Marijuana

[Aleii]

Great posts, Palamite

 

[st_ignatius110]

As for marijuana not killing anyone, I would say that if anyone has ever driven stoned, then they know that it can be very dangerous, and that person could end up killing themselves or others. Therefore, it would be wrong to drive that way.

From personal experience I know SO MANY people who smoke weed. None of them have cancer (have been smoking 40+ years) none of them have had a car wreck related to being high etc. It is amazing the commercials I see out there about kids drowning in a pool or getting run over by a teenager who is high. I have never seen a situation where weed is the only factor in a car accident. The majority of the time other drugs are involved. If a teenager wrecks while under the influence of marijuana do you take into consideration the faxt that teenagers have a higher rate of wrecking vehicles then do adults?

 

[JacktheCatholic]

In 1991 the Pope approved the New Catechism which came directly from Vatican II and presented things in a way that the modern world can better understand and relate.

This book takes the Faith of the Catholic church and puts it in a nicely organized and easy to read book that deals with Faith and morals of Christians.

This book tells us to follow the rules set by our leaders unless it directly violates rules set by God. So, unless marijuana being illegal is in some way going directly against God’s commandments to us then we should follow the law of the government.

God Bless

Jack

 

[IanBoyd57]

There are too many completely unqualified and unduly biased views of cannabis out there right now for most people to be able to come to a sane conclusion on the topic.

Cannabis use has never been demonstrated to do permanent physical damage, nor has it ever been recorded to have killed anyone. This cannot be said of either alcohol or tobbacco, which most will only see as being (at worst) “venial” matters of indulgence.

The only objection then would be if the only form of cannabis use was one which was abusive and caused a suspension in the use of reason and impaired the proper excercise of the will.

The problem for the prohibitionists is, this is not the case. Unfortunately, however, because of it’s illegal status and the “culture of binging” which dominates the english speaking west (especially the United States), generally most people who indulge in an occassional “toke” do so in excess, much like college kids with beer or liquor.

What most do not understand is that the THC percentages in cannabis varies, dependent upon strain (genetics), cultivation techniques, and handling during the drying and curing stages. This is further regulated by how and in what quantity one consumes cannabis (ex. whether one is smoking pure ground up flowers from the female plant, the potent resin from those flowers compressed as hashish, etc.) For example, in countries with relatively liberal laws on cannabis use and possession (where you’ll find “hash bars” and the like), it’s very common for people to stroll in on a lazy afternoon with some friends, and smoke “joints” which contain significant amounts of pipe tobbacco, or other flavoured (non psychoactive) herbs. The result? The buzz is significantly milder.

The simple truth is that the various forms of cannabis prohibition (most especially that found in the United States) are unreasonable and unnecessary laws. What many don’t know, is that in America, these laws came into effect at the same time as did those outlawing alcohol. The only difference really being, that unlike the hooch, cannabis was mainly the recreational substance of choice of black and hispanics - white folks hadn’t really had much exposure to it. Hence, there wasn’t the same kind of interest in overturning cannabis laws as there was for alcohol.

Sadly, few people take the lessons of alcohol prohibition seriously enough to see how it’s 100% relevent to cannabis prohibition. The relationship between criminal elements and cannabis is caused by prohibition - of itself, when there is no threat of legal sanction, cannabis is a relatively easy plant to cultivate outdoors, and can be propigated as easily as any other plants (seeds, clones, etc.) Decriminalization would not only make it a cheap (perhaps even relatively difficult to sell), but would obviously totally cut out this criminal element. Just as alcohol prohibition created the mafia as we now know it, cannabis prohibition has put uncountable amounts of money into the coffers of otherwise unsavory characters.

The same can be said of cannabis’ alleged “gateway drug” status. Because it is criminalized, all too often the people selling it will be involved in the sale of other illegal substances, including those which are genuinely harmful. Criminalization has lumped this plant into a category it would otherwise not naturally fall into, certainly not any more than beer or spirits.

In the end, people should always be leary of governments (especially those which do not pretend to be Christian in principle, which includes all first world western nations) micro managing their behaviour and trying to protect them from themselves. Very often such attempts have less to do with the common good, and are instead motivated by other factors. Consider for a moment that most of the resources of the “war on drugs” in America, including such in-school indoctrination programs like “D.A.R.E.” receive a lot of funding from the alcohol and pharmeseuitical industry, both of which have a vested interest in their own products receiving no competition (let alone competition which, if legal, could be acquired for a song.) There is also a puritanical fanaticism behind this too, just as there was with alcohol prohibition - a deep animosity toward anything which may just be a little too much fun, even when you cannot factually demonstrate how it’s actually hurting anyone.

Right on until the beginning of the last paragraph. Religious governments are extremely dangerous. Then the leaders would just say that although it’s not hurting anyone, God said we shouldn’t use it, and we would be unable to argue, just like with premarital sex and gay marriage and contraception (christianity) and discrimination against women (Islam) and so on.

 

[setter]

Right on until the beginning of the last paragraph. Religious governments are extremely dangerous. Then the leaders would just say that although it’s not hurting anyone, God said we shouldn’t use it, and we would be unable to argue, just like with premarital sex and gay marriage and contraception (christianity) and discrimination against women (Islam) and so on.

How do you define “religious governments”?

 

[Hastrman]

The main reason you can outlaw marijuana but not alcohol is, Marijuana is ten times as bad for its users as tobacco, lung and heart wise.

And it makes you stupid. I knew a lot of stoners in high school–they were chicken-milking stupid.

And nobody in Western civilization has ever made marijuana the cornerstone of their hospitality.

I do think, though, that there should be an exemption for Rastafarians. Sure it’s a weird religion (they think the last king of Ethiopia is God Incarnate, despite him being Ethiopian Orthodox), but it’s really dangerous to go down the road of, “your religion is fake.” And Peyote Way (Native American Church) has an exemption for its hallucinogenic cactus buttons.

 

[IanBoyd57]

How do you define “religious governments”?

Governments that are, um, religious…

Like in Islam and so on.

I’m not talking about America explicitly, although a lot of religious groups have large amounts of political power.

This nation was not even founded on christianity, it was the exact opposite. Most of the founding fathers were deists and many of them like Jefferson wrote various letters in opposition to christianity. I’m not sure why that myth still propagates today.

 

[IanBoyd57]

The main reason you can outlaw marijuana but not alcohol is, Marijuana is ten times as bad for its users as tobacco, lung and heart wise.

And it makes you stupid. I knew a lot of stoners in high school–they were chicken-milking stupid.

And nobody in Western civilization has ever made marijuana the cornerstone of their hospitality.

I do think, though, that there should be an exemption for Rastafarians. Sure it’s a weird religion (they think the last king of Ethiopia is God Incarnate, despite him being Ethiopian Orthodox), but it’s really dangerous to go down the road of, “your religion is fake.” And Peyote Way (Native American Church) has an exemption for its hallucinogenic cactus buttons.

Um, I already posted this twice, but…

washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729_pf.html

Marijuana does not make you stupid. It has never been shown to damage brain cells. The most often cited study involved suffocating monkeys for 5 minutes at a time with proportionately more smoke then the average use inhales in their lifetime. The studies were so biased and unscientific that the medical board revoked his license and he eventually even renounced his own studies as meaningless.

Nice generalizations though.

Er, wait, I better clarify that that’s sarcasm, in case any of you who like to declare judgement over entire groups of people thought I think that’s a good thing.

 

[JacktheCatholic]

Um, I already posted this twice, but…

washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729_pf.html

Marijuana does not make you stupid. It has never been shown to damage brain cells. The most often cited study involved suffocating monkeys for 5 minutes at a time with proportionately more smoke then the average use inhales in their lifetime. The studies were so biased and unscientific that the medical board revoked his license and he eventually even renounced his own studies as meaningless.

Nice generalizations though.

Er, wait, I better clarify that that’s sarcasm, in case any of you who like to declare judgement over entire groups of people thought I think that’s a good thing.

After using marijuana daily and then quiting a test was done that tested how quickly someone would think by arranging 20 number squares in order.

The first time was after 30 days without smoking marijuana and it was about one minute. It was given again after three more months without marijuana and that time it took less than 30 seconds.

This had been done with many people with close to the same results. So, even though marijuana will not make one stupid it does affect the brain and takes time to restore the brains functions fully after use is stopped.

 

[setter]

Governments that are, um, religious…

Like in Islam and so on.

I’m not talking about America explicitly, although a lot of religious groups have large amounts of political power.

This nation was not even founded on christianity, it was the exact opposite. Most of the founding fathers were deists and many of them like Jefferson wrote various letters in opposition to christianity. I’m not sure why that myth still propagates today.

This country was founded on Judeo-Christian values and world view, explicitly and implicitly. To think or believe otherwise is not accurate and part and parcel of revisionist history to accommodate the current values and world view of politically correct.

 

[setter]

Marijuana does not make you stupid.

Chronic, regular marijuana use marginalizes the user’s potential in subtle and cummulative ways. It does not necessarily make one stupid, but the accrual of the soft handicap often leaves the user unawares and unable to detect the qualitative toll that it is exerting. This is called denial and selective perception, and to the uninterested observer, it does resemble stupidity.

 

[Sixtus]

Someone told me that because marijuana is outlawed therefore alcohol should be outlawed. I don’t think this reasoning makes any sense. What do you think?

Dont make sense to me either, I do think it is too readily available.

As a recovering alcoholic it is very difficult to do weekly shopping and see all that lovely addictive substances for which I have an illness.

 

[Aleii]

Marijuana is ten times as bad for its users as tobacco, lung and heart wise.

Please provide some evidence for this.

 

[fido]

This country was founded on Judeo-Christian values and world view, explicitly and implicitly. To think or believe otherwise is not accurate and part and parcel of revisionist history to accommodate the current values and world view of politically correct.

Not true! The early presidents and patriots were generally Deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal Providence but rejecting the divinity of Jesus and other biblical supernatural claims. That is not to say that they were not influenced to some degree by the ubiquitous and age-old religion. To say they were influenced is one thing. You can never go wrong by saying someone is influenced by Judea-Christian values. It would be hard not to be influenced by something so broadly-based and historically entrenched. But to claim that the country was FOUNDED upon Judeo-Christian values is false.​

Thomas Jefferson said:
“Christianity…(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. …Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus.”

“I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth.”

He said that the bible was a “dunghill”.

John Adams:
“Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and whole carloads of other trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?”

“The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.”

Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli. Article 11 states:
“The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”

What about the primary author of the constitution, James Madison? “Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”

Thomas Paine, : “I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of . . . Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.”

George Washington never called himself a Christian. George even invited a man who denied the existence of hell to become army chaplain. The other chaplains didn’t like that too much.

John Adams again: “As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?”

Thomas Jefferson, third president and author of the Declaration of Independence: “I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die an Unitarian.” He referred to the Revelation of St. John as “the ravings of a maniac”.

Madison again: “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.” “During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”

Ethan Allen: “That Jesus Christ was not God is evident from his own words.” In the same book, Allen noted that he was generally “denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian.” When Allen married Fanny Buchanan, he stopped his own wedding ceremony when the Judge asked him if he promised “to live with Fanny Buchanan agreeable to the laws of God.” Allen refused to answer until the Judge agreed that the God referred to was the God of Nature, and the laws those “written in the great book of Nature.”

Benjamin Franklin: “As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion . . . has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his Divinity…” He died a month later, and historians consider him, like so many great Americans of his time, as a Deist, not a Christian.

 

[mojoe]

And he also used marijuana or he was not the christ. No, I’m serious. One of the oils he was anointed with and stuff had cannabis as an ingredient in the form of hash oil. I can’t be bothered to look it up now though, perhaps someone knows what I’m talking about.

This is a quick answer to, as i am short on time right now. “kaneh bosm” was in the early versions in the bible (aramiac, and hebrew versions) It was discovered by an etymologist to be cannabis, and was recognized by The Hebrew University in Isreal. It was found that Jesus and his deciples used cannabis as anointing oils, an intoxicant, and incense.

 

[booklovinman]

Numerous Priests have told me {in the Confessional} that marijuana smoking is not a Grave Sin. Here in Massachusetts possession of an ounce or less has been decrimalized.

 

[MicahSixEight]

This is something I’ve thought about for a long time. I consider myself a completely orthodox, practicing Catholic: I believe artificial contraception to be gravely sinful, I go to Mass at least a few times a week and I even try to volunteer as a sidewalk counselor at the local abortuary when I can. I don’t mention these qualities to boast of my own holiness (God knows I’ve got a lot to work to work on), but to indicate that I’m not an ‘anything goes’ cafeteria Catholic. That said, I don’t think the use of marijuana is in and of itself sinful. I don’t use Cannabis, because it is illegal in the United States and it is quite clear in the Catechism that the use of illegal drugs is sinful in that it contributes to “clandestine trafficking and production” of said drugs (CCC#2291). The same verse indicates that the use of “drugs” is immoral unless used for purely therapeutic reasons. To believe that the term ‘drugs’ is all-encompassing is dishonest in that it is clear that the use of tobacco, alcohol (even ‘strong drink,’ see Deut. 14:26.) and caffeine are licit (as long as they aren’t abused, of course). Moreover, the recreational (albeit temperate) use of wine (indisputably a ‘drug’) is quite licit: Neh. 8:10 - Nehemiah commands the faithful to drink sweet wine to celebrate the Lord and His holy day; Psalm 104:15 - the Psalmist writes that “wine gladdens the heart of a man.” God gave us the fruit of the vine to enjoy; Ecclesiastes 9:7 - "drink your wine with a merry heart, for God approves what you do; Wisdom 2:7 - “Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes!”; Sir. 31:25-28 - “Wine is like life if drunk in moderation.”; Sir. 40:20 - “Wine gladdens the heart.” (these quotes are from: scripturecatholic.com/drinking.html). I know from experience (before my ‘reversion’) that the moderate use of marijuana is possible and can be used in the same way as an ice cold brew after a long day’s work. I can’t help but come to the conclusion that should marijuana laws change in the United States, the moderate use of it could be morally acceptable.

 

[Thoughtfulone]

Read this

Marijuana smokers get (and die from) lung and respiratory cancers just like tobacco smokers do - in fact moreso. Their risk of heart attack quadruples in the first hour after smoking, so obviously people have died of marijuana-related heart attacks as well.

Want to rethink your statement?

Not if they use a vaporizer to extract the THC or use marijuana in cooking…

 

[Thoughtfulone]

The main reason you can outlaw marijuana but not alcohol is, Marijuana is ten times as bad for its users as tobacco, lung and heart wise.

And it makes you stupid. I knew a lot of stoners in high school–they were chicken-milking stupid.

And nobody in Western civilization has ever made marijuana the cornerstone of their hospitality.

I do think, though, that there should be an exemption for Rastafarians. Sure it’s a weird religion (they think the last king of Ethiopia is God Incarnate, despite him being Ethiopian Orthodox), but it’s really dangerous to go down the road of, “your religion is fake.” And Peyote Way (Native American Church) has an exemption for its hallucinogenic cactus buttons.

Pot doesn’t “make” you stupid. I know many college professors with doctoral degrees whose brilliance is astounding who smoke on a regular basis and have done so for years. Yes, lots of stupid people smoke pot. Yes, in the short term, while under the influence, pot makes one silly or forgetful. In the long term though, in my experience, people who are stupid are stupid and people who are smart are smart. Unless you sit around smoking all day for years and years, you will not be able to kill enough brain cells to put a dent in the average person’s intelligence. Of course, if you are stupid enough to sit around all day for years on end smoking pot, you don’t exactly have that far to go. Everything in moderation.

 

[mojoe]

Here’s to the lung cancer myth arond cannabis, as anecdotal evidedence had told us for years, there is no link to cancer and cannabis. Here is one of many articles about a study done where they were hoping to find that cannabis gave you cancer (not supporters of the drug). They found no link. In fact, they found the opposite effect. sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070417193338.htm