My sister, who has been a doctor for decades and particularly has worked in the area of emergency medicine, can tell stories of psychosis which was at least greatly exacerbated if not actually caused by cannabis use, attributable to cannabis and not other drugs in her own knowledgeable opinion, which resulted in users being brought to the emergency ward.
Given that something like 1/4 or 1/5 of all people have some level of mental disorder, there’s a high chance that that percentage of us have something that would be ‘triggered off’ into psychosis with sufficient use of cannabis.
As for the ‘only proven harm is from smoking it’ - good Lord, is that harm not enough reason to shun it? Surely we shouldn’t be knowingly indulging in something as blatantly unhealthy as smoking - at any level - has been proven to be.
Our bodies being temples of the Holy Spirit, it DOES behoove us to take a certain amount of care of our health, and it would most likely be sinful on some level to deliberately compromise our health for no good reason.
Not smoking is a very basic health protection measure, I think it would fall into the category that makes smoking sinful, absent of course reasons such as medical treatment or what have you. And assuming that medical treatment requires you to smoke rather than take controlled doses of THC or other cannabis derivative in some other form.
the point being that if you smoke it that is its harm. taken ingested another way there is no harm
now, i have seen 2 people who react negatively to marijuana, both of those people had anxiety disorders. as the the idea that 20 to 25 percent of people have some mental disorder, thats way out there, that must include every mental tic ever recorded.
as to pot excaberating a psychosis, its possible but id like to see some hard data. otherwise we end up with dueling doctors. however i see no claim that it causes any psychosis.
as a matter of my work i am in intimate contact with literally thousands of criminals, never in all that time have i seen any criminal behavior resulting from marijuana use. in fact i have only seen people dealing in large quantities of marijuana, thirty pounds is the least i ever heard.
so to sum up
- that percentage of seriously mentally ill people should be verified, sounds awful high for the general population
- there is no evidence of that marijuana causes psychosis in any more people than alcohol, a legal substance does.
- if eaten ingested other than smoking it there would seem to be no harm
- we have dueling doctors opinions, which refute eachother
- in my experience there is no criminal behavior accountable to marijauna
and finally i believe this is in many ways a generational issue, i am 35 and i only know 1 person under forty who thinks marijuana is dangerous, of course he has never even seen a joint, but he has his opinions. out of thousands of criminals, i know exactly one, and only one who attends narcotics anonymous meetings because of marijuana. he claims it took too much time from his family and he felt guilty about it.
my generation grew up with “just say no” we heard all the horror stories concerning marijuana, and when we tried it, they turned out to be false.
in my experience marijuana causes no deaths, accidents, or immoral behavior. alcohol, does all these things.
smoking pot with the same moderation that one should treat alcohol with is no more of a sin than drinking
legalization is only a matter of time, as my generation assumes power it is all but assured
that said i am as devout a Catholic as any here probably farther to the right than many, if i felt i it was a sin in and of itself i would say so. but the facts i have seen with my own eyes simply dont support it.
that does not meant however that cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, etc are not a sin, indeed they are very addictive substances, that provide the vast majority of the criminal population. these are in an entirely separate class.
