tbell57

That is your opinion, mine is much different, now what? I'm wrong and your right! Or is there compromise possible?

tbell57

Real classy Rivers, I didn't think you had it in you to openly debate and act civil towards someone with different opinions. Good by and best wishes to you and yours.

Larry the Legend Loc: Not hiding in Milton

The article tries pretty hard to link marijuana to an increased risk of suicide while attempting to keep something of an honest approach to the subject. That's a tough row to hoe. In making his point, the writer was obliged to provide some details that don't quite fit the narrative. For instance:

"Other studies have analyzed marijuana use and increased risk of suicide. Among several that found a connection, 2014 research published in the Lancet Psychiatry journal found that teenagers who smoked marijuana on a daily basis were seven times more likely to commit suicide and were at eight times greater risk of using other illegal drugs in their 20s. The same study found that teens who smoked daily were 60 percent less likely to graduate from high school.

"[T]eenagers who smoked marijuana on a daily basis". Inconvenient references to age and frequency of use. What about adults over, say, 26? No mention. That's deliberate. Adults over the age of 26 are not affected in the same way as children in their teen years. There's a good reason for that. Marijuana is harmful, to those who are not finished physically maturing. It delays, alters, and in some cases completely halts development in the brain. That is a fact that has been proven many times. However, marijuana is not harmful to those who have reached the point of adult physical maturity wherein they are fully developed. For them, party on, bearing in mind that anything taken to excess will have detrimental consequences. Just ask anyone who got drunk and found himself at a tattoo parlor at 2 in the morning, passed out in the chair with his drunk buddies buying the (very embarrassing, and painfully obvious) tattoo. Some kid who gets him - or her- self stoned on the way to school every day is not going to be learning anything because pot has a way of blocking short-term memory functions. In essence, they are making themselves incapable of learning in any meaningful sense. Can't learn, can't graduate. That's how that works.

Here's the 'gateway' argument in a nutshell:

"Aubree Adams of Pueblo, Colo., said her son began using marijuana at 14 before he became addicted and moved on to harder drugs, including meth and ultimately heroin, by the time he was 15".

Addicted, to marijuana, at the age of 15. Because his brain is still in the development stages and he introduced a substance that has a direct effect on the brain so the brain develops with this substance as a regular component in the brain, leading to developmental dependency. The brain has grown to function in the presence of THC and does not function as efficiently without it. In essence, the addict 'needs' the drug because he has developed his brain to function in the presence of the drug over an extended period of time. He got into meth and heroin because they were offered, not because he was addicted to THC and felt the need to augment this addiction by actively going out and looking for more drugs to get addicted to. He is more a victim of his surroundings, having easy access to substances he had no idea were as dangerous and life-altering as they clearly are for a youngster in his teen years.

Seems to me she was living in the wrong neighborhood, and giving her kid way too much spending money. If she had such a problem with her 14 year old son abusing drugs, why did she allow it to continue? Where was this kid getting these drugs in the first place? As always with stories and anecdotes that act as dire warnings, there's more to this than meets the eye, but we're only getting the parts of the narrative that support the agenda. Here's the agenda:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/

Seems even a man of education and integrity can be misled...

Rivers

Classy? Uncivil? So, describing my experience in watching first hand two cousins and a brother-in-law destroy their lives using marijuana is classy and uncivil? And, my wife has two cousins on her side, and an Aunt who are also on the brink of destroying their lives on the stuff, maybe not the Aunt, but her two cousins certainly are. I have plenty of first-hand examples, so I don't need to debate theories. Don't believe me, talk to any doctor. Or watch several of the news stories coming out about the opiate and heron use epidemic nation wide, and how many of them started on weed. Classy and uncivil? Yea, right.

tbell57

Very well put Larry - Thanks!

buffalo Loc: Texas

Then by your reasoning, your kinfolk should have been put in prison? Would that have prevented them from ruining their lives? Should housewives that are addicted to prescription drugs, like hydrocodone or oxycontin, be locked up to prevent them from ruining their and others lives? Lock em up! That will straighten em out!

Rivers

Have another bowl of stupid.

Larry the Legend Loc: Not hiding in Milton

It just bothers me that this whole 'war on drugs' is such a canard. Nixon was a crook, and not just because of Watergate. Now, Reagan had his hands full with the so-called 'crack epidemic'. That truly was nasty. So much so that it almost brought the City of Miami to its knees. Never before had a drug been in circulation that could literally hook a user on the first hit. This one did. 1980's Miami was a dangerous place to be a drug pusher, for sure.

saltwind 78 Loc: Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

Ve'hoe, Just to remind you that there has never been a death due to overdosing on pot. I enjoy some weed now and then. So what? Aside from causing a person to overeat, it is harmless. How many Americans die from tobacco and alcohol every year? I don't know, but it is a hell of a lot more than from pot which is zero. If a person is going to use a substance to release stress, pot is an answer. Of course Rush used oxy which is far, far worse. Pot isn't physically addicting. It isn't dangerous. I wouldn't recommend it for your people under twenty one, because there is some evidence that it retards emotional growth at that age.

buffalo Loc: Texas

Wow! What a convincing argument, NOT! Answer the goddamn questions... Would locking your kinfolk up have prevented them from ruining their lives or finished ruining their lives? Would putting housewives addicted to prescription drugs in prison be the answer? How about kids that raid mom and dad's medicine cabinet? The brain cannot distinguish synthetic heroin (methadone, oxycodone, precocet, or any other opiate) from the real stuff. So, why is heroin illegal and yet big pharma allowed to profit billions from making the more powerful synthetic heroin? How about alcoholics? Or cigarette smokers, especially yougsters? It is a proven fact that nicotine (responsible for 500,000 deaths a year) is THE most addictive substance on earth. In its pure form, 0.5mg of nicotine on the tongue would kill a person. Yet tobacco products are legal. Not one death from pot overdose has ever happened.

Is it the illegality of the drugs that make them addictive? I think not.

tbell57

Look Rivers if you cannot be constructive in your responses please don't bother, personal attacks do not help anyone, no - not even you!

Rivers

And, you're constructive with your ignorant comments???? FU!

Rivers

Have another bowl of stupid.

Rivers

Your use of weed definitely explains your juvenile and inane posts.

Worried for our children Loc: Massachusetts

Riv, just curious, is weed the only drug those family members use?