Mom busted me. Chance to have her let me smoke! HELP!

[KottonMouthKid]

I think you have a really solid argument on the medicinal side going. Just be confident when you talk to your parents about it and don't act for a second like using cannabis is "wrong" (not only becasue it isn't, but this will make them sympathize to your arguments more.) The fact that it is illegal is always a sticky one with parents, but if you research WHY marijuana was made illegal in the first place, you may find a few choicy bits to show your parents about that.

Why exactly was it illegalised in the first place? Can someone elaborate please?

I have a feeling that it was because the government couldn;'t figure out how to make enough money off of it?

[pixel]

its really about the facts you can find but its also about presentation too. choose the sites taht look professional and neat, not the ones with weed leaves and cartoon character GIFs pounding munchies with beat red eyes. pick ones that well u read them the facts and they're looking at the site and pictures they're somewhat impressed, or at least not unimpressed.

get shit with sources that don't just say things (101 facts about marijuana is a great site but its credibility is terrible. their citing is pitiful). if your parents are at all intelligent theyll definitely be asking where these sites got their info. show them raw statistics and articles from medical journals (british medicinal journals have done the most work on marijuana). dont be the government and just say things because they sound scary and may work

www.NORML.org <--- fantastic site

[pixel]

Why exactly was it illegalised in the first place? Can someone elaborate please?

I have a feeling that it was because the government couldn;'t figure out how to make enough money off of it?

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stori...naIllegal.html

all you will ever need on that question

[AlwaysBlazed]

I tried showing my mom the facts about it but she doesn't care, it's illegal.

[LiquidMagik]

Well if their both pastors...

God indicated all the seed-bearing plants are good
on literally the very first page of the Bible
(see Genesis 1:11-12 and 29-30)

It is no accident Christ, God, The Ecologician,
Created seed-bearing plants and said they are good
On the Bible's first page. The only biblical restriction
is that it be used with thanksgiving. (I Timothy 4:1-5).

The bible is all about black and white, no grey areas (especially the Old Testament). If god says seed-bearing plants are good, they're good - though don't let your parents convince you that if you smoke, it has to be shwag - this could be tricky.

Also, marijuana is proven preventative for Alzheimer's. This is a recent study that just came out, so you shouldn't have a problem finding it. Marijuana also DOES effect short-term memory loss, it DOES NOT effect long-term memory loss, and when you quit, your short term memory comes back.

If they are worried about your lungs, tell them you'll vaporize...

There is a difference between smart stoners and stupid stoners. Stupid stoners are the ones that get high all day everyday, and when their weed runs out and their rent is due, they start thinking, “How can I make money to pay for my habit and other bills as well? I know, I’ll sell drugs!” These people end up in jail or continue to contribute nothing to society except a place to score. Smart stoners realize there is more to life than smoking weed, and toke responsibly. They get jobs, don’t get too fucked up to work (if it all), and when their day is done and they have the funds, they’ll score a sack to smoke up. Stupid stoner tokes up the previous night, and right before a final exam, and fails miserably. Smart stoner studies all night, takes exam in the most beneficial frame of mind, and celebrates with a sack at the end.

Don’t let your parents think everyone is a stupid stoner. I graduated from an ivy league school and am now in one of the top 10 careers in America. Another stoner friend from high school just passed the NY bar exam. Another graduated college with a double major 4.0 (mathematics and economics), and now works in an executive role in one of the largest insurance companies in the United States. I also have another friend that dropped out of school and now mows lawns and coaches 9th grade football, and yes, it’s because he couldn’t stop getting high and start going to class.

And, if all else fails, and you know you aren’t going to get what you want, have some fun with it. Tell them that weed lowers your sperm count, and if you stop smoking, you’re going to have to start having anal sex with your girlfriend to avoid her getting pregnant. They should remember what happened to Sodom and Gomorrha and want to prevent the same fate from befalling you.

[KottonMouthKid]

This is extremely long, but if you could read it all it would help me a lot!

Here is what I have prepared for my parents, is there anythign you guys would add/take out?




Marijuana Benefits
Medicinal Uses
(most of this information found on http://www.medmjscience.org/ Pages/history/zeese.bhtml and http://www.rxmarihuana.com/
I will also mention that both of these are highly respected websites in the medical marijuana community, and not just a bunch of stoners bending facts.)

AIDS symptoms
In many studies marijuana has relived nausea and vomiting. Marijuana also promotes weight gain, by upping peoples appetites.
Nausea/Vomiting
Marijuana has caused many medical patients (and other users) nausea reduction. I can speak for this on personal experience. Marijuana causes peoples stomaches to settle down and relive all nausea in some cases. From my experience it also helped me focus on other things, and ignore the pain more then I would be able to otherwise.
Migraine Headaches
(Another reason I was using it) Marijuana helps relive tension from headaches. Marijuana also gets rid of the nausea that is associated with migraines. Marijuana has also been shown to calm patients down and cause them to be able to sleep. And lastly from personal experience it helps me to focus on other things other then the pain. Marijuana also has helped to raise my appetite during a headache, when normally it would be lowered due to nausea.
Glaucoma
Published studies have shown that marijuana is consistently lowers intraocular eye pressure (which is the cause of glaucoma). Studies have also consistently shown that marijuana preserves the vision of people with the disease.
Sleep Disorders (insomnia)
Marijuana causes muscles to relax and give some users a calming, tired feeling. Studies show that marijuana has helped many tested insomniacs sleep better, and also help cure the disorder.
Anorexia
Studies have proven that marijuana causes raised appetite and lowered nausea. Most of the patients tested were able to eat, and keep the food down when using marijuana.
Pain
Marijuana has helped me with numerous types of pain, mainly stomach and head pain. It allows me to focus on other things, it also seems to relive the pain in a faster, and better way then common painkillers too. In numerous studies it has also shown 90-100% of patients to have an improvement on their pain with little or no side effects.
Alcoholism
Marijuana unlike many other drugs is not an extreme dissociate.
It also has not been shown to be addictive in many tests, as most other drugs are. People with alcoholism that have used marijuana in tests have been shown to be able to cure there addiction by becoming less dependent on alcohol, it also can help with many of the depression issues that can come with disorders such as alcoholism.
Anxiety
Marijuana has been found to cause users to relax, and calm down, it also helps users to focus on other things and forget the fear of various situations. Marijuana has helped relive some of my anxiety issues in certain situations.
Cancer
There is not one recorded case of cancer caused by marijuana. In fact marijuana has caused many improvements in cancer patients, from a case to case basis it has helped patients with the actual cancer, as well as kimo and the nausea and other pain that it can cause.
Muscle Spasms
There are multiple published experiments showing that marijuana is effective in controlling convulsions and in some cases is better then other forms of convulsion medication.
(http://www.rxmarihuana.com/medical_conditions.htm)

Other positive medicinal facts
Tests in many states have proven marijuana helps anywhere from 85-100% of patients with many different diseases and disorders.

Marijuana provides medicinal users cures for lots of issues that they have with very few, or no side effects. Most medicinal patients experienced no problem with doing day to day activities while under the influence, and very few complained about physiological effects.

Articles proving that marijuana has adequate medicinal use

http://www.sierratimes.com/03/11/07/article_kubby.htm
(Written by Steve Kubby who is a successful business man, medical marijuana patient and grower, and cancer patient.)

http://www.projectcensored.org/publi...s/2001/22.html
(A Study done by a team led by Dr. Manuel Guzman of Complutence University in Madrid.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...le/2006/05/25/ AR2006052501729.html?nav=hcmodule
(Washington Post's coverage of a study that was done, proving that marijuana does not cause lung cancer, and intact helps patients with many kinds of cancers.)

Common Myths and Misconceptions about marijuana (these are all things that both of you have told me)
"Gateway drug" (http://cannabisnews.com/news/22thread22434.shtml)
Many people view marijuana as a gateway drug, when in actuality
it has been proven that neither young users or older users were in any way more liable to use other drugs after using marijuana. I can say from personal experience that this is true. I have never had even a slight desire to try other drugs including tobacco or alcohol, as these are truly harmful to my body, and truly do effect peoples bodies mentally and physically in bad ways.

Addicting
There is not one single study proving that marijuana is physically addicting. In fact, the only studies that show marijuana to be addicting at all are the mental aspect of it, and even then mental addiction only happened with very few, or none of the tested users.

Causes mental disorders
Many people think that marijuana causes mental disorders, and/or kills
brain cells. Both of these statements have been proven wrong in numerous studies. In one study (which I read but can't find the link for, I'll continue to look for it) some of the patients appeared to have mental disorders after marijuana use, in actuality the marijuana just made the mental disorders more apparent then it would be normally, scientists blamed it on the marijuana, but in actuality the marijuana helped by making the disorders apparent.

The second half of this myth is that marijuana causes brain cells to die. In actuality marijuana has been proved to keep healthy cells alive for longer then they would be normally. The reason that many believe that marijuana does kill brain cells is because of published tests in which researchers give animals large doses of marijuana in extremely fast periods of time. In one study they had a monkey smoke over two ounces of marijuana (which is about 60 normal sized marijuana cigarettes) in a period of 5 minutes through an airtight gas-mask. The monkey died soon after and they autopsied the body to find he died of brain cell deficiency, which they immediately blamed on the weed. The case was later opened and discovered that it wasn't the weed, it was the airtight gas mask! Anybody that breathes only smoke for 5 minutes, and no oxygen, will have massive brain cell damage. If the monkey were to have smoked the marijuana in a reasonable time period (like 4 hours or something) they would have just had a really high monkey.

Both of these are also backed up by numerous humans (medical patients mainly) that smoke up to an ounce or more of marijuana daily and be completely fine, and even better then they would be without the marijuana.

Causes lots of traffic accidents (impairs psychomotor function)
There is no compelling evidence, or proven tests that marijuana is a major cause of traffic accidents. At some large doses, marijuana can impair ones perception, which could possibly cause a traffic violation or accident. However, in driving studies marijuana produces little, or no driving impairment and in most cases actually made drivers much more cautious while driving.

Another fact backing this up is that most every-time that marijuana is in the systems of a person that caused an accident, it is accompanied with an intoxicated level of alcohol.

(Although this doesn't particularly apply to me. Also, I will note that every time I've smoked its been in a location where I am not in a vulnerable position of accident, and marijuana does not have the psychomotor impairment effect on me)

Websites from which I got this information
http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/factsmyths/
http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=3475#12

Legality
Why Marijuana was made illegal in the first place.
Many drugs such as opium, and cocaine were originally made illegal because of the serious mind altering, and dangerous effects of the drug. Marijuana was only in-fact pronounced illegal because of money. The original small ban on marijuana was in the early 1900s. Up until this point marijuana was one of the largest cash crops, and the president even made a law sawing farmers had to grow a certain amount of hemp every year. This was punishable with jail if the farmers did not pull through. Once mexicans started coming into america and smoking hemp, it caused an issue. The mormons were starting to take on the smoking and some of the high mormon priests started getting angry. This was the cause of the original ban in Utah.

The entire US ban happened when the hemp industry started to surpass the cotton industry. Cotton workers started to strike, and as the government couldn't afford to lose that industry they banned the growing, and possession of hemp.

Personal Experience
Social aspects
The only effects marijuana has on me socially is that I am able to focus on conversations better then normal, and I was calmer and more thoughtful about things. I also found myself thinking about spirituality and god a lot more then normal, I was also able to focus on specifically thinking about topics like this.

Physical aspects
Marijuana doesn't effect me physically at all.

[KottonMouthKid]

I added this too..

Causes people to fail school, or be dumb.
This is a tough one as there is not a particularly great way of testing it. But science has suggested that if used responsibly it will have no effect on life. I can also find countless examples of extremely smart marijuana users, that do not let it effect there lives at all. Yes, some people do use cannabis in wrong ways, but it can also be a good thing if used responsibly.

[Stowned]

Not sure if this will help, givin the quality and all but here is a comparison of a few of the most popular drugs, it was in an article a few years back in The Nation magazine, I believe.

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e400/J0shhh/DrugChart.jpg

It's interesting how it shows that Caffine is worse for you than Marijuana.

I apaologize for the low quality of this document. You can thank Kinkos for the shoddy work. Hope it helps.

[HinduKush83]

They've already presented the websites!

Make sure you tell them about how cannabis became illegal in 1937 when Harry J. Anslinger created his "Reefer Madness" campaign which targeted mostly Hispanics and African-American jazz musicians. These laws are racist in origin and it is used to control minorities.

Make sure you tell them that marijuana and drug prohibition is the same as alcohol prohibition of the 1920s and that it only creates crime and criminals get rich from artificially inflated prices. Let them know that prohibition corrupts politicians and it is unconstitutional.

Also, let them know that cannabis has been used as a medicine for thousands of years and that the drug companies don't want it legal because they will loose on profits.

[Jack the Tripper]

I heard from a friend that a reason the government won't legalize marijuana is that due to its medicinal values, alot of their expensive lab-engineered drugs (oxycontin, percodins and vicodins to name a few) would become less popular, and they'd lose money as a result. If they allowed people to grow their own medicine in their backyard, then they wouldn't be able to ovoertax them for it.