cannabisnews.com: Should Marijuana Be Legalized?





Should Marijuana Be Legalized?
Posted by CN Staff on June 24, 2002 at 09:09:36 PT
By Lee Reinsch of The Reporter Staff 
Source: Fond Du Lac Reporter 
Thirty-somethings Tom, Dick and Harry are at a party. Tom’s pounding down beers, Dick’s chain-smoking Marlboros, and Harry takes a few drags from a funny pipe shaped like Disney’s dog Pluto. Which of them could face a criminal record?It doesn’t take a legal expert to figure out that the only one breaking the law is Harry. But why is Harry’s drug of choice any worse in the eyes of the law than Tom’s and Dick’s?
It may just be an image problem, says one local college professor, though a Fond du Lac County health nurse contends that there are good reasons why marijuana is illegal.“If you look at history of most drugs, most drugs really are not as dramatic as publicity indicates,” said Dr. Jonathan Nicoud, professor of psychology at Marian College. “A lot of the history of drug regulation is based more on PR (public relations) work than any kind of scientific research.”In the first quarter of the 20th century, marijuana was not illegal, and opium and its derivatives were available by prescription from doctors.In 1919, the government enacted Prohibition, with a staff of 170 agents to enforce it, according to the textbook, “Drugs, Society and Human Behavior,” used in Nicoud’s classes. A year later, when Prohibition ended, the bureaucrats faced unemployment.“Once it’s born, any bureaucracy wants to continue to exist and you had a number of bureaucrats whose existence wasn’t justified by the job they had. So they looked for a new menace,” Nicoud said. That menace became marijuana.“Marijuana itself is not without risk, but in terms of it being a menace, it doesn’t seem at all close to that,” Nicoud said. “Other drugs are more dangerous, but they picked marijuana because it wasn’t used a lot in the mainstream. It was used by farm people and minority people, so if they picked on that one, there were no people who could vote against it.”The textbook suggests that the government had some influence in newspapers’ printing of stories about blacks and Mexicans smoking pot and becoming unruly.“A lot of what was offered as ’evidence’ against the drug was stories of blacks and Hispanics going crazy and raping women and killing people,” Nicoud said. The textbook also cites an unfounded connection between marijuana use and insanity as one of the main arguments for outlawing the drug in the 1930s.“The notion still remains that marijuana can cause a type of psychosis. There have been reports of psychotic breakdowns occurring with rare frequency after marijuana has been smoked, but the causal relationship is in question. The psychotic episodes are generally self-limiting and seem to occur in individuals with a history of psychiatric problems.” (Page 420).“The history of any law is not always based on reason. The history of the legal age for drinking has gone up and down over the years and has been based on little evidence,” Nicoud said.Nicoud said studies have shown nicotine and alcohol to be bigger killers than all kinds of illegal drugs combined, yet the war on drugs is waged primarily upon drugs classified as illegal.“It is a strange thing that we have concerns about certain drugs that aren’t very well based in fact, and drugs we are not concerned about are drugs we should be concerned about, such as alcohol and tobacco,” Nicoud said.“In terms of killers, they (alcohol and tobacco) are first and second, but how many times do you see wars on alcohol or nicotine? It’s ironic that we worry most about drugs that are problematic but are not the biggest problems,” Nicoud said.Nicoud said the heavy constituency of cigarette smokers keeps the government from rendering it illegal.“There are so many people who smoke cigarettes that no one wants to outlaw it. We allow it because there is a big political constituency that supports it,” he said. “With marijuana, there wasn’t a big political constituency, so it was easier to outlaw, he said. “As the constituency in favor of it gets larger, then there is more pressure to decriminalize it.”But a local nurse says there’s plenty to be concerned about with marijuana.The problem with pot is that it’s stored in the fat, said Fond du Lac County Public Health Nurse Darlene Hanke. That’s why it takes so long to get out of the system.“The brain is 99 percent fat,” she said. Thus, the active ingredient in marijuana, THC, hangs around in the brain and damages brain cells, she said.Alcohol, on the other hand, is water-soluble and is usually out of the system by the next day.Hanke said a videotape of a test involving airline pilots who had smoked marijuana convinced her that pot is worse for the body than alcohol. The video showed that, the day after smoking pot, the pilots’ coordination and sense of direction were impaired, she said.Hanke also maintains that contrary to popular belief that it’s not addictive, it is.“Years ago people thought it wasn’t physically addictive, but you do get withdrawal symptoms if you‘ve been smoking or eating it in brownies,” Hanke said.She listed some side effects of withdrawal: “cravings, insomnia or sleep difficulty, aggression, restlessness, irritability, strange dreams and vivid color, highly emotional dreams or nightmares, decreased appetite, weight loss and stomach aches.” She said using marijuana could suppress the immune system, so users may be ill more often than they normally would be. For this reason, she doesn’t approve of medicinal uses of marijuana for AIDS patients and other people with terminal conditions. Editor’s Note: This is the first of a three-day series on the various points of view about marijuana.Source: Fond Du Lac Reporter (WI)Author: Lee Reinsch of The Reporter Staff Published: June 23, 2002Copyright: 2002 Fond Du Lac ReporterWebsite: http://www.wisinfo.com/thereporter/index.shtmlContact: http://www.wisinfo.com/thereporter/contactus/index/Related Articles & Web Site:Is My Medicine Legal Yet? http://immly.org/Marijuana Legalization Promotedhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12978.shtmlWisconsin Supports Use of Medical Marijuanahttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12218.shtmlMedical Marijuana Bill Deserves Real Consideration http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11821.shtml 
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Comment #10 posted by Industrial Strength on June 24, 2002 at 23:41:17 PT
holding
I've heard so many variations from one second to seven seconds to ten seconds ect ect, but I find if I hold it in for a few seconds it definitely makes a difference. Also, JR, im fairly sure that space cat's comment about oxygen deprivation was in regards to the infamous study in the seventies that supposedly proved that pot killed brain cells, where this "scientist" would strap a gas mask onto monkeys and subject them to an outlandish amount of smoke in a short time. Im pretty sure that holding your breath for a few seconds doesn't kill any brain cells.
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Comment #9 posted by FoM on June 24, 2002 at 22:41:45 PT
Sam
Dr. Russo is out of the country but should be back in a few days. I know he'd jump in on this conversation and tell us his opinion if he were here. We're really lucky to have Dr. Russo doing what he does. 
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Comment #8 posted by CorvallisEric on June 24, 2002 at 22:32:26 PT
Right, Sam Adams
I also read that most pot smokers hold the smoke in much longer than needed to get almost all the THC. Don't remember where, but remember that it seemed reliable (maybe also heard it on Dr. Dean Edell's radio show). Dale Gieringer has a bunch of related material on the Cal-NORML website - canorml.org - ongoing studies show that waterpipes are probably a bad deal.
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Comment #7 posted by Sam Adams on June 24, 2002 at 19:40:15 PT
Just so you guys know.....
JR, there's no reason to hold in smoke or vapour for more than about 1 second. The active ingredients are absorbed in one second - after that you're just letting more gunk deposit on your lungs.If Dr. Russo is around, I'm sure he can back me up on this. I've seen other credible doctors say this as well. It's a myth that you have to hold it in.
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Comment #6 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on June 24, 2002 at 12:50:02 PT
Oxygen deprivation
  Re: Space Cat's comment, the whole oxygen deprivation thing is caused by people holding in their breath as long as possible after taking a hit, right? We wouldn't have to hold the toke for so long if it didn't cost the same as GOLD. Thanks, Uncle Sam, for doing what you can to make cannabis less safe, and then blaming the cannabis.
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Comment #5 posted by SpaceCat on June 24, 2002 at 11:23:53 PT
Brain Damage
The "brain damage" in the most commonly cited study was subsequently found to be from oxygen deprivation, not marijuana smoking (never mind THC).THC is in fact neuroprotective- at least two companies (Pharmos is one, I can't remember ther other) are developing Cannabis-derived drugs to prevent brain damage from traumatic head injury, something that doesn't even exist today. The results Pharmos got in stage II trials are amazing; "unethical to withold the drug from the control group" type of amazing.
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Comment #4 posted by krutch on June 24, 2002 at 11:14:08 PT:
A Lie
"THC, hangs around in the brain and damages brain cells, she said."I have never see any credible evidence that THC damages brain cells. The old studies that supposedly showed this could never be reproduced. It is a lie. 
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Comment #3 posted by SpaceCat on June 24, 2002 at 10:56:09 PT
T&A
I thought P4me was talking about the last administration, but then realized he meant Tobacco and Alcohol :)
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Comment #2 posted by p4me on June 24, 2002 at 10:52:05 PT
just sorry policy repeating itself
It doesn’t take a legal expert to figure out that the only one breaking the law is Harry. But why is Harry’s drug of choice any worse in the eyes of the law than Tom’s and Dick’s?Let me answer that for you. Because T&A are the American governments drugs of choice and marijuana is the drug of demonization. It is so ridiculous they say that .0005 percent in hemp foods is enough to ban them outright and the .0005% Canadian standard in hemp foods is too much and the .00015% Canadian standard for hemp seeds is too much. Yes if you eat gruel everyday you may live to collect social security and the American government surely does not want that. 1,2
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Comment #1 posted by SpaceCat on June 24, 2002 at 10:18:16 PT
Apologies to the hicks in Fon Du Lac
I guess there is some attempt at balance going on here, combined with the other article. But why are reasonable-sounding professors balanced with raving loonies who think their background in health care makes them an expert on everything? One thing I would definitely agree with is that Darlene Hanke's brain is at least 99% fat.
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