Wow. This one will be so long it's not even funny. Now way back when I used to have lots of statistics and stuff to back up everything I say. Now I do remember a couple of links, but I'm pretty much going to run on my own knowledge. And if you don't want to believe me, go ahead. I probably won't touch on everything I know because I know a shitload >.> I guarantee I will forget important points...And it will jump all over the place because in my mind I already know these things so I might forget that I need to flesh out the ideas well for the reader to understand clearly :O But here it goes.
This needs to be legal. Some smokers don't want it to be because they think it will get more expensive. And it will, but the law needs to change out of principle.
Let's get down to it. Firstly we can look at various health affects of marijuana and look at medicinal marijuana (which is already legal)To be prescribed medical marijuana you pretty much need to meet the right kind of doctor . Many doctors simply won't prescribe the treatment because they are against people smoking marijuana. They just let personal bias slip into their job as doctors and they broke the oath they swear on, which is to provide the best possible treatment to their patients.
30 Year Long Study Shows no Cancer-Marijuna link
"Federal health and drug enforcement officials have widely used Tashkin's previous work on marijuana to make the case that the drug is dangerous. Tashkin said that while he still believes marijuana is potentially harmful, its cancer-causing effects appear to be of less concern than previously thought. Earlier work established that marijuana does contain cancer-causing chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco, he said. However, marijuana also contains the chemical THC, which he said may kill aging cells and keep them from becoming cancerous."
Another study described in the same paper (that I have read before but can't find again) said that smoking marijuana actually reduces the size of lung tumors. Now don't get me wrong, smoking marijuana is the least healthy way of taking it in. And it wouldn't be so popular if it wasn't the cheapest and easiest. It's because if people don't look closely they might just assume you're smoking a legal cigarette. If marijuana was legal it is likely intake through many other ways would become much more popular. The healthiest option being the Vaporizer for example. This would lead to any negative health affects from the act of inhaling smoke being reduced even greater. For those who don't know a vaporizer basically gets the THC (the drug that gives you the high) right out of weed so you don't need to deal with all that smoke. You just inhale the drug.
Don't get me wrong it still isn't the healthiest thing out there. Long term use increases risk to many mental health afflictions, Alzheimer and Schizophrenia for example. These increased risks are assuming both long term and frequent use. Now tell me, how does long term frequent drinking affect you? It can lead to strokes, heart attacks, Liver, Pancreatitis, Hormonal Imbalance, Sexual dysfunction, Osteoporosis, Arthritis, Kidney Stones, Cancer, Infections, Common Cold, etc.
Alcohol is linked to domestic violence, sexual assault, reckless behaviour, violent crime, none of which marijuana is associated with. How interesting...
Marijuana and Glaucoma
"Other adverse effects from the use of marijuana that have been reported include conjunctival hyperemia, impaired immune system response, impaired memory for recent events, difficulty concentrating, impaired motor coordination, tolerance to repeated doses, and short-term withdrawal symptoms after cessation. Smoking of marijuana also can lead to emphysema-like lung changes, increased risk of cancer, and poor pregnancy outcomes."
Impaired memory for recent events......difficulty concentrating....impaired motor coordination...poor pregnancy outcomes...All affects of drinking.
Now there's so much more to say about this but we'll move on to why it should never have been ILLEGAL, and why it stays illegal, as well as why it should be legal now.
The man who cut down all those trees to make paper way back when. Noticed that Hemp was a much more viable option for the cheap making of paper. Now he had a giant company that was all designed around the wonders of cutting down trees. He was one of the main funders to the original campaign to make marijuana illegal. It had nothing to do with the health affects or any government studies or anything like that. It was a man with a lot of money who didn't want to lose it. Along with the fact that in the early 1900s Western American States we're becoming fearful of the large influx of Mexican immigrants who smoked the drug often.
When Montana outlawed marijuana in 1927, the Butte Montana Standard reported a legislator’s comment: “When some beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff… he thinks he has just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all his political enemies.” In Texas, a senator said on the floor of the Senate: “All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy.”
Fact: At one point in multiple states it was illegal to NOT grow a minimum amount of marijuana relative to the size of your farm.
Now why is it STILL illegal if that was the reason it was illegalized? America. A large amount of American prisons are privately owned. Which means they make money by having lots of people in jail. 4% of people in jail in the States are in there solely for marijuana related crimes as minor as possession. The cost of enforcement of these laws (to America) is $7 billion a year. And 90% of the people imprisoned for marijuana related crimes have no history of violent crime. Money that could easily be spent on more important crimes.
Now you're saying "who cares this is CANADA!!!" Well considering we share the longest unprotected border in the world with their country there is tremendous pressure to keep the drug illegal. Look at the Marc Emery situation. A crime the entire province of BC knew he was committing. Yet did our law enforcement bother with him? No. But the DEA ( a largely American Drug Enforcement Agency) demands that he be arrested (by Canadian officers) under American charges for a crime he was committing in Canada. While our law still deemed the selling of marijuana seeds illegal, it is a largely ignored crime.
Is smoking marijuana even illegal? No the actual act of inhaling it isn't. But posession/selling/growing and all that stuff is. And yet depending on the cop you meet it might even seem legal. Most will just make you get rid of what you've got and take your pipe or any other paraphernalia from you.
It's a confusing world we live in where a drug that was unjustly illegalized, has other drugs that are worse, and is legal one minute and not legal the next depending on what cop you're dealing with, is still illegal.
Go ahead and argue with me on this one. I didn't even make every point I have because this blog post is way too long as it is.
Do I smoke? Yup. Not a shitload but I do. And trust me I have a lot more control over myself when I smoke then when I drink.
