http://www.dea.gov/ongoing/marijuana.html
Q: Does marijuana pose health risks to users?
* Marijuana is an addictive drug1 with significant health consequences to its users and others. Many harmful short-term and long-term problems have been documented with its use:
* The short term effects of marijuana use include: memory loss, distorted perception, trouble with thinking and problem solving, loss of motor skills, decrease in muscle strength, increased heart rate, and anxiety2.
Also know as the "high" and whats the big deal, these symptoms are almost identical to getting drunk
* In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of emergency room mentions of marijuana use. From 1993-2000, the number of emergency room marijuana mentions more than tripled.
from marijuana use alone, or in conjunction with alchohol/Hard drugs
* There are also many long-term health consequences of marijuana use. According to the National Institutes of Health, studies show that someone who smokes five joints per week may be taking in as many cancer-causing chemicals as someone who smokes a full pack of cigarettes every day.
what a load of crap, the chemicals you get from a pack a day must weight the same as five joints
* 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.
probably only 2 of those "may" be harmful. a pack a day = 20-30 ciggies if you smoked 2 joints a day you would still get much mare tar in ciggies. Futhermore tar doesn't cause cancer, if it did low tar cigarettes would be safe
* Harvard University researchers report that the risk of a heart attack is five times higher than usual in the hour after smoking marijuana.3
well yeah, you heart rate goes up. if you get scared the same thing happens
* Smoking marijuana also weakens the immune system4 and raises the risk of lung infections.5 A Columbia University study found that a control group smoking a single marijuana cigarette every other day for a year had a white-blood-cell count that was 39 percent lower than normal, thus damaging the immune system and making the user far more susceptible to infection and sickness.6
that group also could have been told to eat nothing but hamburgers for a year, or smoke 2 packs a day. we have no way of knowing
* Users can become dependent on marijuana to the point they must seek treatment to stop abusing it. In 1999, more than 200,000 Americans entered substance abuse treatment primarily for marijuana abuse and dependence.
by this logic alcohol should be banned as well as cigars and cough medicine. as they are all addictive. food can be phycologially addictive, but i don't see the government stopping unhealty foods from hitting the shelves
* More teens are in treatment for marijuana use than for any other drug or for alcohol. Adolescent admissions to substance abuse facilities for marijuana grew from 43 percent of all adolescent admissions in 1994 to 60 percent in 1999.
i bet they were put in there by their religious whacko parents.
* Marijuana is much stronger now than it was decades ago. According to data from the Potency Monitoring Project at the University of Mississippi, the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content of commercial-grade marijuana rose from an average of 3.71 percent in 1985 to an average of 5.57 percent in 1998. The average THC content of U.S. produced sinsemilla increased from 3.2 percent in 1977 to 12.8 percent in 1997.
and this is bad? if its more potent it means you need to smoke less meaning you get less tar, less carcinogens and other bad stuff in your lungs.
the drug war has taken all the faith i had in the government and shoved it down the toilet. i hate the government, i hate the way they operate and the way they treat people
