If you want to be educated on why drugs are illegal read this The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law School
There is increasing evidence that marijuana can cause long term damage to young people, namely teens.
There is truth in both sides of the spectrum. There are limited studies done on Schedule I drugs, because of it's listing it is considered to have no medicinal value. To understand why Marijuana was listed as a Schedule I drug you have to look back through history to the early 1900's. The medical problems with marijuana stem from side effects, long term and some that only affect some users and addiction. The societal problems extend far beyond that. It is best to take what information is available, from both sides, and come to conclusions from the facts.
Is a good pro marijuana advocacy groups listing of studies relating to marijuana:
The National Institute of Drug Abuse:
There was a study done on the effects of marijuana use on youth in Canada. They found that smoking marijuana before the brain is fully formed (The medical community agrees that your brain fully forms around the years of 18 to 25) can create long term issues. Here is a quote from the researchers study:
“Teenagers who are exposed to marijuana have decreased serotonin transmission, which leads to mood disorders, as well as increased norepinephrine transmission, which leads to greater long-term susceptibility to stress,” Dr. Gobbi stated.
Interesting the second link from the same doctor and resource states that in another study they found that synthetic THC in low doses was a potent anti-depressant, but that in high doses it reversed itself and can worsen depression and other psychiatric conditions like psychosis.
This recent study from the University of New South Wales finds that
Heavy teenage cannabis use linked with anxiety disorders in late 20s
Here is a CBC Nature of Things documentary that. explores studies on teens who start smoking marijuana before the age of sixteen are four times more likely to become schizophrenic. That's the startling conclusion of some of the world's top schizophrenia experts, whose research is featured in the new documentary The Downside of High
We should legalize it, tax it, and regulate it so teenagers under a certain age aren't legally able to buy it. Drug dealers have no regulated body to manage them, or any formal code of ethics. The major problem, both from the standpoint of marijuana being bad, and it being good, is the absurd declaration of making marijuana a schedule I drug, which means it has no health benefits and thus no studies will be done on it's benefits or dangers. Let us not forget that the marijuana prohibition laws were passed largely due to racism and as a means to keep poor minorities below the white man. This is why there is such a large black and latino population still in jails, many for non violent drug offences.
The drug policy of the United States and the eagerness of it's allies to adopt it's policies has done nothing to prevent the usage of drugs or prevent it being sold. If anything it has criminalized it, glamorized it, made it taboo, and thus there is no education.
The drug policies of the future focus on education, health, and science.Like with Portugals staggering results. The drug policies of today are archaic machinations of a predominately racist white power structure that permeates the United States Government and most western nations.
People who pick a side tend to stick with information that confirms their ideas, instead of reasoning and science. Unbiased facts.
I would also like to state than when quantifying the dangers of a drug you have to look at it from a few different angles, addiction, side effects, long term effects, and how dangerous a lethal dose would be for each drug. Obviously drugs like alcohol, and nicotine via tobacco on an overall scale can cause a lot more damage than marijuana, but marijuana shouldn't be free from the scrutiny of science just because of a previous and currently flawed policy.
This picture displays the Active/Lethal Dose Ration and Dependence potential of Psychoactive Drugs
Members of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, including two invited specialists, met in a 1-day interactive workshop to score 20 drugs on 16 criteria: nine related to the harms that a drug produces in the individual and seven to the harms to others. Drugs were scored out of 100 points, and the criteria were weighted to indicate their relative importance.
A recent study suggests CBD is safe and non toxic and numerous studies on it's effects on cancer
There are instances where psychotropics are used to treat addiction from drugs or alcohol. A doctor in BC Canada was shut down by government officials after treating 150-200 patients using ayahuasca with some success.
And instances like this, where a team of researchers in Norway have analyzed previous research into LSD and have come to the conclusion that a single dose of the drug may work just as well against alcohol addiction as daily doses of medications currently in use today.. There are cases like in this documentary that explores the potential medicinal value of LSD and psilocybin for people suffering from cluster headaches but can't because it's illegal. It is time to give up our idea that legal drugs are ok and illegal ones have no value, because it isn't rooted in science. We must look at the potential of drugs previously found to have no value, because it has the power to change the way we look at addictions and drugs.
Watch this documentary about LSD, Albert Hofmann, and it's use in Canadian Psychiatric Institutions in the 50's and 60's, as well as a brief history on LSD. The Doctors from the institutions treated severe alcoholism with LSD, and found it to work quite well. The patients having a psychedelic experience saw how much they were hurting their family, and the harm they were doing to their lives. The Doctors themselves ingest LSD to see what it might be like for a patient suffering from schizophrenia. It is wild watching these old, scientific men, recount their experience of LSD. A beautiful documentary in a sober or non sober state.
Here is a torrent (TPB).
If you are really interested in the history of drug prohibition in the USA, the issues with the legal system, and want to watch documentaries about these issues, this comment has a long list of them.
I envision marijuana horticulturalists to work closely with scientists and the medical community in the future because they are an untapped resource when it comes to the studies. There is also limited research into CBD and CBC, but studies are slowly being done.
I have a huge problem with both the culture of misinformation and prohibition, as well as the modern drug culture that fosters no respect for drugs.
I disagree with the recreational use without the awareness that it is medicine and that you are self medicating, and from the standpoint of media glorifying it to teens in music, movies the internet, and television, without them having proper understanding of what it does.
I approach drug use from an anthropological standpoint, that human beings have been experimenting for thousands of years with them, and previous to this generation of drug use, drug use in almost all areas of the world was regarded as spiritual, a source of knowledge. People who were witch doctors, or medicine men, had intimate knowledge of powerful plants. This knowledge has come and gone in cycles, wiped out only to resurface.
In closing, we know a little about cannabis, and new studies are done all the time. Imagine though, if we started studying this plant during the spiritual awakening of the 60's. How much more we would know about it, it's effects, and what potential uses it could have as medicine.
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