is not nearly as impairing as drinking also there are ways to sober yourself up once you are high get fresh air eat something work out for a little bit and you are back to normal and whoever keeps bitching about how things are spelled go to fucking hell man thats not the point of these conversations...

it is more effective in treating aids victims who if it did cause lung cancer it wouldnt matter no other drugs will work for them they take them and throw them up and then they cant eat the pill form already being prescribed nationwide meridinol is used for many disease's aqcuired later on in life gluecoma alzheimers etc. look at all the other prescription drug commercials read the health risks caused by them "nausea heart attack stroke etc" people who are pregnant should not take this medicine... marijuana doesnt even cause that many things. its one of the leading treatments for multiple sclorosis parkinsons disease and turettes because it is also a muscle relaxant the pill forms dont work for this either because it is hard to manage the dosage due to the wait in effectiveness to kill the whole joint thing there were studies done and marijuana does not cause lung cancer it was one done at the university of california with over 2000 people 50 years old who smoked pot when they were younger the reasons it does not cause lung cancer are still unkown some leading theories include you dont smoke 200 joints (10packs) a day its not necesarry as it is with nicotine there is also cancer fighting agents in THC and in the possibility of legalization the use of Vaporizer's which almost completely demolishes the harmful things in the plant because it doesnt burn the plant it burns the chemical THC which would help people who have lung cancer Al Gore's sisters did it when they got lung cancer. it is also humanly impossible to overdose on Cannabis the closest thing to overdose ever recorded by the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT was in one case a large dose of hashhish was consumed this is the strongest concentrate of THC known and resulted in a stomach ach a person cannot hummanly smoke enough to kill themselves they fall asleep before that happens and wake up 100% fine and of all the years i have participated in use of the drug i have seen one anxiety attack and that was someone who has mental disorders. any questions or challenges email me please jaredlowry515@hotmail.com

i kept to pot and cigs for awhile just my thing never liked drinking to messy stupid and u dont remember anything i ate a plant datura moonflower and that has caused me to have a 12 hour scizophrenic episode thats a drug i continue to smoke pot because it keeps me from needing my sedatives for bipolar manic depression completely i understand it is mentally addicting but so is falling in love if consumed right and used for the right reasons it is fine you can use anything as a drug if you want to they easily legalize tobacco and alcohol which account for 700,000 deaths every year nationwide 242,000 accidents are caused from people driving under the influence of marijuana its simple legalize tax and make same laws as alcohol its less harmfull than almost all prescription drugs if anyone would like to challenge anything jaredlowry515@hotmail.com any questions will be answered

man this states that marijuana is NOT a gateway drug anymore than tobacco or alcohol but yes i agree i smoke marijuana and choose not to drink because i like to have a fun time and wake up and be fine not hungover and wondering what the hell happened the night before

....i think your an idiot..in my opinion booze is the main drug that leads to other things...people get so drunk they dont know what the fuck they are doing...ive been smoking pot for awhile and ive never been that fucked up nor have i had the urge to try harder drugs...most people are fine with just smoking weed...douchebag.

I love weed

the reason you dont find a problem with it is because there is nothing wrong with it. The goverment dosent wanna make weed legal. Think of all the DEA agent,pision guards, probation officers,and of corse gotta get that tax money. America has wasted billions of dollars in just a fews. they have doubled thier nationl debt in just a few years (manly since Bush got in there) i cant think of a single reason that the goverment shouldent make it legal. look at amsterdam i went there last fall and i was talkin to a police officer and told me they little or no violence over weed. the government make money the charge the coffie shops a tax. As well as the hookers. they have bodyguards in the room and they have to get tested once a week (well at least they are supposed to) in 2000 Texas whata shitty place to live.(a state that gives out less years for intoxicated vehicular manslaughter than if u get caught 5-50 pounds of pot) which is totaly harmless!! but like i was saying they said at alcohol was responcible for 120,000 deaths a year and that not includind 50% of all fatal car accidents and 65% of all murders! and can you guess how many marijuana had including intentional overdose and unitentional? ZERO not a single person has died as a direct effect of this little green plant.

to tha guy who begged "please no"... i luv tha way u put that. thank god somebody is finally bein fukin real. "..and you get addicted. and die. and it sucks." lol!! i luv it!!

OKAY, THE REASON WEED IS LACED IS BECAUSE THE DEALERS SOMETIMES NEEDA REUP ON THEIR SUPPLY OF GREEN SO THEY TRY TO EXPERIMENT AND SALVAGE WHATEVER THEY CAN TO GET MORE...IF WEED WAS LEGALIZED THEIR WOULDNT HAVE TO BE DEALERS PULLING STUNTS LIKE THAT...SO DNT HATE THE WEED CHANGE THE LAW

you guys should all be ashamed on both sides.

those of you on the super legalization liberal side, look at what marijuana really does.... not much, but still... don't pretend that it doesn't have any negative effects, i can promise you inhaling any type of smoke is not good for you. don't trick yourself into thinking you're becoming "closer to god"(thats what mushrooms are for.)don't call marijuana medicine if the real reason you smoke it is to get stoned, you like to be stoned! so what?!

those of you on the opposite side with the gateway drug viewpoint, wake the fuck up. alcohol? nicotine? ever hear of these drugs our society rams down our children's throats every day? do you actually think more people try marijuana before they try alcohol or nicotine? do you think these may not be gateway drugs in and of themselves? don't get into semantics with me on it either; they're drugs plain and simple. you use alcohol and nicotine, it doesn't kill you so, you're more likely to use pot, you say "hey this stuff isn't so bad, i'll try pot" then you try pot and you say "oh this is even better than alcohol and nicotine! it doesn't give you hangovers, make you throw up, give you headaches, make you crash cars, make you rape people, make you get into fights, or make you walk funny, or kill you, or taste like an ashtray"

then you do harder drugs thinking maybe they wont be so bad either, but they are, and you get addicted. and die. and it sucks.

some of you are right and some of you are wrong, first of all recent studies show there is NO connection between heavy marijuana use and CANCER!!!! Even though marijuana has 25 x more amonia, and 5 x more carbon dioxide and carcinogens, all which can cause cancer, there is no relation. Scientists say it may be because of the known chemical THC, research shows it has anti tumoristic properties and kills ageing cells around it before they can become cancerous, and may make a protective barrier, and this is a known fact because i have been reading alot up on marijuana the past year from studies from universities so i dont wanna hear this my own opinion bullshit. The government has been lying to us from day one, there is no reason why it should be illegal. So fuck the US because i know more about whats going on than they think

I am a child that uses pot I guess you could say. I find no problem with it at all. It can be a gateway drug, because I myself after trying weed have wanted to try somthing better or higher. But I will not die from using it, I'm not addicted.

In my opinion marijuana is and will always be the first drug attempted and is the drug that leads to heavier addicting drugs! Many say that it is a natural drug BUT how natural can this be if it is still a drug! many start with marijuana and lead to more addictive drugs and then wind requiringdrug treatment.

It is soo sad to see how many children are smoking it and how young they are!

Lora

Nice try with writing the word "Period"- that almost worked in giving you the last word.

There's no way someone should be allowed to post something like "THC is mostly hydrogen, carbon and oxygen, and therefore it's harmless" and get away with it on a Science-focused site. Do you know what else is made of those molecules? Hemlock. (Also mentioned in the Bible, by the way). Also, carbon monoxide. You want to smoke that stuff? It's totally natural!

Now, no one is saying that it's as dangerous a substance as the stuff in cigarettes, but it certainly isn't healthy or good. Do you know what it actually does to cells? Look it up. And even then, there are cases (not a few) in which marijuana use was involved in some kind of accident. Do you know how many people who are stoned are more likely to do something stupid? That's right-- all of the ones that can move.

PERIOD
it does no harm unless your allergic to it
anything is bad for you if you over do it
even water so unless you overdose yourself with thc (C21H30O20)BASICALLY OXYGEN CARBON AND HYDROGEN
nothing will happen people used it for centuries to cure diseases its even refered to in the bible
just do you research before you yourself are "influenced" by these anti-marijuana claims.

zero people die a year due to marjauna use

If there's a legitimate pharmaceutical chemical or two (out of what, 3000?) in marijuana that is unrelated to getting people stoned, then I'm sure that they would jump on (and one would think that they would have looked). Also, I'm confident that drug lords would still do pretty good business.

Can anyone explain to me why it would be good to have joints around under any circumstances, or can I just put it under the category of "moronic things that people do in spite of warnings" along with cigarettes. Even if they could, is there any reason why anyone should?

I will not comment upon marijauna being a gateway or not, nor am I going to comment upon how it can hurt. Instead, I want to talk about the legalization of Marijuana and how it would work out. If and when it is legalized the Government would immidatly put research into it along with corperate pharmacuticals to comment with how they would market it, control it and make it. I doubt they would be selling doobies and more likly find a way to put it in pill form. Then they would put laws down as to age limits and tax laws to make money off of it. This is comment pointed towards the medical use of the drug, not the recreational. Kids would stop buying from dealers who cut their weed with differant chemicals and start stealing Grandma's painkillers instead. This is not exactly a great change but at least the drug lords would no longer be getting American Kid's money.

One should always run a spell check prior to posting a comment intended to point out other people's spelling errors :)

marijuana should be legalized. so many people die. on the other hand, it is your choice whether you decide to leep on using it or you can just stop.

GRINGO FLEETO

ok maybe if you could learn how 2 spell and make actual sentances people might, just might listen to you. But until then shut up!

why do people smoke pot anyway i tryed it 1nce i dint do it again im not adickted so what the hell why such a big fus i think it shoukld be leaglised and regulated so it dont get laced and become harmfull
tobaco is more harmful to your body that marijuana
whats up with thst tobaco is legal y shouldent marijuana be legal

first of all, you dont take pot, you smoke it. Second, I watched a video of a guy driving sober on a road course, and then he smoked pot and did the same thing and pot did not effect his drving at all.

I smoke weed to get closer to my spiritual side. I try and understand myself and my life, and get a closer connection with god spiritually. This has changed me as a person, and my life. Im happier now, and seem to have a better and bigger scope of things. If used sparingly, i view weed as a gift. But just like everything else, too much of anything isnt good for you.

Well, it could be less harmful than we thought but I still have a question: how many of you would let your children to smoke it? I still see it as an innocent start for heavy drugs. Many drug rehab former attendants have declared they started with grass.

Put it this way your social circle is a gateway drug but doing marijuana I do not belive since you make the decisions if doing harder drugs is your thing.

There are many strains of marijuana, such as mauwie wauwie that have their characteristics highs or buzzes.

Now this cannot lead to harder drugs at all since it is your choice as marijuana does not make the human addtced to the substance or give the urge to seek a bigger buzz unlike Cocain or Heroin.

I can't believe this thread has been going on for two years without anyone citing any actual science. Regardless of whether or not pot makes you dumber, reading about people who pretend to quote science to justify their habit might have that effect on readers. Just scanning the thread made me strangely bleary-eyed, and weirdly hungry. Maybe THC stands for "thick hash commentary".

At the risk of continuing a discussion that should probably end quickly, I think a few points need to be addressed.

1) No, you can't function normally under the influence of pot. If you could, no one would know that you're high. They know. By the way, I hope you aren't driving with that stuff in your system.

2) Yes, the main ingredient of marijuana does at least effect brain cells. The main ingredient, THC, interacts with cannabanoid receptors in multiple cell types (especially CNS neurons), so-named because they were discovered by studying the obvious effects of marijuana. Guess what? Artificial chemical stimulation of neurons is going to have some kind of effect on you, especially if you're messing with the dopamine system (which pot does, eventually). If THC didn't cause some kind of chemical imbalance in the brain, it wouldn't make you high.

And it isn't hard to find research that strongly suggests that it has long term toxic and psychotic effects. I did a 5 second pubmed search just now and found tons of stuff from the last 2 years. One is coming out tomorrow, actually, in the Journal of Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology (It's been e-published since November). F Monet-Tschudi et al. Look it up, as a start.

Now, there is a lot of very specific research about the effects on at least 2 different receptors in different model systems, and if someone wants to discuss that research, that would be awesome. But you people who have heard information from somebody else that "science" says pot is OK-- especially if you heard it from somebody that was high at the time-- need to be able to back yourself up with real neuroscience. Sociology stuff like the article that started this thread is OK, but its much more subjective and hard to interpret (and the one above is hardly impressive).

3. It doesn't matter if pot is decriminalized or not. AS an official Renaisauce public service announcement, you're being an idiot if you're taking this stuff. You can't screw with your neurotransmitter concentration on a regular basis and expect everything to be OK (ignoring, for a moment, the effect that pot has on the entire body). I don't think most people who use pot care what science says, for the same reason that nicotine smokers don't care what the surgeon general says. There's a whole different set of problems that need to be addressed, but they have nothing to do with science.

I don't want it legalized because then it'll be sold by the government, overpriced and taxed to the max you know?
Decriminalization of marijuana would be nice though, grow your own and smoke it if you like.
All the decent studies have shown no longterm damage from marijuana except for making users more likely to develop mental disorders (such as schizophrenia).
I don't see it as a problem though.

i love u

don't legalize marijuana, then we'll all have to go to some stupid coffee shop with silly psychedelic mushrooms and giant bob marleys painted on the wall just to get high with a bunch of 18 year olds and people who've decided to give it a try now that its legal(if you're too scared try marijuana because the government says you can't, then my feeling is you're not mature enough to indulge when they say you can.)

personally i would also rather that everyone wasn't stoned all the time. marijuana is so harmless, that you can function "nearly normally" in public no matter how much you smoke. i see this as a problem because you're either (depending on the strain, your mood, energy level, time of day, etc.) going to "tweek" out and talk happy nonsense to someone for 20 minutes and crash, or just sit staring at a screen and have verbal constipation while you stumble over that important thing you're trying to spit out. not my idea of advancing society, or getting us out of any sort of debt (no matter how much the tax).

not to mention the idea of marijuana being suddenly capitalized on is bothersome to me.

i don't think our government is humble enough to back down yet anyway. it will take a few years after they stop running anti-drug commercials before people forget they were being lied to for a century.

maybe legalized home growing for personal use? then people actually have to put forth a little effort, instead of heading down to the store to pick up a pack of "Camel Lefts" or "Marlboro Blazes" (with cool green filter tip 420 fresh air intake technology!) before they get back on the highway.

we should all just fuck off shouldn't we?

So you're saying that you lost a loved one due to using pot. I am sorry for your loss. But, that does not justify in any way to keep marijuana illegal. It actually helps the argument of legalizing it.

You loved one could have had his own plants legally growing and had enough quality weed to last for a year's time.

Unfortunately it is still illegal and it is on the black market where some scumbags supposedly added something to it resulting in your tragic loss.

Actually marijuana kills less brain cells than alcohol, and there have been no deaths resulting solely from marijuana use. I also believe memory loss is a naturally occurring process as people become older i.e. Alzheimer's Diesease.

Where is this guy geting his info? Have you even smoked before? There is no way to die from marijuana. If the weed is laced the smoker probably knows about it because a dealer wouldnt waste money like that. Telling me that im, withoutadoubt, going to be a deadbeat is ignorant of you. I have been smoking off and on for a few years. I'll go months without and im just fine.im not doing heroin, crack,or anything. i dont even drink. im not hurting myself or anyone else. even if there is a little damage from the smoke that is my choice to make, the pros outweigh the cons. So take a couple of hits and relax.

I don't understand why they allow people over a certain age to smoke cigarettes when its proven that tobacco can kill you within a short amount of years. While marijuana is illegal but cannot harm you. The only harm that is caused by marijuana is getting caught by the authority because they will put you in jail and on their records. I don't believe how many prisoners are actually in jail because of possession of marijuana. The government needs to quit trying to give out the message that marijuana will ruin any chances of success and focus on how many people are dying because of overdose of over-the-counter and prescribed(half the time not even prescribed to them) pills, cocaine, heroin, and other MAN-MADE products. Think about it people and don't judge until you try...maybe then you can get your head out of your .... ass.

Show your support for the legalization of marijuana. Vote YES this to help show support for medical marijuana phase 3 testing.

Please pass in 2008 Pass Drug Tests vote YES in this year's election.

if marijuana were legal and sold in stores, not only could the government tax them nd make a steady profit, but the farmers would actually have a quick growing resource that grows year round and is useful in hundreds of ways. and also, it wouldnt be laced if it was legal unless the government was lacing it with something. idiot.

i agree

Although your assertion may be correct, it's off topic. We are talking about marijuana not laced marijuana. If you get laced marijuana then you're utterly stupid for one, trusting people that much, and secondly for not having enough respect for yourself to check everything...EVERYTHING before you partake in it. I mean would you just accept a sandwich off the street from a random person, even if the person was a cop-someone supposedly high respected, or a billionaire- yeah he won't hurt you. What you probably need to take in consideration is self-awareness. Most people like to hang around people they know, not people they don't. But don't get me wrong people engage in frivolous acts all the time. That's a risk they are willing to take.

weed is not a drug a drug is whin u have to add something to it to make it and thin once u start to smoke or eject your self with it thin things will start to happend to u like a werds body oder or even makes u want it so bad that your willing to kill some one over it so dont sit there and try to make people sound guilty about smoking weed it there lives and wat give u the fucking right to make comments about thim it./ becouse who know wat type of sick things u do to relax your self so stay the fuck out of other people lives and and start living your own

now that real talk for your ass

I dont think that there is necesarrily any reason not to partake in the use of marijuana, though I myself do not.. The main thing to remember is that this issue should be looked at from a truly understanding vantage point. Marijuana in and of itself is not the cause of the problem. It is however the means used by the creators of the problems, the users themselves, to create problems. I have been straight edge for about 5 years now and have stayed completely clean from any kind of mind-altering substance: drugs of any kind, or alcohol. This is because of a personal choice to try to stay as physically and mentally healthy and independant as possible, and to stay out of any kind of legal trouble. Marijuana as of now is illegal, and thats another issue that will render the need for a decision on your part.. Is it worth the risk from a legal standpoint? As far as the whole deadbeat thing, I have friends who use regularly and are in much better physical shape than myself and are certainly much more intelligent than myself as well, and have also managed to stay out of legal trouble by being responsible about it. The risk level of marijuana use and the problems it can causes depend more on the users themselves- thier personalities, their maturity level, and their discipline level. As stated above, it has been proven that marijuana is not physically addictive. However, study and research have also proven that marijuana is psychologically addictive.. Meaning that those who regularly use the substance have a hard time stopping, not because of a physical craving (necisarrily), but because of a mental need of sorts. So really what it comes down to is this.
Can you handle it? Are you informed and knowledgeable on the subject? Make your choice. I personally acquire ample joy and happiness from other activities in my life such as spending time with loved ones, playing music, etc. If you feel a void in your life, filling it with any kind of substance use is probably not a good idea. Those are generally the situations that breed addiction, dependence, gateways to heavier drugs, etc. It all depends on you- Make an educated and well-thought out choice.
Thanks!
Caleb

It's still illegal because people like you literally try to scare other people with baseless facts from ever using or trying Marijuana.

If you'd open your mind, and did some ACTUAL research, you'd find that a lot of credible institutes have concluded Marijuana to be quite harmless. It doesn't even cause lung cancer, or brain cell degeneration.

You simply cannot die from a direct result of Marijuana. You would literally need to consume 2x your bodyweight of it to theoretically induce death... But then, just the act of consuming twice your weight of ANYTHING would probably kill you.

Also, if Marijuana makes you a dead beat who lives on the street... Why aren't our city streets absolutely littered in stoners?

As for being dependent on it... Well, we all become dependent on something. Some people depend on their favorite show at the end of the day, some turn to a glass of wine after a hard day's work, or an ice cold beer, and some depend on a harmless joint to relax them.

Alright everybody here is talking about making marijuana legal but nobody talks about when a joint gets laced with something. Then that leads to harder drugs. Don't say it can't happen to you because you are wrong. It can happen to anybody. It kills the braincells. As you get older you start forgetting things and not remembering one thing from the next. It causes a person to become slow. You can say you are still active and anything you want, but when you grow up watch where it leads . You are going to be a dead beat living off of someone else because you are going to be to afraid to do anything alone. You become dependant on it. Say what you will but it will kill you. I had a love one die from it, what you don't realize is that you are not just hurting yourself but you are hurting the people that love you and care about what happens to you. SDo no matter what statistics or psychologists say it is a drug and there is a reason it isn't legal. Stop thinking about yourself and stop being selfish. Start thinking about the people that love you and need you in their life. All because you are the one that makes them happy.

I'm a long-time supporter of the legalization of marijuana. An official NORML member.

However, the conclusions drawn from the research in this article are dubious. This study shows that there is no particular order for the usage of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana. It shows that environmental factors are the best predictor of drug usage for the use of these particular drugs, rather than the order that a drug was used.

There is nothing about the usage of marijuana being linked, or not linked, to the usage of other more serious illegal drugs. (In fact, those who use marijuana are more likely to use harder drugs than those who have never smoked marijuana. Thats because people tend to use the milder substances first -- like tobacco and alcohol in this study -- and then move onto the harder substances. Fact is though that marijuana is just a stepping stone for these users who may fully intend, conscious or not, to end up using cocaine or heroin or whatever. Marijuana gets a bad rep like that.)

The use of research is important in the effort to re-legalize marijuana, but we must use it in an appropriate scientific context. If we misuse research, then we look like a sham effort of stoners incapable of complex thought. The research is overwhelmingly on our side already. All we need to do is effectively and accurately communicate it to the public in a convincing manner.

What would you even expect ? it might be true but some people want to promote lies i guess. But the drug problem is real, no wonder so many people end up in facilities like california drug northern rehab.

Helps others feel better when stressed or upset, makes the aching pain go away where ever it hurts... what's so bad about chronic? To be honest I'm on it. I'm not brain dead, I don't feel lazy I'm active. If you feeling sad. Hey!!! I have something for you to make you glad. If you can't sleep why count sheep then just blaze a joint sooner or later you'll be in a deep sleep. PEACE!!